Author: Teddy Ray

Shortcuts to studying Scripture – and why they take longer

inductive bible studyA note for anyone hoping to hear a word from God when studying Scripture – whether for personal study or for preaching and teaching: The shortcut often ends up being the long road.

An example from my own sermon preparation… Sometimes when I feel like time has been cut short and I need quick inspiration from the text, I skip my own study of the text and jump straight to secondary sources: commentaries, other articles and sermons on the same text, etc. Whenever I do this, I usually find myself reading commentary after commentary, sermon after sermon, looking for a nugget that hits home and is something I can work off of.

On the other hand, when I devote myself to actually studying the text – putting pen to paper, asking my own questions about what a particular word means or why a certain sentence structure is used – inspiration usually comes pretty quickly.

Then I go to those secondary resources with a purpose: to see if anyone else is seeing what I’m seeing, or can help give me a bit more context to understand it, or can tell me I’m way off base. When I go to the commentaries this way, I read sections I would have otherwise glazed past with great enthusiasm and interest. Now I know what I’m looking for help with – not just looking for something.

The Bible is an amazing book. The living word of God. I consistently find that when I approach it that way, I’m blown away.

Seminary-trained people, this is nothing new for you, right? You heard it time after time: “Do your own work, then go to the commentaries.” But you break the rules sometimes, don’t you? And usually because you’re out of time or energy. And unless you’re very different from me, I think it ends up costing you time – or enthusiasm about what you’re preaching – in the long run. You spend the time you would have spent doing your own study searching for someone else to give you something to say. And a lot of times it never becomes your own – you never internalize it. And that shows when you try to teach or preach it. Well, at least that’s how it works for me.

Some people struggle with how to go about studying the Bible on their own. I know it was a problem for me in the past. Without question, the most helpful method for me is “Inductive Bible Study” (IBS). If you’ll devote yourself to it, I think this method will blow your Bible reading wide open. Rather than try to explain IBS myself, let me point you to a good introduction someone else has put together, and then recommend a few resources.

IBS – An Overview

Check out this helpful and informative post by Eric Evans. It’s a good overview, with videos and all. IBS: An Overview and IBS: Step by Step

That was a nice overview, but don’t stop there. You should really take a look at these below.

IBS 101

Bible Study That Works by David Thompson.

If you’re not looking for academic-level reading, this is where I think you should start. Thompson makes IBS easy to understand and will show you its value. In just over 100 pages, he’ll teach you how to be a much better student of Scripture.

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Inductive Bible Study: A Comprehensive Guide to the Practice of Hermeneutics by David Bauer and Robert Traina.

If you’re serious about IBS, this is the ultimate resource. It’s 350 pages, and you better be ready to seriously commit. But if you do, it will change your study. Traina is the grandaddy of IBS and Bauer is his favored son. There’s a lot to learn from them!

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This isn’t necessarily Inductive Bible Study, but what I would consider an essential aid if you’re really serious about your study. You’ve got to learn the languages! My greatest moments of awe this week, as I prepared to preach Isaiah 60, came while translating. If you’re not reading the Greek and Hebrew, you’re missing a great depth and richness and nuance that no translation can fully capture. Seriously, consider it.

My own experience: finding a way to do inductive language learning (learning by being immersed in the Scriptures – very small bits at first – rather than starting with lots of memorization and tables) was much more enjoyable and helped me see much more quickly how important it is to know the languages.

For you who aren’t vocational pastors and aren’t seminary-trained: don’t think you can’t learn the languages, too. Elementary-aged children used to learn Greek, Hebrew, and Latin. Some still do. You can do it, too!

If you’re interested and want more resource suggestions, I’d love to talk. If you begin reading and implementing any of these, I’d love to hear about your experience.

All links are affiliate links to Amazon. Feel free to buy or borrow wherever you choose.

Related articles

John Wesley’s Sermons for Today

wesley preachingNow Published:

  1. Salvation by Faith
  2. The Almost Christian
  3. Awake, Thou That Sleepest

Interested in more? JOIN my e-mail update list!

When I enrolled in seminary, I was pretty outspoken about the required course that I was least interested to take: “John Wesley’s Theology for Today.”

My general complaint went something like this: “We already had a Messiah, and it wasn’t John Wesley. We already have the Word of God, and it didn’t come to us in the 18th century.” (For what it’s worth, I still agree with those statements!) I felt like the emphasis on Wesley was a bit excessive.

But I’ll happily admit my mistake now. In all of my studies, John Wesley’s teaching – especially that in his Standard Sermons – has affected my faith and life more than any other teaching outside the Bible. In Wesley’s sermons, I discovered a deeper faith and a better understanding of the Scriptures than ever before. Wesley opened Scripture to me in a way that made God’s grace more profound and far-reaching than I had ever realized. He showed me a call to life in God that was at once more disciplined and more joyful than anything I had previously imagined. (See more at “Why I Love Wesleyan Theology.”)

I want more people to experience that.

At the same time, I know the language/grammar barrier has been a major obstacle to some people. I’ve urged friends and church members to read Wesley, and they came back saying they just couldn’t get through it. Wesley’s rhetorical style is often complex. Add to that a King James style of English, and it’s at least one too many obstacles for most people to plow through.

I don’t want to tamper much with Wesley’s rhetoric. It’s charming and convincing if you can get into it. Note: I’m not trying to take Wesley all the way to a “Message” Bible sort of translation. Where his rhetoric and arguments are complex, I’ve tried to preserve that complexity rather than paraphrase it. That means it’s still rather tough sledding in places. But I’ve worked over the last several years to remove some of the language/grammar obstacles for my friends. I’m hoping to slowly work through all of Wesley’s standard sermons to provide a more accessible version.

(Note: I know this has been done and published before. I still think there’s a place for a new “translation,” and certainly for a freely accessible one. If you would like a very good print version, I can highly recommend to you John Wesley on Christian Beliefs Volume 1: The Standard Sermons in Modern English Volume 1 and the other 2 volumes in that set, by Ken Kinghorn [affiliate link]).

To the general public:

I hope you’ll try some of these out. The language is hopefully easier, but the reasoning and topic matter can still be complex and deep. Read slowly! If you just glaze over these, I think you’ll miss the brilliance of what these sermons hold.

As you read, I’d love to talk about what you’re seeing. Do you have questions? Things that still don’t make sense? Or objections? I’d love to hear from you.

To the Wesley scholars:

My aim has been to “translate” Wesley into an NIV style of grammar and language while preserving his message and approach. As with all translations, this has required some of my own interpretation. Are there any places where I’m distorting or misrepresenting Wesley? Are there places that could be altered to be more understandable? I’d like to put these in a form useful for preaching today (as I’ve done with “Salvation by Faith”) or for small group reading and discussion (as I’ve done with several of the ones forthcoming).

I’d love your help. Consider these an early rough draft for some crowd-sourcing revisions. My version of “Salvation by Faith” is publicly available for comment on Google Docs right here. Please make editorial comments there, not on my blog. I’d like to reserve the blog post for discussion about the sermon’s content.

And if any of you have made similar translations of any of Wesley’s standard sermons, I’d love to see them.

Now Published:

  1. Salvation by Faith
  2. The Almost Christian
  3. Awake, Thou That Sleepest

Best reads 2012, mine and others

In case you have some spare time at the end of this holiday season, I thought I’d give you some recommended online reading.

Before those – perhaps you could give me some help. I’ve really enjoyed the opportunities for conversation this first year of blogging has afforded. You can help me do that better by telling me something about you. Send me an e-mail or comment at bottom (anonymous is fine) to tell me:

  1. Which of my particular posts, or topics, have been most helpful or thought-provoking for you this year?
  2. What particular issues would you like to see more about next year?

Looking forward to more conversation in 2013. If you haven’t already, why don’t you subscribe for e-mail updates.

First, my 10 favorite articles this year – based on when I found them, not necessarily when they were posted. This is an eclectic assortment. I’ll try to break into a few categories.

Ministry

Theology

  • Love Wins – An insightful video comparing the Orthodox view of salvation with the mainstream substitutionary atonement views.
  • Temper, Temper by John Meunier. I picked something representative from John Meunier’s blog. You should read them all. This is one of many posts highlighting John Wesley’s (and thus Meunier’s) focus on holiness.
  • Why Biblical Studies? by J. R. Daniel Kirk. A great defense of biblical studies as a discipline.

Something Else 

FROM MY BLOG

Most popular

These 10 posts received the most pageviews and shares. If you shared any of them with others, thanks for your help!

  1. Jesus and Politics – I wonder if my questions – “Republican or Democrat?” “Capitalism or Socialism?” “Big government or Small government?” – were the wrong questions all these years.
  2. How Sunday School created a theologically illiterate American Church
  3. Christians, Capitalism, and Ayn Rand – Why I came to believe Christianity is incompatible with capitalism – and socialism.
  4. 10 Tips for New Seminary Students
  5. Christians and Pornography – Made worse by the recent article that said 50 Shades of Grey held three places in the top-10 selling books for 2012.
  6. Why Weekly Eucharist? 
  7. What does ordination mean? – Or, “The biggest lie told at Annual Conference each year.”
  8. Pastors’ Salaries and Church Buildings – Learning from the early Methodists about how to spend (and not spend) money.
  9. School shootings, a world with devils filled, Advent, and Revelation 20 – Interpreting the Newtown shootings through the church calendar and the Bible.
  10. The coming church budget crunch – It’s nearly inevitable at this point. You should at least be aware.

Personal favorites

These 5 didn’t make the above list, but they’re among my favorites.

Again, many thanks! Talk to you again in 2013.