Should You Try Inductive Bible Study?

Perhaps you’ve known for a long time that it’s important to study your Bible. And perhaps you have tried various methods of study, like reading through the Bible in a year or doing topical Bible studies. But perhaps you feel stuck in a rut. What do you do now?

If you have experienced this scenario, there is another way you can enrich your time digging into God’s Word. Through this method, the Bible can come to life. It’s called inductive Bible study.

What is inductive Bible study?

Many people begin their study with a topic in mind. It might be a person, like the apostle Peter, or a place, like Bethlehem. On the other hand, it might be an abstract concept, such as love or grace.

Inductive Bible study starts with a passage, not with a topic. When you study the Bible in this manner, you want to know what the passage was saying to the original readers before you attempt to understand what it is saying to you today. That’s a great way to get an overview on a biblical subject, and it could be called deductive Bible study. Topical studies start with a specific premise or subject, and look for the related scriptures.

With inductive Bible study, on the other hand, the student doesn’t start with a topic in mind, but rather wants to get the most out of a particular passage of Scripture.

That’s the key. Inductive Bible study starts with a passage, not with a topic. When you study the Bible in this manner, you want to know what the passage was saying to the original readers before you attempt to understand what it is saying to you today.

This is important because our cultural experiences can color our understanding of what was written so long ago. That’s why it’s vital to do all you can to eliminate your assumptions. It means researching as many of the elements of that passage as you can.

How do you proceed?

Three-step approach to inductive Bible study

Although you can add to or subdivide the most basic steps in inductive Bible study, there are three essential phases. Those steps are observation, interpretation and application.

To follow this approach, you must start with observation. Only then can you follow up with interpretation and apply the lessons of Scripture to your own life.

As with many how-to subjects, it helps to provide an example. For this article, we will use chapter 45 of the Old Testament book of Jeremiah. It’s only five verses, but full of meaning.

Step 1: observation

Observation—real observation—is more than superficial reading. You begin by reading a passage with intent, not casually or passively.

Most teachers of inductive Bible study encourage students to read a section of Scripture multiple times. How many? Any figure would be arbitrary, but it would be best to read a passage at least three or four times.

You’ll begin to understand the importance of rereading as you try it out. Each time you read you’ll notice connections you had not seen before. What’s more, you should read proactively, coming up with questions about the text before trying to understand its meaning.

You should also make note of any cultural or historical references, jotting those down. Be sure to write down any words that seem to be particularly important in a given passage.

For example, in Jeremiah 45, we might notice that Jeremiah addresses this prophecy to an individual named Baruch (verse 1). He was not a king or someone with an important leadership role, so that is unusual. “Why?” we might ask ourselves.

We might also note that God’s message to Baruch includes both a mild rebuke and a reassurance (verse 5). The rebuke has to do with Baruch seeking “great things” for himself. The reassurance is that God will protect Baruch “in all places, wherever you go.”

What “great things” did Baruch seek? And why did he need God’s special protection?

Research as an extension of observation

Merely noticing key words, people and concepts is not enough. We are separated from biblical events by 2,000 years or more, so we don’t always understand and appreciate the context and depth of what Scripture tells us. In the case of Jeremiah 45, it was written more than 2,500 years ago.

To understand what God has preserved for our benefit, we can research the words, people, places, events and concepts we encounter in our reading. The best starting point is to read a summary of the setting and purpose of a biblical book and its author, if known.

We can read such a summary in a study Bible or a Bible dictionary or encyclopedia or in our overview articles about the Books of the Bible. One great resource is Bible Gateway’s Encyclopedia of the Bible.

In our case, the book we want to research is Jeremiah. It is a book full of the prophecies of a prophet who lived and served God in the last days of the kingdom of Judah. He witnessed the collapse of that kingdom under the relentless assault of the powerful nation of Babylon.

With this understanding, we can appreciate God’s reassurance to Baruch that his life would be spared. In the midst of widespread death and destruction, Baruch and Jeremiah both survived. That was no small thing when so many people didn’t.

More research: who was Baruch?

We also want to know more about Baruch. We know from the passage we’re studying (chapter 45) that Baruch was Jeremiah’s scribe, or secretary, but what about Baruch’s state of mind?

A good concordance, or a digital Bible in which you can search for a word, can help us learn more about this man. Of course, you can also look him up in a Bible encyclopedia or dictionary, but going directly to Scripture is always a good first choice.

Searching for his name, we see that he is mentioned in four chapters of the Bible, all in the book of Jeremiah (chapters 32, 36, 43 and 45). (The name Baruch is also found in Nehemiah (3:20; 10:6 and 11:5), but this is a different time period, so different person.) All four of these chapters give us the name of Baruch’s father, and chapter 32 (verse 12) also provides his grandfather’s name.

That same combination of father and grandfather is given for Seraiah, described in the New King James Version as a quartermaster during the reign of King Zedekiah (Jeremiah 51:59). This man, at least a half-brother to Baruch, was an important official in the kingdom.

Further research suggests the possibility that their grandfather was the governor of Jerusalem during the reign of Josiah, the last righteous king of Judah (2 Chronicles 34:8). (Note that the spelling of the grandfather’s name is slightly different in the NKJV, but the same in the King James Version.)

Step 2: interpretation

Once you’ve done all you can to read the Bible purposefully, taking note of people, places, things, events, customs and words, you can move on to analysis. This is the interpretive phase of inductive Bible study.

This is when you begin to answer your questions. You look at the facts to see what they suggest. The question we highlighted in our example above is about why God would address a prophecy directly to Baruch, who was not in any important leadership position.

In this particular case, we don’t know for certain, but we can begin to surmise what may have been going on in Baruch’s personal life. Having grown up in a leading family in Jerusalem, he may well have had personal ambitions related to serving in government.

Whatever his ambitions may have been, God’s words were clear. Baruch was not to “seek great things” for himself (Jeremiah 45:5).

From the context, it seems God’s mild rebuke is more about the times in which Baruch and Jeremiah lived than the particular ambitions Baruch held. It wasn’t so much what Baruch hoped, but whether those hopes were realistic in the midst of what God was bringing to pass.

Having determined the intent of the message for the original audience—in this case Baruch—we can move on to the final step, considering how that message applies to us today.

Step 3: application

Once you have thoroughly examined a passage of the Bible and come to understand the meaning to the original readers, you can think about how those concepts apply to you. You’ll ask more questions, but this time the questions are about you. They’re personal!

Using our example of Jeremiah 45, we might ask how our lives are similar to Baruch’s. We may not be living in a besieged city, as he was, but we could ask how our circumstances are like his.

For instance, we might think about our own hopes and dreams that never materialized. We can ask ourselves whether we are too concerned with achieving “great things” in this physical life, perhaps losing sight of where this world is headed.

We might also consider how faithful God was to preserve Baruch’s life in the midst of such horrific events. Because we know that God the Father and Jesus Christ “do not change” (Malachi 3:6; see also James 1:17), we, too, can trust God.

Gathering resources

With so many free digital resources available, it’s no longer difficult to engage in inductive Bible study. It is a good idea, however, to know where to look for the information you are seeking. Here is a list of some of the resources, whether in print or digital format, that you’ll find helpful:

• Study Bible: Good study Bibles include chapter summaries, maps and lots of notes. One important aspect of a good Bible is its citation of related verses. These references can help you in your study, throwing light on a concept that is addressed in more than one passage. It also may help to have access to multiple translations of the Bible (to learn more about recommended Bible translations, see our article “What Is the Most Accurate Bible Translation?”).
• Bible atlas: Knowing something about biblical geography can help us better understand much of the Bible. For instance, seeing the location of Israel in relation to other nations explains why it was so often threatened by invading armies. Print versions, especially of more comprehensive atlases, are probably easier to use than digital atlases.
• Bible encyclopedia: In a good multivolume Bible encyclopedia, you will find countless articles about much of the history, culture and geography of the Bible.
• Bible dictionary: This is essentially an abbreviated version of a Bible encyclopedia. It is good for quick reference, but at some point, you may want more extensive information.
• Concordance: This resource is valuable for a number of uses. First, you can locate familiar passages by looking for key words. Second, you can get a feel for how common a word is throughout the Bible, or in a particular book. Third, you can see how a word has been translated in different passages.
• Lexicon: With lexicons you can discover nuances of Hebrew and Greek words, which don’t always translate well into modern languages. One example is the Hebrew heseḏ. It has been translated many ways, but no one English word can convey its sense of the “mutual and reciprocal rights and obligations between the parties of a relationship (especially Yahweh and Israel)” defined in Vine’s Expository Dictionary.

What about commentaries?

All reference works and writings include some degree of bias, including this article. That is inevitable. It is important to recognize the biases. Not all biases are bad, but it can help to be aware of whether the writers of a reference work believe in the inspiration of the Bible or not, for example.

I did not include commentaries in the preceding list for a couple of reasons.

First, they have already interpreted a passage. Multivolume commentaries may provide alternate theories, but single-volume commentaries don’t have room to do so.

Second, when you read a commentary first, it colors your thinking so that you might not approach a passage with as much objectivity.

Commentaries can still be valuable, though. I recommend that you see what commentaries have to say only after you yourself have done the research relating to a portion of Scripture. Why? They can be a final check on your own research.

Time to get started

You may think this approach involves a great deal of work, and for that reason it may be a little intimidating to you at first. Once you’ve tried inductive Bible study, though, you will find that Scripture comes to life right in front of you.

For me personally, inductive Bible study has been enriching and well worth the effort. In fact, I’ve found it to be a great way to begin my day.

For many more Bible study techniques and ideas, see our free book Five Tools for Spiritual Growth.