Things You'll Need:
- Bible, Bible Concordance, Bible Dictionary and/or Commentary, either in print or online.
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Step 1
1. Use a Bible Concordance to find and read biblical passages dealing with the moral issue in question.
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Step 2
2. Use a Bible Dictionary and/or Commentary to ascertain the meaning of the passages and what they command.
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Step 3
3. Determine whether what the passages command conforms to the Law of Love, (namely, to “love the Lord your God” and to “love your neighbor as yourself”) because “all the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:37-40). In other words, to qualify as the will of the biblical God, biblical commands must “hang” on (conform to) the Law of Love.
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Step 4
4. Decide what is most loving by assessing the factual results of obeying or disobeying the commandment. The biblical way to “understand what the will of the Lord is” entails perceiving and evaluating facts and bringing the facts together into coherent positions that “hang” on the commandments to love our God and our neighbor. “Understand [suniēmi]” can be paraphrased, “bring your perceptions into correspondence with facts and then bring various facts together in your mind.” (Ephesians 5:17)
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Step 5
5. Based on your assessment of what is most loving, you can decide whether it is the will of the biblical God to obey a particular command in the Bible.
