Now, guys - I think one of the great things that men want to understand but don't know how to do is how to read their Bible effectively so that they can pull principles from it that they use in everyday life. I know this to be true because this is one of my great challenges, as I begin my journey with Jesus Christ. Is just understanding God's incredible word. Now, we know that God's word is divinely inspired - but sometimes we have a hard time extracting truth from it, and understanding what God is trying to teach us there.
Today, I want to walk you through the Inductive Bible Study method. Now, people have used this down through the ages to help them to dig out God's truth, and if you want to understand how I prepare when I'm communicating - well, this is what I do. The inductive method is essentially the scientific method applied to studying the Bible itself. It's a three-pronged process - that is going to help you to dig out the profound truths of God's word, and figure out how it applies to your everyday life.
So let me walk you through the three steps of Inductive Bible Study method. The first step is this, observation. Observation. I think that this is the step that we all take for granted. So what I do, is I find a section of scripture - usually a paragraph or two. And I begin to read it -and I read it over and over and over and over again, observing what is going on in the text. I'm looking at words; specifically, I'm looking for repeated words. As well as specific terms used to describe people, places, or things in the text.
I'm also looking for - number two - characters, and their roles and actions within the text. Three, I'm looking at grammar. And even though I'm not the greatest with grammar - I'm looking to identify the subject, and the verb, and the object of each sentence. And even though maybe you're not an English major, you'll notice these pieces of grammar in the text. You're going to see what verbs really represent the text, or take center stage there. You're looking for the use of contrast and comparisons that are maybe repeated, over and over again. And you're going to look at them as they're used to make some central point in the story.
Fourth, you're going to be looking for structure, examine how sentences and paragraphs kind of come together. Paying special attention to the transitions and the connection phrases. Like the word “therefore." Where therefore is a keyword, which means to point back to what went before it. And you're just noticing words like that that are giving you little clues. Five, the genre is very important. You need to discern what kind of genre the text is. Whether it's poetry or prose, maybe it's a letter or prophetic literature. Or maybe it's a narrative, but you're looking at different forms of what this text is. Next, you're looking at mood. You're just noticing the tone of the text - by paying attention to like, the actions and emotions, and/or some of the challenges in the text.
And gentleman, this is the way that we exhaust it. Now, when I'm setting in one of my Resolute cohorts, I'm looking for men to spend a lot of time here. Maybe even 75% of their time. Usually what we do is we bypass this considerable step of observation. Observation is key to getting all of your questions answered, and what we typically do when we read the text, is we look at the text, and we ask questions too quickly. We jump right into interpretation or into the application. And gentlemen, don't do that. All the questions that you want to be answered can be found in you making very, very good observations from the text.
Next, we're going to jump to interpretation. And in the interpretation stage, we're looking to find the author's intended meaning to the original audience. Did you hear me in that? That means that we're looking for what the author was trying to say to the original audience of people, not what the author's trying to tell us, but what the author's trying to tell them. So what you want to do here is you want to think kind of in reporter-style from about questions that are going to help make direct observations from the text itself. Questions like, who, what, where, when, how, why - of those people in those times. Now, what's going to help you out very much here is a study Bible or something that is going to give you a brief overview of the history of that text and what's going on in that time, that will significantly help you to understand maybe what the apostle Paul, in the Book of Romans, was trying to say to the Roman people, rather than jumping to what Paul might be trying to tell us, today.
And the final and third big step is this - personal application. How this applies to my everyday life. Because all of God's text is inspired, and it is profitable for all kinds of things in our own life. Now, this is where we ask the brass tacks questions like, how does this apply to my everyday life? What changes do I need to make? How does all my observation and interpretation inform my core relationships with God and others, and when I apply this to my life, how would the text change my worldview - like, how I think, and my actions, what I do, and my identity, who I am at the core of my being?
So this is the inductive method, and I want to apply it today to a great text at the end of the Sermon on the Mount. It's Matthew 7, verses 24 through 29. I'm going to walk you through reading this text and making some observations, drawing an interpretation, and then applying it to our everyday life. Okay, so listen to Jesus, as he speaks.
Matthew 7, verse 24 says this, “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house. But it did not fall because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man, who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house. And it fell, and great was the fall of it. And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had the authority and not as their scribes.”
So let's walk through the steps. First, observation. Now, this is the fun stage. This is where you get to see all the good stuff. All right? So observation one. I'm just going to make a few for you, and you can make more in your time of the study. Observation number 1 is this, “everyone who hears these words of mine and does them.” Do you notice that? Hearing and doing. I see it happening here in the text. But Jesus begins this final part of the Sermon on Mount by saying hear and do. Not just hear, but hear and do. “Will be like a wise man.”
Now, the word “like” is a simile, so then you become like a wise man. So if you've ever wondered how to be wise, well, Jesus is giving you an answer in his observation. Hear and do. Hear and do. “And he will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” So we see that there's a house built on the rock. And then there's a storm comes. “And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house. But it did not fall because it had been founded on the rock.” So we see this “on the rock” principle. So there's digging down onto a foundation that's strong, that's secure, that's dug into the earth down deep, it's heavy, it's weighted, you feel a sense of security when you hear that.
“And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them,” do you notice the disconnection there? Do you notice the comparison or the contrast? He who hears but does not do them “will be like a foolish man.” So we hear the simile again, there's another observation. There's a different simile here, “a foolish man,” who built his house on the sand - like, literally on top of the sand. “And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and it beat against that house. And it fell, and great was the fall of it.”
Do you see that? Do you see that it's the same rain, and the same floods, and the same wind that blew and beat against the house? I noticed that there's one storm for two very different houses, two different people. Two people that essentially hear the same call, one does, and one doesn't. Do you see the comparison and contrast there? One stands, one doesn't stand. One falls. “And when Jesus finished these sayings the crowds were astonished.” Amazed? "at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority, not as their scribes.”
So you notice all these observations here. Hearing and doing, hearing and not doing. Rain, floods, winds are blowing on a very similar house. Two houses built essentially - maybe even in the same - location could be assumed. But built on very different foundations, and the differentiator is this - hearing and doing, versus hearing and not doing. Do you catch that? Both hear, but only one does. Fascinating, right?
Okay, interpretation. So at the stage of interpretation, what we're trying to do is find the author's intended meaning to the original audience, and since Jesus is the speaker here, we can even say - not just the author - who's Matthew writing, what he intended us to hear. But we could also say Jesus, who is preaching the sermon. What is his intended meaning? Well, we have to jump back to Matthew 5 to see Jesus' intended meaning, because this is the greatest sermon of all time. The greatest sermon ever preached.
Jesus is trying to help us to understand in this sermon what it means for our faith, our lives, to exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees. In fact, he wants us to understand what it means to not be a fake, hypocritical follower of Jesus Christ. And so he's helping us here, at the climactic point of this sermon - to understand the linchpin to the whole thing, and the linchpin is this. You can either be a fake person, following Christ. You can be a hypocrite, and you can put on a show. Or you can be real, by integrating your hearing and doing. What you hear the truth and how you do it in your life. Isn't that fascinating? This is good stuff.
Now, apply it to everyday life. Everyday life. What does this mean to me? Personal application. What does it say, or mean, to you? Well, you could probably draw a couple of meanings out of this. But at the core of this message is this - do you hear God's truth, and then do you do it? That's the big question, right? Do you hear God's truth and then do you do it?
Gentlemen, I've thought about this for most of my life as one of the great questions I have to ask myself. Do I prefer to hear and do nothing with it, or do I hear and do something with it? And it's not a problem with the hearing - did you catch that? It's not a problem with the hearing. It's a problem with the hearing integrated with the doing. And gentlemen, I wonder if we have a serious problem with this?
Think about this for a second. Do you go to Church on Sunday morning? Do you find yourself being convicted - but do you have trouble moving that into action and living with conviction? I think that's what Jesus is challenging us with here. Do we not just get convicted but do we live with conviction in our life? I don't know. That's a question that you have to answer yourself. Do you walk into everyday life listening to the voice of God and responding to it, all the time? Or do you just hear and forge? Do you hear and not do? Do you hear and just live your own life?
And I think what Jesus Christ is suggesting for us here is that there will be a storm of your life. You will encounter a storm. And it will test whether or not you are a follower of Christ that hears and does, or just hears and doesn't do. And the question is, which one are you? Because the storms of life tell it all. I've found in my own personal life - gentlemen - that the moments that challenge me the most, are the moments that test whether I am truly a follower of Christ or not. Isn't that fascinating? It's the moments that I am tested to the core - with a challenge, with a sin, with a problem, with an issue. With something that doesn't go my way. That helps me to see if I really, truly live by both hearing or doing, or if I'm just merely a hearer that doesn't do anything.
Well, gentlemen, I think this is something to think through, and you can see how the power of studying the Bible inductively. Observation, interpretation, application. And gentlemen, the big question for you this week is this - do you integrate your hearing with your doing? Because if it isn't integrated it will only be a storm of life that will test it. And gentlemen, either you're going into a storm, you're currently in one, or you're coming out of one. You will face a storm. So the call of Jesus here is to be ready by integrating all of your life.
