Inductive Bible study books6 are a prime source of the problem, not because there is anything wrong with applying this technique to the study of the Bible as such, but because this method alone is insufficient. If we give a group of Christians the task of reading a portion of the Old Testament in conjunction with some prescribed questions aimed at getting them to look carefully at the text in order to be able to understand what is being said, this is good as far as it goes. But the technique either