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One of the most helpful things I’ve learned from the Simeon Trust workshops is how to find the melodic line in a book of the Bible. As a Bible nerd, I love digging into the details of a passage, pursuing cross references and doing word studies, but hadn’t considered the value of looking at a book as a whole unit. What is the main theme of a book? How does that guide us as we dig deeper?

As a musician, this concept also appealed to me because it was taught using the illustration of a music staff, like this:

If you don’t read music, most of these notes are a different pitch and different lengths. Each music note is supposed to represent a key component of the book of the Bible. It could be a repeated word or phrase. It could be the way the book is structured. Your job is to find these notes and examine how they relate to one another. Which ones are more important? Which ones are instrumental (pardon the pun) in developing the theme? But how do you do this? Here are some strategies that I have used in studying Revelation.

Read and Reread

Repetitive reading is a highly underused Bible study skill. One of the reasons for this is because we have all been conditioned by our culture and technology to read in a way that is fast and reductive. We want to get to the point and right now! This creates readers who skim on top of the surface of the text instead of deep divers who go below to explore the depths. Slowing down and taking the time to read a passage over and over again helps you notice things.

Listen

I used to think that listening to a book didn’t count. I still prefer reading silently over listening to someone read aloud, if only to be able to control my pace, but listening is how most Christians took in the book of Revelation until only a few hundred years ago. People just didn’t have access or were not literate. How blessed are we to have so many options! Let’s take advantage of them. One of the main benefits I have found in listening to Revelation is catching the tone of the book. Every book has a certain tone, mood, or if we’re talking music, a key signature. The book may start in a minor key (sad, dark, or ominous) but then modulate to major (happy and peaceful resolution). Lament psalms often do this. In my many trips over to South Carolina to help my parents, I have taken advantage of that 3-4 hour drive (depending on Atlanta traffic!) to listen to Revelation straight through multiple times.

Epic.

That is the first word that came to mind when I thought about the tone of this book. It is a grand and monumental story that sweeps the reader up into visions of worship and judgment, an enemy dragon and a redeeming Lamb that was slain but is standing! There are dire warnings but also wonderful assurances of reward for those who conquer. If I had to choose a composer to write the soundtrack of Revelation it wouldn’t be Mozart. It would be Mahler. This book is meant to move us.

Repeated Words

As I read through the book I began noticing all the repeated words and phrases. This is a prophetic vision given to John so the words saw, looked, heard, and show are repeated over and over, more than 70 times! This helps us understand the kind of book this is. It is not a historical narrative that John retells in chronological order. He is showing us in highly symbolic language different pictures of the same period of time between Christ’s first and second comings. And what image is at the controlling center? This gets to another repeated word – throne. This word is repeated over 40 times in the book, especially in chapters 4 and 5. After the letters to the seven churches and before the cycles of judgment begin with the opening of the seven seals, John is whisked up into the heavenly throne room of God. Why? God wants him to know and his readers to know that whatever happens in this book, the Lord is in control. He is worthy and he reigns over it all.

Speaking of sevens, that word occurs over 50 times in the book. Numbers play a big role in Revelation and none more importantly than the number seven. Seven is the number of wholeness and completion. It is fitting that the book that brings every theme and every promise of the story of Scripture to fulfillment contains so many sevens. This is a book about ultimate consummation.

Top and Tail

Top and tail is a strategy that looks at the beginning and end of a book to see any parallelisms. If an author begins and ends by repeating similar words or phrases or repeating a purpose statement, that gives us a clue as to what the author is wanting his reader to focus on.

If we compare the beginning and end of Revelation we see a few things highlighted:

• Christ is the central focus as the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.
• The message is given to show what must soon take place – Jesus is coming!
• There is a blessing for those who keep the message of this book.

The purpose statement of the book is also repeated at the beginning and end. In Revelation 1:1-3 and 22:6 we read that the Lord has sent his angel to make known to his servants what must soon take place. This book is an unveiling, a revealing, not a puzzle to unlock with a secret decoder ring.

What then?

There are several other strategies I used to help find the melodic line, but for now let’s take what I’ve mentioned above and try to put it together. One thing to remember is that this melodic line is tentative and open to refinement. As you go along in deeper study, you will see things that you’ve missed and you’ll want to adjust your melodic line. But doing this before getting into that deeper study, will give you a strong sense of what the author is trying to communicate. It will also keep you on track. If you come up with an interpretation that clashes with the main purpose of the book, you may want to rethink that interpretation.

If you explore the Simeon Trust website you’ll find a wealth of resources there including audio recordings of past workshops. I pulled one up on Revelation and heard the speaker guide some pastors in coming up with a tentative melodic line. Here are two ideas they came up with:

• “Blessed is the one who keeps his words for Jesus is coming soon.”
• “Jesus is coming soon and will reward those who endure.”

Notice how they both include the main event the book is pointing toward – Jesus’ second coming. They also include the ideas of blessing and endurance. What’s important is that you include words from the text in your melodic line so that it carries the identity of the book. If you make your melodic line too general it could apply to several different books. Your melodic line for Revelation should carry with it the distinct flavor of this book.

What did I come up with? It’s still tentative and probably needs to be edited, but my first stab at a melodic line for Revelation is this:

Blessed are those who patiently endure in the testimony of Jesus, for the Lamb has conquered and is coming soon to judge his enemies and usher his bride into the New Jerusalem.

In doing this exercise, I am a lot less confused about how to approach this book. I am able to see the overarching purpose and themes that God wants his people to see. And that fills me with excitement as I get into deeper study.

Has this helped you understand Revelation better? How can you use this concept of a melodic line in your own Bible study?

The past two months have been very stressful for my family. The details are not important to this post, but because of these events I have found myself attending my parents’ church more often. It is a small Anglican Catholic church made of stone and the inside is filled with beautiful dark wood and floors that creak. Here is a picture of what it looked like over the Christmas holidays.

I grew up in the Episcopal church but didn’t come to faith in Christ until I was in college. After college I moved to Atlanta and since then I have been a member of two very large Southern Baptist churches. I met and married my husband at the first and then we raised our family at the second where we’ve been members for the past 28 years. One thing we love is being involved in the music ministry, he in the choir and me in the orchestra. Over the years the style of worship has changed and evolved resulting in a more traditional service in the sanctuary with pews and hymn books and a more modern service that takes place in the activity center. That venue has become the most popular over the last five years. There’s a band and lights and all the things that are common in American evangelical megachurches right now.

The small Anglican church has two services on Sunday. The early service is called a prayer service and there is no singing and no sermon. This is the only service my parents attend. The priest leads us through a liturgy that includes the corporate recitation of prayers, creeds and Scripture and culminates in coming to the altar, kneeling, and receive communion. The readings of Scripture change each week but it is generally the same each and every Sunday.

When I first started going I had mixed feelings about it. I love to sing. No wait, I need to sing! It is spiritual food for my soul. Not singing in church feels wrong. I’m also a Bible nerd and love good preaching. So each time I would go to this prayer service in the small Anglican church I would always leave feeling like I was missing something. I also wasn’t sure how I felt about all the sameness, the rote nature of it every week. It struck me as cold and insincere. But I also could appreciate it in a way that I never could when I was a child and an unbeliever. Now I understood everything I was saying and realized how much Scripture was packed into the liturgy! We were reciting psalms and creeds and prayers that were chock full of wonderful truth. In 28 years at my large SBC church I can only remember reciting a creed in the worship service one or two times.

But if I’m being honest, I still looked down on it. My church was better. My way of doing church was superior. There was more life, more warmth, more sincerity.

Over the past two months I have started to change my mind a little bit. Some of that has to do with a new priest at the church who I’ve gotten to know. He is young and vibrant and just as much a Bible nerd as I am. I’ve noticed that he is very intentional about how he recites the liturgy. When he quotes the words of Christ to the disciples at the Last Supper, he slows way down.

This………….is…………my………….body.

And likewise,

This………….is………….my………….blood.

I haven’t asked him why he does this yet, but it’s spurred me to ask this question: Have I ever meditated deeply on these words? His intentionality is encouraging me to do so. Speaking of communion, the small Anglican church offers it every Sunday. Can this encourage someone to take it for granted? Yes, if you’re not careful. But what about the large SBC church? There’s a danger there in celebrating the Lord’s Supper too infrequently. Someday I’ll finish my draft of a post about the formative value of the sacraments, but for right now, I am appreciating the thoughtful intention of this new priest who has encouraged me to slow down and contemplate more deeply.

But what about the sameness of the liturgy? I have a vague memory as a child being involved in our Episcopal church as a kind of junior acolyte. Every Sunday it was the same recitations, the same prayers. I almost had it memorized. But I didn’t understand it! As I’ve been attending the small Anglican church more often, I’ve started thinking about the significance of the sameness. This world is full of change which only seems to be getting faster and crazier. What if the sameness of this liturgy is a kind of polemic in our cultural chaos, calmy and consistently preaching the faithfulness of God and his word? One of the ministry philosophies at our church is an unchanging message but ever changing methodologies. I can see the wisdom of that, up to a point. At its best you make sure to be creative in how you reach people. But I can see how this philosophy can easily become unbalanced where the church ends up sticking its finger in the wind to see what will appeal best to a consumeristic community.

Not many people attend this early prayer service at the small Anglican church. And following the liturgy is not always easy. Some don’t know when to stand or what to recite. I’m still getting lost trying to figure out what page we’re on in the prayer book and when we’re supposed to stand and sit. But despite the awkwardness and imperfection, despite the seemingly timid and lackluster voices around me, there’s a simple yet powerful beauty to the corporate experience of reciting the ancient creeds and standing silently as the deacon comes to put out the candles at the end of the service. There may be something missing in this service that’s present in my Southern Baptist megachurch, but my church isn’t filled with as much soberness and dignity. It has been calming to me to enter into this small space and enjoy the silence of just being in God’s presence.

One of those Sundays when all was seemingly unpredictable and crazy in our family, my dad and I drove back to the house after the prayer service. I told him that his church may not be the same as mine, but I was beginning to appreciate many things about the liturgy that I hadn’t understood before. The sameness that seemed boring and lifeless to me now stood as a comforting reminder that some things remain the same: God, his Word, and the free invitation to partake of the sacrament of communion. The predictability of the liturgy was serving as an anchor during the storm we were experiencing.

“Exactly,” my dad responded.

I’ve read the book of Revelation many times as part of a Bible reading plan, but apart from trying to memorize parts of chapter 4 and 5, I couldn’t say that I’d spent more time in it than that. Like many believers, I have found the books of Ephesians and Psalms to be more beneficial for my walk with the Lord. Revelation has always felt like a big puzzle that could never be solved. I certainly never contemplated teaching it until recently.

I attended a Simeon Trust workshop last year and we learned about teaching apocalyptic literature by working through various passages in Revelation. I didn’t know what would come of this workshop. In the past I’ve used one of their workshops as a jump start in teaching specific books of the Bible. Did I think I would teach Revelation? Not at all. There were many reasons in my mind for why I wasn’t ready to teach this book: it’s too big, I haven’t studied Greek yet, there are too many differing interpretations.

But a curious thing happened that weekend as I listened to others teach from the book and learned more about it. The themes in it struck me as vitally important. I realized there was a significant hole in my understanding of who Jesus is, of what he is doing right now, and of the identity and mission of his church. Think of it this way – if the Bible is one story of God creating a people for himself and then working to redeem them in order to bring them back to himself in a restored and renewed creation, why would we ignore the end of that story? What if we’ve asked the wrong questions about this book and spent too much time being fearful and confused instead of using the book’s message of hope to fuel our endurance right now? After attending the workshop I knew I needed to teach this book. But where to even start? As I prayed and thought about it, I knew I needed a good chunk of time to prepare and some other people to come alongside and help.

Since last summer I have been reading and rereading the book, listening to podcasts and lectures, checking out commentaries, and talking with friends who are also curious to understand this book and teach it to others. It seems the book is getting more attention these days and people are eager to learn. (See Nancy Guthrie’s book and Jen Wilkin’s bible study.) This is exciting but also daunting. The daunting part has to do with the baggage that we all bring to the book. Many come to it with preconceived ideas, charts and diagrams, and already formed interpretations. Many are intimidated and fearful and throw up their hands at the prospect of ever understanding this book. My friends and I are thoroughly humbled by the task in front of us but also look forward to the opportunity. We are not Nancy Guthrie or Jen Wilkin but we know our women personally and love them. Our goal is to help our women learn how to read this book for all its worth and without fear. We long for Jesus to be revealed to them as the hero of the whole story. We pray that they would understand who they are as the beloved, blood bought people of God, a kingdom of priests who are called to endure patiently until Christ’s return.

As I continue to study and prepare to teach this book later in 2025, I hope to share my thoughts about what I’m learning, the questions I have, and the way I am going about structuring and writing this study.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths.”

Proverbs 3:5-6

I tease my husband quite a bit about his favorite Bible verses. It seems he’s always referencing them no matter what the issue is. I used to get annoyed by it, but lately I’ve been seeing the wisdom of it. Especially with the above verse, Proverbs 3:5-6.

I have a problem, a hang up. I call it overthinking. It happens quite often. I question myself, my motives, my plans. I worry about what people think and what will happen. I sometimes even script out future conversations so I’ll be prepared. I constantly question myself as to what is the best way to do things. It could be as simple as my daily to-do’s or I’ll reach back into the past and question how I’ve parented my children. In our 21st century world, we have a glut of resources at our fingertips that promise to optimize our lives and make them more efficient, more comfortable and just plain better. Who wouldn’t want that? But at the end of the day, all those choices leave my head spinning and my heart sliding into anxiety.

Overthinking, at its root, is about wrong belief. I was going to say unbelief, but we all believe in something, or someone. Notice the contrast in Proverbs 3:5 – trusting in the Lord is set against leaning on our own understanding. When I lean on my own understanding, trying to account for every possibility, anxious to make sure I’m prepared for any eventuality, I’m really trusting in myself. I’m believing that my knowledge of every situation is complete and without error. But our understanding is finite and flawed. And Proverbs tells us straight out to not depend on it. What does it say instead? Trust in the Lord. So the opposite of overthinking, of leaning on your own understanding is trusting in the Lord. It’s leaning on him, it’s acknowledging the vast, multidimensional, infinite difference between my understanding of what is going on in my life and in the world, and God’s.

The creation contains lessons about these differences. An ant may be one of the most diligent of God’s creatures but it will never ascend to the heights where eagles fly. The eagle may soar to great heights but it has no idea of the depths of the oceans where the whale swims. But God is the one who created all these things and more out of his infinitely glorious mind. Things seen and unseen. Wonders known and not yet discovered.

So when you are tempted to lean on your own understanding, look up to the sky and remind yourself of the God who holds everything together and gives to us our next breath. He is worthy of all our trust.

At the end of 2022, while I was contemplating some big changes in my life, a dear friend of mine encouraged me with these words,

“Expect God’s kindness.”

In my contemplation of these changes I had become filled with worry that I wasn’t on the right path, fearful of making a mistake. Being a perfectionist and an overthinker doesn’t help me when it comes to seeking God’s guidance. I tend to see the ideal path as a road that’s hidden in the fog. Am I on it? Am I going the right way? Is God with me in this? But my friend’s words acted as a gentle yet firm corrective for me. If I am sincerely seeking the Lord’s guidance, I should expect his kindness. I should expect him to lead me like the good Shepherd that he is. The counsel of my friend makes me wonder what I have been expecting from God and if that lines up with his character.

“If I am sincerely seeking the Lord’s guidance, I should expect his kindness.”

Many times in prayer, I’ve noticed that I expect a negative answer, or that his answers will always be long in coming. I come to his throne almost as if I’m hoping to twist his arm, instead of falling into his gracious lap. Sometimes I even falsely suspect that God works according to Murphy’s Law – if it can go wrong, it will go wrong. I assume that God will always choose the hardest path for me. That he will always wait decades to save lost loved ones. I pray for the miraculous healing, but do I really expect it to happen?

My expectations reveal who I really believe God to be. If I expect the negative answer or the hard answer, then I really believe that God is stingy and severe. That he is not the good and gracious God that is revealed in Scripture. Now, a good God does say no to our requests, just as a good parent, but what I’m getting at here is the hidden expectations I have concerning God’s disposition toward me. Is it kindness or severity? Indifference or steadfast love?

If we truly know God as our Father, our expectations should align with his character and the gracious salvation he’s given us through Jesus. Because of our adoption into God’s family, as fellow sons and heirs, we have every right to expect what is good from our God. Our dear brother and Savior, Jesus Christ, has earned for us an infinite treasury of merit and untold spiritual blessings! So why is there this inclination to fear and doubt, to assume the worst? I think it comes down to this – my knowledge of God is deficient. I’ve allowed earthly experiences to override what is true. And I’ve succumbed again to the original lie, “God isn’t good.” My mind is in need of a deeper renewal.

For sure, we must not be too hard on ourselves. We are, after all, just dust. And praise God that he knows that and responds in compassion. (See Psalm 103:13-14) He is good and full of goodness toward us. He is not the forever-frowning taskmaster, eyes full of disappointment.

Let us build ourselves up with the truth of who our God is. Let us scour the pages of Scripture and absorb into our souls the picture of our gracious Father, our glorious King, and our unconquerable Savior. How might things change, our prayers change, our affections change, if the spiritual inclination of our hearts was to believe and to expect good in accordance with the goodness of our God? For the eyes of faith look down at our feet where we see the solid Rock. They look up and see the great cloud of witnesses cheering us on. And sometimes, like Stephen, these eyes of faith can also see our glorious elder brother, the Lord Jesus Christ at the right hand of the Father, interceding on our behalf.

Lord, let this vision change our hearts and our expectations.

“Your faith has made you well.”

Jesus

Is faith a force? Is it a power that we can wield to get what we want? It may seem that way from Jesus’ words above. But digging a little deeper into the context yields a different and rather surprising answer. On four separate occasions, Jesus speaks these words to people who had nothing and were, in the world’s estimation, less than nothing.

In Mark 5, Jesus is on his way to heal the daughter of one of the rulers of the synagogue. A great crowd is following Jesus, pressing in on him from all sides when suddenly, there was a woman. Whose daughter is she? We don’t know who she is or where she’s from. All we know is that she’s been bleeding constantly for twelve years. Go read the account in Luke 8. The doctor himself says in Luke 8:43 that this woman had spent all her money on physicians and no one could heal her. According to the law of Moses, her condition would have left her perpetually unclean and isolated from the worshiping community. Twelve years. No help. But she risked everything to get to Jesus because she knew he could help.

In Mark 10 we read of blind Bartimaeus. He was amongst a crowd of people in Jericho when Jesus passes by. Mark says he’s blind but also a beggar. He lost his sight and now was reduced to begging from people he couldn’t see. But he could hear. And when he heard that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by he begins to make a scene. He calls out loudly, begging the Son of David for mercy. The embarrassed crowd tells him to quiet down. But he won’t relent. He has nothing so when Jesus passes by he has nothing to lose.

In Luke 7 Jesus enters the house of a Pharisee who desires to share a meal with him. They sit down and begin eating but suddenly another person arrives, a notorious woman of the city, who proceeds to attend Jesus with much weeping, kissing of feet, and anointing with oil. The Pharisee sees her, but does he really? He’s busy making judgments in his heart toward her. He’s missing something and Jesus proceeds to explain by comparing their behavior towards him. He trusted in his own superiority and that led him to look down on the woman and not honor Jesus, recognizing him for who he was. The prostitute had nothing but recognized Jesus as the one who was worthy of honor and had the power of forgiveness.

In the fourth scene, ten lepers come out to meet Jesus at a distance in Luke 17. They know who he is and even call him ‘Master’. They ask for mercy and Jesus instructs them to go and show themselves to the priest. A priest was the one who would declare them clean or unclean. As they went, they were cleansed but only one of them, a Samaritan, returned to Jesus to give him praise and thanks. Jesus is astonished and tells the man that his faith has made him well. This Samaritan, a foreigner, who because of his leprosy and his ethnicity, is doubly cut off and without hope, is made well.

Two women – one isolated because of an incurable disease while the other was alienated because of her sin.

Two men – one blind and a beggar, shushed and ignored by the crowd while the other had no hope as a foreigner, his body wasting away from leprosy.

All four were destitute in their own way, either from disease or sin. All four were isolated from the community and could find no relief. Their faith was not a force. It wasn’t a kind of magical spiritual conjuring. No. Their faith had a real living object, the Lord of life, the Lord who offered forgiveness and healing. Faith has no intrinsic power apart from its object. But if our faith rests squarely on the one who spoke all things into existence, we can be confident that he hears and will answer according to his will.

Do we feel our bankruptcy and isolation? Our nothing-ness? These four people may have had nothing in the world’s estimation but they had access to the one who had everything. In a world where many of us have every comfort and convenience and can at once reach for all kinds of medicine and help and resources, has that weakened our faith? Do we understand who Jesus is and what he can do? I want to be like blind Bartimaeus who, when he heard that Jesus had called him, sprang up and came. He sprang! I don’t do much springing now at the age of fifty-two, but spiritually, what would it look like for me to have such a ‘springy’ faith? And look at Jesus’ response! He says, “What do you want me to do for you?” How often do I make faith more complicated than it needs to be? Jesus is right there. Just ask! Here in the example of a blind beggar we see the essence of faith. It’s not in our words or our worth. The essence of faith is an audacious confidence in its object, the Lord Jesus Christ.

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As I contemplated which degree to pursue in seminary, I knew I’d regret it if I didn’t take the languages – both Hebrew and Greek. I haven’t taken a class in either one yet, though I plan to tackle Hebrew in the fall (Pray for me!), but I was exposed to a little bit of Greek this past semester. In my class on Paul’s epistles (all the books Paul wrote, except Romans), my professor made reference to the Greek many times. That benefitted those in the class who already had a working knowledge of it, but even for people like myself, who have no knowledge, there was one thing in particular that I was able to understand and has changed how I understand some familiar passages:

You sometimes means y’all.

Let me explain. In English, apart from context, there’s no way of distinguishing between the singular and plural form of ‘you’. So when we read our English translations, it’s difficult to know whether the author is addressing a single person or a group. Sometimes translators help us by giving a footnote, but many times we’re left to ourselves.

You might not think this is a big deal, but reflect on our American culture for a minute and how individualistic it is. It’s all about self-actualization. And if we’re not careful, we bring this mindset into our Bible reading and study. We may unintentionally assume that the author is addressing us as individuals and not groups.

The importance of this hit home for me in class when we were looking at 1 Corinthians 3. I had memorized verse 16 when I was a new believer, way back in the early 90s. I was involved in the Navigators campus ministry and they had a topical Bible memory system. 1 Corinthians 3:16 was a verse we were to memorize as it related to relying on God’s resources. Let me quote it here:

“Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?”

For decades I had understood this verse in a very individual way, assuming that the ‘you’ in the verse was singular. It’s not. It’s plural. Yes, God’s Spirit dwells in each individual believer. We see this in the book of Acts (see Acts 2:1-4; 10:44-48) and in other places in the New Testament. But the Spirit also dwells in us, corporately. As my professor explained this, he might have seen a huge light bulb over my head! All of a sudden, I realized how I’d misunderstood this verse. Not only had I understood it in a very individualistic way – “Wow Meredith! You are God’s temple, and God’s Spirit dwells in you!” – in a way that kind of isolated myself within my own religious experience – but I’d divorced the verse from the context. In chapter 3, Paul is rebuking the Corinthians for their disunity and tribalism. They had divided themselves according to which teacher they followed – “I follow Paul!”, or, “I follow Apollos!”. To combat this, Paul uses two metaphors – one that is agricultural and another that’s architectural. He and Apollos and the other apostles are just servants, workers in God’s field – which is the Corinthians. Switching metaphors in verse 9-10, he says they, like master builders, laid a foundation and others were building on it. What were they building? They were building them! The Corinthians are God’s building!

So when he writes in verse 16 that they are God’s temple, he is speaking of them in a corporate sense, not individually. I now understand this verse in its full context – we are God’s temple. (See also Ephesians 2:19-22) And shouldn’t that have implications for how we treat one another? Do we serve the church in a way that contributes to the growth of the whole, or just ourselves? Do we love the church which is the temple of God’s Spirit? Do we pray for the church?

Because my professor did it, I think it’s ok to share with you what he would call the Southern translation of 1 Corinthians 3:16:

“Do y’all not know that y’all are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in y’all?”

For those of us who will never take Greek, or haven’t yet, keep this in mind when you read and study Paul’s epistles. Many times, Paul is addressing the group, not the individual. Be aware of the individualistic mindset you might be bringing to your Bible study. And here’s a couple tips to help – the KJV translation uses the word ye for the plural form of you. So if you aren’t sure whether the ‘you’ you’re reading is plural or singular, first check the context and then try reading the KJV translation.