How to Study the Bible: Types, Shadows & Tools

Most Christians read the New Testament like it was written in a vacuum. They see Paul's letters, the Gospels, the book of Revelation — and they treat each verse as a self-contained unit of thought. But the New Testament wasn't written that way. It was written by men steeped in the Hebrew scriptures, men who expected their readers to catch echoes, allusions, and shadows from Genesis to Malachi. The New Testament contains hundreds of direct Old Testament references. But it also contains thousands of indirect allusions — subtle echoes that the Holy Spirit wove into the text, expecting you to recognize them. If you don't, you're reading the surface and missing the ocean beneath it.

This is the core challenge Pastor Daniel Batarseh addressed in the second session of the Rooted Conference at Maranatha Bible Church — and the tools he offered aren't academic theory. They're the same tools he uses every week to prepare what his congregation hears on Fridays and Sundays. As he put it plainly: "Everything that you have heard thus far and everything that you will hear in this last hour are tools that I personally implement on a regular basis. I could have easily just grabbed a famous, well-known book or a seminary kind of hermeneutic... But my conviction was I don't wanna go beyond anything that I do" (watch at 2:05).

What follows are the tools that turn Bible reading from a daily obligation into an encounter with the living God.

The Old Testament Is a Portrait Gallery of Christ

Types and shadows is one of those phrases Christians hear and nod along to without fully understanding. Here's what it means: Old Testament persons, objects, events, ceremonies, and even places prophetically foreshadow New Testament realities — primarily the person and work of Jesus Christ.

This isn't a technique invented by creative preachers. It's embedded in the New Testament itself. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 10:11 that the things which happened to Israel in the wilderness "happened to them as an example" — and the Greek word translated "example" is tupos, the word from which we get "type." It means a model, a pattern, a prophetic picture. In Colossians 2:16-17, Paul calls the Old Testament feasts, Sabbaths, and dietary laws "a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ" (watch at 6:21).

Think about what a shadow does. Depending on where you're standing, a shadow announces the arrival of someone before you see them. That's what the entire Old Testament is doing — announcing the arrival of Christ before he appears.

The practical questions to ask when reading any Old Testament passage are straightforward: Is there any part of this character's story that illustrates a New Testament truth about Christ? Is there any ceremony, feast, or symbol that points to a new covenant principle? Is there any object or event that foreshadows a gospel reality?

Consider Joseph. The congregation rattled off connections faster than they could be written on the board: Joseph was rejected by his brothers — so was Jesus. Joseph was betrayed — so was Jesus. Joseph was unjustly accused. Joseph forgave those who rejected him. Joseph married a Gentile bride — and the church is Christ's bride drawn from the nations. Joseph sat at the right hand of power. No sin is recorded of Joseph. Joseph's rejection led to the salvation of the world.

But here's the one that made the room go quiet. In Genesis 45:1, when Joseph finally reveals himself to his brothers, the text says he "could not control himself" and cried out for everyone else to leave the room. His brothers — his own flesh and blood — had not recognized him all along. And there is a day coming when Jesus will reveal himself to his Jewish brothers, and as Zechariah prophesied, they will mourn for him whom they have pierced, and they will recognize that he was their savior and their ruler all along. That rings true. You feel it in your bones.

When Two Sticks Don't Mean Two Books: The Danger of Forcing Types

But here's the essential guardrail: if a proposed type doesn't fit a strong and clear New Testament paradigm, don't force it.

To illustrate the danger, there was a story about a park, two young Mormon missionaries on bicycles, and Ezekiel 37. These young men — eighteen, nineteen years old, having given up two years of their lives for their mission — claimed that Ezekiel's vision of two sticks prophesied the Book of Mormon. The stick for Judah represented the Bible, the stick for Joseph represented the Book of Mormon, and God wanted to combine them into one.

The problem? They stopped reading at verse 15. The prophecy is about the reunification of the divided kingdom of Israel — the Northern and Southern Kingdoms becoming one nation again. It has nothing to do with books. "Where did you get books from?" The young man's response: "Well, that's the literal meaning, but there's a spiritual meaning." That's what happens when you impose meaning on the text rather than drawing meaning from it (watch at 13:52).

The same principle applies to less extreme examples. Is there more evidence in the New Testament that Jesus is the ark of the covenant, or that Mary is? John 1:14 says the Word became flesh and "dwelt" among us — and the Greek word for "dwelt" is tabernacled. The entire book of Hebrews maps the tabernacle's features onto the ministry of Christ. The New Testament itself tells you where the weight falls. Let it be your guide.

The Thousands of Echoes You're Missing

Types and shadows move from the New Testament backward into the Old. But allusions work the other direction — the New Testament authors weave Old Testament language into their writing and expect you to hear the echo.

Here's where it gets breathtaking. Consider Mark 1:13: "And he was in the wilderness forty days being tempted by Satan, and he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him." Most readers see "forty days" and think of Israel's forty years in the wilderness. That's valid. But why does Mark mention wild animals? That detail seems throwaway. It's not.

Temptation. Satan. Animals. Where else do you find all three ingredients together? The Garden of Eden. But notice the differences. Eden was paradise; Jesus was in a desert. The animals in Eden were tame; these are wild. Adam had every advantage and fell. Jesus had every disadvantage and triumphed.

The lesson cuts deep: the conditions of Jesus' test were far less favorable than Adam's, yet he still overcame. And there's a future dimension too — Christ is beginning to reverse the curse. The fall didn't just corrupt humanity; it turned gardens into wastelands and peaceful creatures into wild beasts. Christ's obedience is the beginning of a restoration that will culminate in Isaiah's vision where the wolf lies down with the lamb. Mark gives you all of this in one verse — if you have ears to hear.

Or consider Philippians 2:10-11: "At the name of Jesus every knee should bow... and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord." Beautiful verse. But Paul didn't invent that language. He borrowed it directly from Isaiah 45:23, where Yahweh says of himself: "To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear allegiance." In the Septuagint — the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures that the apostles used — it reads "every tongue shall confess." Paul takes a declaration that belongs exclusively to God and applies it to Jesus. The implication is staggering: Jesus is Yahweh (watch at 25:27).

Paul doesn't footnote this. He doesn't say "according to the prophet Isaiah." He expects you to know it. And this is precisely why reading through the entire Bible — Old and New — is not optional for serious students of Scripture. The New Testament doesn't spoon-feed you. It rewards those who have soaked in the Hebrew scriptures.

The Emergency Tool That Has Never Failed

The session covered practical resources — commentaries like StudyLight.org, David Guzik, and Matthew Henry; concordances like Blue Letter Bible; quality books, especially the Puritans — and the irreplaceable value of Christian community in shaping how you read Scripture. But the most unexpected moment came near the end, when the conversation turned to what to do when you have zero motivation to open your Bible.

The advice was counterintuitive: "If you ever lack motivation to read for long periods of time... if you wanna read again, don't read. Memorize" (watch at 52:29).

Stop your reading plan. Find a psalm — Psalm 1, Psalm 23, whatever is short enough to commit to memory. Write it on paper. Put it on a whiteboard. Say it out loud. Repeat it for days. Something happens when you compound the word in your heart using all your faculties — speaking, writing, repeating. It revives something. It unclogs wells that had been stopped up. As Pastor Daniel Batarseh testified: "I can't think, apart from prayer, of something as energizing to my walk with Christ than memorizing scripture." The claim was bold — a perfect track record, never once failing to reignite the desire to read. Psalm 119:11 says it plainly: "I have hidden thy word in my heart that I may not sin against thee." There is a difference between having a book in front of you and carrying it in your chest.

And the Puritans — those persecuted pastors from the 1500s and 1600s — were held up as the finest example of writers who make you excited to read the Bible. Consider Thomas Brooks on death: "A Christian knows that death shall be the funeral of all his sins, his sorrows, his afflictions, his temptations... He knows that death shall be the resurrection of all his hopes, his joys, his delights, his comforts." If death terrifies you, the Puritans talk about it like a homecoming. They mine obscure corners of Scripture — Obadiah, Amos, Hosea — and make you wonder how you ever thought those books were expendable.

One final warning closed the session: be careful with AI. ChatGPT is not the Holy Spirit. It gets references wrong, draws incorrect conclusions, and if you're leading a Bible study or youth group with unchecked AI-generated content, you will be held responsible for what it gets wrong. The tools that matter most are the ancient ones — prayer, patience, the text itself, and the community of believers who love it with you.

What to Remember

• The New Testament contains thousands of Old Testament allusions beyond the obvious quotations — and the Holy Spirit expects you to catch them. Reading the whole Bible is not optional for understanding any part of it.

• Types and shadows are not creative interpretive games. They are a hermeneutical method modeled by the apostles themselves, rooted in the Greek word tupos that Paul uses in 1 Corinthians 10:11.

• If a proposed type doesn't fit a strong and clear New Testament paradigm, don't force it. Entire cults have been built on forced typology. Let the New Testament be your guide.

• When your Bible is collecting dust and motivation is gone, stop reading and start memorizing. Write a psalm on paper, say it aloud for a week, and watch what happens to your hunger for Scripture.

• The people you sit under and the friends you keep will shape how you read the Bible whether you realize it or not. Choose deliberately.

• Commentaries are consultants, not substitutes. Do the heavy lifting yourself first — then check your work against faithful teachers like Matthew Henry, David Guzik, and Warren Wiersbe.

Questions to Sit With

1. If you read Philippians 2:10-11 a hundred times without knowing Isaiah 45:23, what massive truth about Jesus would you have missed? What else are you missing because you don't know the Old Testament well enough?

1. Who is shaping the way you read the Bible? If you traced your interpretive habits back to their source — your pastor, a podcast, a social media account — would you be satisfied with what you found?

1. When was the last time you brought up Scripture in a conversation with a friend — not as a sermon, but as something that genuinely moved you that morning? If it's been a while, what does that reveal?

1. If you had to prove that Jesus is the Messiah using only the Old Testament — no Matthew, no Romans, no Hebrews — could you do it? The first-century apostles could. What would it take for you to be able to?

1. What would change in your daily life if you memorized one psalm this month — not skimmed it, not read it, but carried it in your chest?

Scripture Referenced

• 1 Corinthians 10:11
• Colossians 2:16-17
• Romans 5:14
• Hebrews 13:10
• John 3:14
• John 1:14
• Ezekiel 37:15-16
• Genesis 45:1
• Mark 1:13
• Philippians 2:10-11
• Isaiah 45:23
• 2 Thessalonians 2:8
• Isaiah 11:4
• Isaiah 53
• 2 Timothy 2:7
• 1 Corinthians 15
• Psalm 119:11
• Psalm 1

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This summary was generated by AI from the sermon "How to Study the Bible | Session 2 | Rooted Conference | Pastor Daniel Batarseh" preached by Pastor Daniel Batarseh at Maranatha Bible Church Chicago. Watch the full sermon →