Three Common Errors
Here, we’ll discuss three errors some people make with the Observation-Interpretation-Application (OIA) approach to Inductive Bible Study.
1) Thinking IBS is limited to a fixed three-step formula. Some people think IBS equals three steps: observation, interpretation, and application. That’s inaccurate. Inductive Bible study is applying inductive reasoning to studying a biblical text, which involves activities such as gathering evidence from the text (observation), drawing inferences about what it means (interpretation), deriving principles (principlizing), and applying them to our lives (application). There is great variety in how IBS is executed. I’ve seen excellent scholars frame it in 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, and even 10 steps. Those with fewer steps simply group other parts as sub-steps. For example, even in the OIA approach, the application phase has two vital sub-steps: principlizing and appropriating. Also, many excellent Bible study books teach Inductive Bible Study without calling it IBS and often treat observation and interpretation under the umbrella of exegesis (as we do). Knowing that IBS is highly flexible in its implementation matters because it frees you to adapt what you learn here to your own way of learning while staying faithful to the inductive principle. This book organizes the four core processes of IBS into three main steps—exegesis (observation and interpretation), principlizing, and application—to better suit personal study and preaching. However, IBS is defined by using an inductive process in Bible study, not by the number or names of the steps.
2) Misunderstanding the purpose of the steps. Some people who’ve learned inductive IBS using the traditional observation, interpretation, and application process make the error of thinking the names of the steps indicate the only activities that happen there. Thus, they think they should avoid trying to understand the text during the observation step and just focus on observing textual elements, reserving understanding for the interpretation step. They also think only application happens during the application step. That’s not the purpose of the names of the steps. The steps are time slots that indicate what activity should be our primary focus or emphasis (not the only one happening). If we allocate 1hr to Bible study (30 mins observation, 10 interpretation, 5 principlizing, and 15 application), a lot of interpretation and even some principlizing and applying will happen during the observation step, although that’s not the focus. In the same way, observation, principlizing, and application happen during the interpretation step and so forth.
Although our primary focus during the observation step is analyzing the text to identify its elements, most interpretation occurs during the observation step. Bauer and Traina, authors of the most reputable academic textbook on IBS today, note that “The essential meaning of most texts can be obtained through the process of careful reading [the observation step]. Indeed, all such reading is a basic form of interpretation.” Other IBS scholars note that “while it’s important to compile the evidence inductively through observation before moving to interpretation, one can’t help but draw interpretive inferences during the process of observation.”[i] Cognitive science and neuroscience confirm that this is how human cognition works: As you observe something, your mind naturally makes inferences and constructs meaning, and most of our understanding happens instantly as we are observing. You can’t pause understanding till later, though you can (and should) suspend final judgement until you’re done examining the facts.[ii]
Bauer and Traina recommend we help our minds interpret the text during the observation step by asking interpretive questions when we make a significant observation: What does it mean? Why is this element here? What are the implications? These questions direct further observation; if the text doesn’t answer them, we note the question for the interpretation step and continue observing. As interpretations emerge during observation, we acknowledge them but suspend final judgment on meaning and keep gathering evidence, since the more evidence we provide the mind, the more accurate a meaning it will give us. Cognitive science and neuroscience teach us that with too little evidence, our brains (as meaning-making machines) will make up facts to create meaning! But the more time we spend observing, the better the quality of the meaning we get. Thus, if our minds suggest a meaning too early, we can say, “Okay, thanks, but I want you to consider more evidence,” and keep observing, trying to understand the text as we observe.
After adequate observation, we enter the interpretation step and switch our primary focus to asking: “Do I fully understand what the text means?” That’s essentially asking, have I given my mind all the evidence it needs to tell me the meaning of this text? If we have good biblical knowledge and are competent readers, by the time we finish analytically reading or observing most texts within their immediate context, we already understand what the author intended to communicate to the original audience (i.e., its meaning). When that’s the case, the interpretation is done even before we enter the interpretation time slot, and we simply summarize the author’s message to the original audience.
Yet, with dense material such as the Bible, after carefully observing the text and considering its immediate context and what we already know about the historical-cultural context, we often have unanswered questions that arose during observation. Answering those questions to fill the gaps in meaning is the work of the interpretation time slot. Here we return to observe specific parts of the text to answer the questions and consult the rest of the Bible and secondary resources—atlases, commentaries, historical background books, and grammar books, and so on. Note that here, we’re doing observation during the interpretation time slot.
The fact that both the observation and interpretation time slots serve the purpose of determining what the author intended to communicate to the original audience is one reason why many people (us included) group observation and interpretation under the main step of exegesis (the process of interpreting a text by drawing out the meaning the author intended to communicate to the original readers).
3) Applying the interpretation to life without principlizing. Because OIA places principlizing under application, some readers erroneously apply what was addressed to the original audience directly to themselves. Bauer and Traina guard against this by naming their third step “Evaluating and Appropriating,” rather than “application,” with evaluating as a synonym for principlizing. We avoid this error with our three steps: Exegesis, Principlizing, and Application.
One more reason we prefer our three major steps is that they align with expository preaching (how great Bible teachers teach). During a sermon, the standard approach is: 1) they take us to the text and present what the author intended to communicate to the original audience and why (the exegesis). Here, they present their key observations as evidence for their exegetical conclusions and may even explain how they answered difficult questions that arose from reading the text (interpretation). 2) They show us the universal principles or truths in the text (principlizing). 3) Finally, they show us how to apply it in our own lives (application). Thus, organizing IBS as exegesis-principlization-application makes it both a method for studying and for preaching at the same time.
Finally, having the exegetical question guiding your observation and interpretation will direct your efforts toward seeking only what we need to understand the text, not engaging in endless observations and interpretations.
[i] Fuhr and Köstenberger, Inductive Bible Study
[ii] The reality is that you don’t consciously determine the meaning of what you perceive. You consciously direct your attention, observe, analyze, compare, and seek evidence while your brain (a powerful pattern-recognition and meaning-making machine) automatically constructs meaning from the available evidence. As the evidence becomes clearer, so does the meaning, which naturally emerges (we become aware of it rather than willing or inventing it). Interpretation, then, is less a task and more the result of good observation. When meaning isn’t clear, the solution is simply to keep observing—analyzing more evidence from the text, context, resources, expert commentaries, etc.—until interpretation emerges without conscious effort.
