What I'd encourage you to do is to take get an electronic copy of James, take out all the chapter and verse divisions, and just read the whole thing.I wonder if he could see my eyes widen in excited surprise.
We are doing inductive Bible study. I looked around the classroom, and I realized most of them had not the slightest hint of what we were getting into.
Inductive Bible Study (lovingly referred to as IBS) is a course required by every Religion major at IWU (as far as I know - it's at least required of the Biblical Literature majors). It's a class with an epic reputation. During this class, there is no family, there is no social life, there are no other classes. There is only IBS. The students are stationed semi-permanently in the library aisles lined with Bible study tools. They grab at your ankles as you pass by and plea pitiably for help. "What is the Strong's number? I can't find it." Sometimes they cry. Sometimes they have milk and cookie parties while they study from early in the morning until the library closes. Sometimes professors visit the aisles like they would an inner city mission, offering what assistance they can before they go to their next class and leaving the students even more despondent than they were before.
The students are learning exegesis, and for many of them, exegesis is the most awful, wonderful thing they will ever take away from their time at IWU. After you learn it in IBS, you inevitably have lather, rinse, and repeat for every Bible class you take during your time there.
I took a lot of Bible classes, as evidenced by my major. Like a lot of people, I grew to love the IBS process. I was one of the milk and cookies people - one that got A's on my papers, frequented the aisles to offer help, and did my Initial Observations on the Greek text. I miss it. I miss the camaraderie, the way you could feel your mind changing shape, and the piles of books all over the tables like a scene from Pagemaster. Most of all, I miss the "aha" moments. The moment you realize you had it all wrong. The moment God iconoclastically blasts away what you thought about Him, and puts the truth in its place.
I graduated December of 2008. School will be starting up again for some of my friends in less than a month. The freshmen will be innocently shuffling into their first IBS class. And I will be missing it.
I know I can do IBS on my own. I have done it a few times since I graduated - word studies, outlining, etc. Never a complete exegesis. I think it's because I have no accountability, no one to bounce my ideas off of, and that I'm a lazy bum.
So I have been a little down in the dumps about it...until Mr. Kester popped out of the blue with an IBS assignment. He told us to read through the book, outline it, and come up with some themes we saw emerging throughout the book. There were some furrowed eyebrows, because folks aren't used to studying the bible that way (except maybe my mom). I think it's going to stretch our class, not just in the amount of work it will require, but also in that it's going to challenge some assumptions they're going to have a hard time giving up. We started talking about authorship and canonical issues the very first day, and you could see people getting a little rankled. I think it'll be good for us, though.
I plan on keeping an update here of my study progress. Give me your feedback, and I'll take it back to class with me! Maybe that way I can blame shift, as well. "Well, one of my friends suggested..." "Yeah, it was a stupid idea, huh?"
I know I won't have the library, but I will have my Sunday School class. And maybe I can bring them some cookies and commentaries for old times' sake.
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