[Hermenutic]s

Inductive Study Method - Precept Ministries International

her·me·neu·tics [hərməˈn(y)o͞odiks/] noun - the branch of knowledge that deals with interpretation, especially of the Bible or literary texts

If you are a newly born-again Christian (congratulations) or you've been faithful for years, one of the things that seems to be the most intimidating about being a Christian is reading your Bible. Where do I start? How do I know what scripture is saying? Am I a bad Christian if I just skip this part? Hopefully this post will answer all those questions and then some.

It wasn't until my freshman year of college that I decided I wanted to take reading my Bible seriously. I found myself at what seemed to be a fork in the road that split into a million different directions with no road signs and no map to guide me. Feeling helpless and very scared of making an attempt I stuck to my devotionals and the words and opinions of others that probably didn't always line up with the scriptures themselves. Then I was introduced to this concept that would change the way I look at the Bible. 

Last week in class we heard from David Lawson, of Precept Ministries International, who was able to explain the study method called Inductive Bible Study. This method helps you to break down scripture and analyze the text in order to derive the true meaning behind it and effectively apply the teaching to your life. If you're looking at your bible right now and thing to yourself, "Self, there's no way this actually works...", I can assure you it actually makes sense.

Before we can begin this process there are a couple things we have to unlearn. First, we must be willing to slow down. As Christians, especially new Christians, feel this need to catch up to those who have more knowledge than us. So, we are quick to just scan through stories and psalms, and think that since we can tell the stories in the bible we know it all. WRONG! I can tell you that you haven't even scratched the surface. Next, we need to throw this age old question out of our minds - What does this mean to me? It doesn't matter what the Bible means to you. The Bible is the absolute truth and word of God and has one meaning period. 

The Inductive Study Method is broken up into 3 parts - Observation, Interpretation and Application. 

The OBSERVATION part is where you will read the text and begin to break down the text. Here you will identify and mark key words that have to do with the context of the passage you're reading. You will then mark those words so that it will be easy to identify the places they appear later. Everything should be marked differently so that it is easy to identify later. Next, you make a list of those key words and what you learn every time that word is mentioned. Why is this necessary you ask? In order to effectively interpret the scripture, we need to know all the facts to understand the context of the scripture. 

Now that we have all the facts we can gather from the scripture we need to verify them by cross-referencing them to other scriptures in the bible. To do that we need to convert the key words back to their original text language (OT- Hebrew, NT- Greek). Sometimes words can have double-meanings and we need to see where it is used in other places in the bible in order to find the correct meaning. When we understand the meaning and context of the words in a passage we are then able to INTERPRET the meaning of the passage. 

Once we are able to accurately interpret the meaning behind the scriptures we are then able to accurately APPLY them to our lifestyle. Living out God's truth is how we can practically build our relationship with the Lord and live a life that glorifies Him.

Seems like a lot right? That's because you are still thinking with that speed study mentality. There is a significant difference to this method and simply just reading the Bible.

1. The word comes alive! As a visual and hands-on learner, I have a hard time just reading something and expecting to get a lot out of it. As I am marking my Bible, I begin to see what I'm reading leap off the page. The word of God doesn't seem like this bland black and white book but this colorful oasis of truth. 

2. It's easy to identify subjects and themes! The symbols I use help me to identify the subject of the text as well and all the important players and information needed. If I ever need to reference a subject, I can just look for a concentration of a certain symbol in my bible.

3. Absolute truth is revealed! You will have all the facts and references to understand what God is actually saying when he says something.

Knowing what I know now and being able to try this myself, I can confidently say that I have never looked at the Bible the way I do now. The part that will be the hardest for me will be slowing down. I realize that in order to do this I will have to flip my perspective and focus on the quality of my understanding instead of the quantity. I am still new at this so I may still have questions myself but I do encourage those of you who have read this far to try it out for yourself. 

God, I pray that I continue to allow your word to come alive in my heart. I pray that I continue to learn about how good and just you are and how you continue to show that in my life. I pray that as I learn more about you, I continue to fall more in love with you and seek to live out your truth in my life every day. I pray all this in Jesus name. Amen.

Precept Ministries has tons of material on how to do Inductive Bible Studies as well as workbooks for those of you, who like me, need a little help getting started. Go to precept.org to learn more.