Just a few months ago I came to the sudden and perhaps not-so-startling realization that although I have been reading the Bible for more than twenty years I had never really been taught how to study it. I have been told of the importance of spending time each day reading God’s Word, meditating on it and even memorizing it, but I do not ever recall being taught how to systematically study it.
After explaining this predicament to a friend of mine, she recommended the inductive Bible study approach, which she had only just discovered through buying the New Inductive Study Bible. Kay Arthur edited that version of the Bible and knowing she was a proponent of the inductive method, I decided to read How To Study Your Bible by Arthur.
I do not intend to go into detail about the Inductive method of Bible study. There is any number of resources available in bookstores and online that can outline the method in detail. Essentially, though, it begins with understanding the context of the big picture (the Bible) then works to the smaller picture (a specific book of the Bible) and so on until the study leads to specific words. The method relies heavily on note-taking and Bible marking. There is a whole system of Bible marking that Arthur recommends which helps in identifying themes and patterns. The appendices are filled with useful information about how to best use concordances and expository dictionaries. They even go into some detail about the tenses, moods and voices of Greek verbs!
Although the book sometimes appears as an advertisement for the New Inductive Study Bible, it does a fantastic job of outlining the method and rationale for the inductive approach to Bible study. This book is a valuable resource and I highly recommend it.
