Bible Study Made Easy: The Surprising Benefits of the Inductive Method

The Bible was written so that anyone who wants to know who God is and how they are to live in a way that pleases Him can read it and find out.

God wants to bring us into intimacy with Himself. He wants to be a Father to us. He wants to explain to us who He is and how we can be brought into a close, wonderful relationship with Him. In order to have that relationship, however, God has to talk to us.

The Bible tells us everything we need to know about life. That, my friend, is why you need to study it for yourself.

There are many ways to study the Bible, and there are many excellent study aids available to help you with specific books of the Bible. But the most important thing you need to remember is that to find out what the Bible says, you need to read it yourself in a way that will help you discover what it says, what it means, and how you are to apply it to your life. And the best way to do this is through the process called inductive study. Inductive study doesn’t tell you what the Bible means or what you should believe. Instead, it teaches you a method of studying God’s Word that can be applied to any portion of Scripture at any time for the rest of your life.

The main requirement in learning to study the Bible inductively is the willingness to slow down and really look at what the Scripture is saying. That may not sound too difficult, but in times like ours it is probably the most difficult part of the entire process. And to be honest, my friend, don’t you sometimes wonder if our busyness—even for God—isn’t often what’s keeping us from being what God wants us to be?

Inductive Bible study uses the Bible itself as the primary source of information about the Bible. In inductive study you personally explore the Scriptures apart from conclusions Bible scholars and other people have drawn from their study of the Word. Though their labors are valuable, research has shown time and time again that people learn more and remember better when they enter into the process of discovery for themselves. In inductive study, commentaries, books, tapes, and other information about the Bible are consulted only after you have made your own thorough examination of the Scripture. These, then, can serve as a sounding board for your own observations and conclusions.

Actually, you may already be familiar with some of the principles of inductive study. For example, if you have ever taken any biology courses, you have studied frogs, and you have probably done so through observation.

To thoroughly study the frog, you first go to a river or creek bank where frogs live. You watch their eggs hatch and the tadpoles emerge. You see their back and front legs develop and grow, until they look like frogs and leave the water. After observing how the frogs respond to their new life on land, you catch one and observe it more closely. Eventually you take it to the biology lab where you dissect it to see how it looks on the inside. Afterward, you read what other biologists have learned about frogs to see if your conclusions match.

Inductive study of the Bible involves the same process: You begin with the Bible, observe it in its environment, and then take it apart so that you understand it firsthand. Then, when you’ve seen or discovered all you can on your own, you compare your observations with those of godly men and women who have written about the Word down through the ages.

Now, it would be much easier to just sit down and read a book about frogs in the first place and forget about traipsing through the marsh, wouldn’t it? But you would end up with only secondhand knowledge. You would know what others have said about frogs, which might be interesting and—you hope—true. But you never would have had a personal encounter with a frog.

Inductive Bible study draws you into personal interaction with the Scripture and thus with the God of the Scriptures so that your beliefs are based on a prayerful understanding and legitimate interpretation of Scripture—truth that transforms you when you live by it.

If you will study inductively, the benefits will be beyond anything you have ever hoped could happen in your own personal understanding of the Word of God. As a result of incorporating the principles of inductive Bible study as presented in How to Study Your Bible, you will

• be equipped to study God’s Word on your own
• be independent of relying only on another’s interpretation
• increase your knowledge of God and His ways
• be greatly strengthened in your personal faith
• recognize the authority of the inerrant Word of God in your daily walk
• become increasingly aware of all that it means to be in Christ.

Well, my friend, that is what the inductive study method is all about. It’s a tool to help you know and understand the Bible—to study it so you can see for yourself what it says about God, what it says about you, and what it says about becoming part of God’s forever family.

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Ready to learn how to use the inductive study method in detail? Check out How to Study Your Bible by Kay Arthur, David Arthur, and Pete De Lacey.