Here is a method that has worked for me- in a nutshell, let the Bible tell you what it means by what it says throughout the whole of scripture. Don't try to understand any verse apart from the whole of scripture and the revealed nature of God.
For example: Throughout the whole of scripture, God reveals Himself as: Good, Kind, Compassionate, & Generous.
Taking the story of Jesus speaking to the rich young ruler saying, "Go sell all you have and give to the poor", consider God's heart of kindness in why he challenges the young man to make such an extreme sacrifice. Did Jesus say poverty would make the man righteous? No. Jesus was asking the young man to live more in keeping with the godly compassion. That conversation is included in scripture to illustrate that Jesus spoke using divine insight to question the hearts of the self-congratulating, self-righteous religious elite in Israel, who professed to be holy and upright by keeping he absolute letter of the law, but, all too often, missed the heart of God in lawfully accumulating wealth and having no compassion for the poor.
The lesson is not for all Christians to establish the doctrine of religious asceticism to dispossess ourselves of all material goods and take vows of poverty or be at enmity with God. Rather, we are to live lives of humility before God and compassion toward others who are in desperate circumstances.
In those days, if a tragedy befell a family, say, perhaps, the working age men were injured or died, the entire family fell into abject poverty very rapidly. So the poor would truly need some compassionate relief to not starve to death or resort to some moral compromise to survive. In that challenge, Jesus told this young man who knew the scriptures well- probably having memorized much of the Torah- you know the letter of the law, but have completely missed my Spirit in keeping it. I hope you find this helpful. Please, let me know if I can be of further help in your study of the scriptures.