Knowing God by Studying His Word
Bible studies flood Amazon, Instagram, and Christian bookstores. These studies lead women through books of the Bible or topics in Scripture. The Lord uses gifts of grace, including gifted teachers and theologians. However, these resources should never be a substitute for getting into God's Word ourselves. We live in a Christian culture where it is easy to be spoon-fed Bible truths. If we are going to gain first-hand knowledge of God's Word, we must be capable of opening up the Scriptures ourselves.
The Inductive Bible Study Method
The Inductive Bible Study Method seeks to use the Bible itself to understand the Bible. Instead of using other resources to figure out what the Bible means, what it is saying, and how to apply it to life, we use context to understand God's Word. Scripture interprets Scripture. We let the Bible teach us about itself.
The Bible is about God.
The temptation can be to approach the Bible with our opinions. Though we might not intend to, we may begin to believe the Bible is a book about ourselves. Our approach to Bible study then becomes self-centered. “The fact is, we sometimes read Scripture, thinking of what it ought to say, rather than what it does say.” Charles Spurgeon
The author of the Bible is God, and the subject of the Bible as a whole is God. We go to Scripture primarily to understand God—who he is and what he does. We naturally then get a proper understanding of who we are. In knowing God and knowing ourselves, we learn how to live out the Christian walk.
Not Topical Study
Topical studies can help us understand what the whole of Scripture teaches about a specific subject. The Inductive Bible Method teaches us to read one book of the Bible at a time. It allows the topics to introduce themselves instead of the student trying to find the topics.
Topical studies can give us a spotty knowledge of the Bible if we are not careful. We can easily take Scripture out of context. We find ourselves flipping back and forth between passages and not understanding the whole context of the verses. We want to understand the book of Ephesians, what exactly Peter wanted his audience to know, and the reason James wrote his letter. We want to understand how Leviticus unveils the revelation of Jesus Christ. We will never know these answers if we only know isolated verses.
Steps of Inductive Bible Study
Prayer
This study method begins with prayer. Apart from God's grace and the Holy Spirit's help, we come to Scripture with our intellect alone. The Bible says of itself that it is spiritually discerned. “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” 1 Corinthians 2:14
As children of God, we have the Holy Spirit living in us. We must submit ourselves under God as his disciple if we expect to gain any spiritual knowledge of what is on the page.
2. Observation
Observation is an essential step that we often bypass. We read the passage and immediately try to figure out what we are supposed to do with it. "How does this affect me," is usually the first question we ask. The Bible is first a book about God, and the Bible is also literature.
When reading any literature, we seek to understand and comprehend what is written by the author. The goal is not to get to the next chapter but to understand what the author writes. Observation asks the question—what does the passage say?
Context is key.
Approach a book of the Bible with the right context. Background information is usually in a Study Bible at the beginning of every book. You can also find it online. Here are a couple of helpful context questions to ask when reading:
1 - Who wrote this book?
When we learn this, we can read other parts of Scripture to find out more about the author. The more we know about the author, the better we can understand how their history influences the way they write. We gain perspective.
2 - When was it written?
This answer helps us gain the cultural context. This information can also help with understanding the purpose and the influences surrounding the writing of the book. We gain perspective.
3 - To whom was it written?
We often assume that the book was written to us first, but this is not so. The books of the Bible have an original audience. When we understand who the book was originally written to, we gain perspective.
4 - In what style was it written?
The Bible is a book that contains 66 books written by men who were inspired by the Spirit of God.
“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,” 2 Timothy 3:16
The Bible contains many types of genres. Knowing where our book of study fits within the entirety of Scripture helps us determine how we interpret and study it. We would not approach biblical poetry and biblical history the same way.
5 - Why was it written?
Again, every book of the Bible was written with a purpose. When we understand why the author wrote the book, we gain perspective.
Repetitive reading
One of the main tools of this particular Bible study method involves repetitive reading. As we re-read through Scripture passages multiple times, we get a better grasp of the details that often go unnoticed. So, when seeking to observe the text, multiple readings of the passage or the entire book will be of much help. Note repeated words, contrasts, comparisons, transition words, expressions of time, lists, and the characteristics and mentions of God.
3. Interpretation
Once you have gathered what is being said, you move to interpretation which asks—what does it mean? When interpreting, remember Scripture never contradicts itself, so there can never be an interpretation that directly contradicts another portion of Scripture.
Interpretation seeks to find the single meaning of the passage. Every passage of Scripture has one meaning. That one meaning might have several applications. Still, if what you interpret could not have been meant to the original audience, it is not the right interpretation.
A few tools help in rightly interpreting the Bible. One is to paraphrase. Paraphrasing is putting Scripture into your own words, with the knowledge that we are not changing Scripture. Another tool is summarizations. This tool is especially helpful in the Old Testament with many historical events. If we can paraphrase and summarize what is happening in the passage, we can get a better understanding of what it means.
One of the most useful tools in interpretation involves cross-referencing. Scripture interprets Scripture. If we do not understand something in our passage, it is helpful to look at the cross-references and see if they shine light on the passage causing us difficulty. Another useful tool is other biblical translations. Sometimes the way another translation words the verse or passage will help us understand better what the interpretation might be.
4. Application
Application asks how this passage changes the way I live, and what is my response to the interpretation? We want to heed to the instructions given in our study, and we want to apply the Scripture correctly. Jen Wilkin, author of Women of the Word, asks three questions in her application step that you may find helpful.
The first question is, “What does this passage say about God?” Again the Bible is a book about God, and our first questions should be about God. We can ask, “What does this tell me about God's character, his desires, and who he says he is?”
The second question to ask is, “What does it say about me?” We get a proper understanding of who we are once we have a proper understanding of who God is. We know who we are in light of knowing who God is.
The last question to ask is, “How does what I have learned change the way I live?” It does us no good to have a head full of knowledge without a changed life. We do not want to have studied enough to rightly divide the Word of God and then close our Bible before we get to the part where it affects our heart, soul, and strength.
5. Prayer
I know what it's like to have sought to understand how a passage applies to my life without asking any help from God. We have no hope of actually living out Scripture without the power of God. God remains both our help and our hope.
Study Tools
During the observation and the interpretation steps, we purposefully laid aside Bible Study tools to let Scripture speak for itself. God has blessed us with many godly theologians, pastors, and commentaries.
Once we have understood Scripture ourselves, we use these helpful tools and see how they shine even more light to what we have discovered in Scripture. When we do it this way, we can approach commentaries, blog posts, and other resources with an understanding of our passage instead of blindly believing what someone else says.
Taste and See
“Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!” Psalm 34:8
As women of God seeking to know who he is, we must know how to read God's Word for ourselves instead of accepting what other people say. You do not have to settle for someone else's understanding of the Bible. You can open your Bible and understand what it means for yourself.
We don't read the Bible in this way so that we can be intelligent and sound smart to our friends and family. We read in this way so that we can know the Author, the Triune God. Let this motivate you to start the journey of inductive Bible study. Taste and see that the Lord is good!