As God’s people, we want to be guided by His Word and empowered by His Spirit to be a Jesus-centered family on mission. And while no one expects us to all be seminary professors or in full-time ministry, we are expected to be in God’s Word regularly (Psalm 1). When we do, God uses that to slowly make us more and more like Him. Inductive Bible study is one way we do this. Just like regular Bible reading or lectio divina, it involves three main steps: read, reflect, and respond with questions to ask yourself for each step. As you work through this, you’ll notice the similarities and differences between inductive Bible study and lectio divina. Whereas lectio divina relies more on reading a passage meditatively with our hearts, inductive Bible study relies more on reading a passage methodically with our minds, and as followers of Jesus, we want both. As Bible teacher Jen Wilkin puts it, “The heart cannot love what the mind does not know...If we want to feel deeply about God, we must learn to think deeply about God.”
READ (COMPREHENSION) WHAT DOES THE TEXT SAY?
Studying the Bible begins by first carving out time, sitting down, and thoroughly reading the passage. While this sounds simple enough, there are often many barriers that keep us from studying the Bible - time management, lack of focus, lack of sleep, etc. So as you begin, find a quiet place (ideally not a coffee shop), that is free from distractions (ideally not in the same room as your TV or other screens), where you can be alert (ideally not in your bed), at a time when you can be alert (ideally not as you’re about to fall asleep). If you’re in a LifeGroup, consider holding each other accountable by scheduling a time each day where everyone in your group will study the Bible together - for example, one of our LifeGroups makes a conference call to each other every morning at 6am to pray and remind themselves to study their Bibles!
Below are some helpful steps to comprehend a passage:
Look at the context - Imagine how frustrating it would be to watch a movie clip with no context whatsoever on the plot or characters - and yet we do that so often with our Bibles! So to help us unpack what a passage means we need to know some background information. (To make it even easier, The Bible Project has broken down the context for every book in the Old Testament and New Testament.) Below are some questions to ask:
What’s the genre of this passage?
Who’s speaking? Who’s the audience?
What’s the historical context?
Why was this written?
Print out the passage - have a physical copy of what you’re studying so you can underline, circle, and mark up your thoughts. To do this, simply copy/paste from BibleGateway.com onto a blank document, making sure your printout is double-spaced with plenty of room in the margins for your notes. You can also purchase one of Crossway’s Bible journals to write down your notes.
Use different translations - Reading from different translations helps you encounter a passage afresh and can help clarify any questions you have with the text. (BibleGateway.com offers an “Add parallel” feature where you can compare up to five translations back-to-back. To start out we’d recommend comparing a passage against the ESV, NIV, CSB, and NIrV translations.)
REFLECT (INTERPRETATION) WHAT DOES THE TEXT MEAN?
Once you’ve comprehended a passage, it’s time to do the hard work of interpretation. We don’t want to import our own biases and have the passage say something it doesn’t (eisegesis), rather we want to discover how the original audience of the passage would have received it (exegesis). Below are some helpful ways to get started:
Take notes - Ask lots of questions and mark up your passage, you can either give special markings to your notes or use a color-coding system, whichever works best for you. Those questions include: •
Certain words, phrases, ideas repeated?
Is there a particular attribute of God illustrated or celebrated?
Does the text make several points in a row? (If so, number them on your printout)
Are there words you don’t understand? (Put a question mark on there and look up later)
Are there key transition words? “Therefore” “and so” (Draw arrows to them)
Is there a confusing idea? (Write out your questions)
Paraphrase the passage in your own words - writing down the passage in your words helps us better engage the text as we ask the Spirit to engage us.
Look up cross-references - all Scripture is breathed out by God. Because of this, we use Scripture to interpret Scripture. When we encounter difficult passages, we use easier to understand passages to shed light on the harder ones (this is known as “the analogy of faith”). If there are any words that are confusing, Blue Letter Bible is a great free resource to use.
Consult commentaries - Commentaries are like crutches. They can be helpful assistance, but the aim is not to grow too dependent on them. The aim is to learn how to equip yourself so you, in turn, can equip others (Eph 4:11-16). A great go-to is John Piper’s Desiring God resource page where he’s broken down nearly the entire Bible by book, chapter, and verse. Along with that, he has an incredibly helpful video series called “Look in the Book” where he breaks down how he studies the Bible. Also, The ESV Study Bible is also a wonderful mini-commentary to get you started.
RESPOND (APPLICATION) WHAT DOES THE TEXT MEAN FOR ME NOW?
It’s not enough to simply study the Bible for spiritual information. We want to study the Bible for our spiritual transformation. As James 1:22 says, we want to be doers of the word, and not hearers only. At the same time, right application is based on right interpretation. Both go hand-in-hand. If you haven’t done the proper work of Bible interpretation, your application will be off too. Those application questions include: •
What does this passage teach me about God?
How does this aspect of God’s character change my view of self?
What’s this passage calling me to do today?
What’s this passage calling me to pray for today?
Once you’ve written down these answers, this becomes your prayer time. Spend some time focusing on what God has brought to your attention as well as attributes of who He is and who you are in light of that. Confess and repent where you need to. Ask the Spirit to work in you to do what the passage is commanding you to do. As you wrap up your time, pick one thing from your study today that you can “write on your heart” to reflect on (Psalm 119:11). You may want to write it down somewhere visible or memorize it. Ask God how you might encourage someone with what you learned and reach out to them right away. Reach out to your LifeGroup what you learned about this morning. At the end of the day, write down any insights as you meditated on the Scripture. It’s important to remember, studying the Bible is a life-long process. But it’s this very process that Jesus uses to shape us and form us into being made more like Him.
For Bible study plans and more resources on being with Jesus, make sure to check out our Abide page at FollowingJesusTogether.com