Inductive Bible Study Method

A lady asked Charles Spurgeon how many times he had been through the Bible.  His classic “Spurgeon” response was “ma’am the issue is not how many times I have been through the Bible.  The question is how many times has the Bible been through me.”

The point of Inductive Bible Study is that the Bible will work its way “through us” and that we will actually do, think and act as it says we should. “Application” is the final step of Inductive study after observing and interpreting a text.

Interpretation re-creates the original circumstance, atmosphere, setting and life of a Bible passage. Interpretation takes the raw facts from observation and attempts to re-create the original event or statement. This re-creation allows us to better understand the Bible.
The question is: “OK, how do I begin to re-create?”

The answer is to ask as many “Why?” questions of a passage as we can possibly come up with. Literally, the first and primary important step for re-creation/interpretation of a Bible passage is to ask the question “Why?”– after doing several other steps of observation first. Those steps at a minimum would include asking five other questions of a text: “Who, where, when, what and how?”
“Why?” is like a bridge to take us into the realm of truly interpreting what a passage meant to the first readers, hearers, experiencers of a Bible passage or event.

“His socks don’t match.” My photographer friend exclaimed to me as we were briskly thumbing through the airline magazine. The auto ad showed a tall basketball player trying to get into a small car and his socks did not match. I did not see it, but my friend saw it immediately. He trained his eye to look for things through the years in his profession.

Observation is a learned and trained skill in Bible study. Usually, the way we train ourselves to observe is to force the right questions. Part of Rudyard Kipling’s poem is a good place to start. “I have six honest serving men, they taught me all I knew, their names were how, when and why, what and where and who.”

Look deliberately at a paragraph of Scripture six times. Ask each of those questions separately for each run through and you will be amazed how much you will see. Perhaps you will see something which had never seen before.