Cop-Out

I’m anxious about our trip and was dealing with a migrane and a breastfeeding-related malady yesterday so no great blog content. Maybe I’ll write something tomorrow. Maybe not until we return from our trip. Either way, look forward to posts about books, mothers day cards and more when we return. To tide you over, here’s a little something from the blog of Alex Kirk, current IV staff worker at my alma mater:

Inductive Bible Study is simply a better way to read the Bible. Let me count the ways…. Inductive Bible Study takes the fact that the author wrote a whole book on purpose seriously. What happens in Mark 6 has everything to do with Mark 1-5 and sets up Mark 7; what Paul’s talking about in Romans 8 is only truly understood when we’ve read Romans 1-7 and then is qualified, clarified and developed in Romans 9. We only fully understand an author’s meaning when we allow him or her to tell us their whole story … If I wrote you a letter, I hope you would read all of it … Okay, of course there’s times and places for a good deductive/topical study of Scripture. But honestly, the main reason people like them is because they’re easier. Inductive is a more faithful way to read the Bible (heck, to read ANYTHING) and it’s more work for us as readers. It’s just easier to have Beth Moore or some other Bible study guide guru tell us ahead of time what the passage is going to say so that we don’t have to bother thinking or engaging with it ourselves. (HT: Alex at Piebald Life.)

I am really thankful to InterVarsity for teaching me to love studying scripture inductively as a small group. You can take three simple questions (what does it say? what does it mean? what does it mean to me?), a group of people with diverse backgrounds and spiritual maturity and end up with everyone learning something. I wish I could find a grown-up small group that was a simple inductive bible study!