Do You Study the Bible Inductively?

"Inductive" Bible study is where you look carefully at all the individual bits of Scripture -- the individual word-meanings, the grammar, the lesser and greater context of a verse, the over-all theme of the whole book, and the history and culture of the Bible writers' times -- and from all those bits you build conclusions. It's a different approach from the horrible medieval method of Bible reading, which assigned every verse three or four different levels of meaning (literal, symbolic, doctrinal, inspirational). The medieval method turned the Bible into a big blob of Silly Putty that you could twist and mold into almost any shape. 

The inductive approach to studying the Bible respects the fact that each Bible book had an original author. That author was trying to communicate something real when he wrote his book. The Bible writers weren't creating modern art where we decide what we "feel" it all means to us. We don't project meaning into a Bible passage.  It is already there.  It's there even if we never read it. The meaning of a Bible passage is objective, not "in our hearts", and it's our responsibility to understand them. 

Don't read the Bible like it was a Magic 8-Ball. Study it.