Mary Willson has a very good article with 5 Questions for choosing Bible study material for women’s groups. Her questions:
- Will this material equip women by encouraging them to study and teach the Bible for themselves?
- Will this material equip women by demonstrating the centrality of Christ and his gospel?
- Will this material equip women by applying God’s Word to real life, showing the Scriptures’ relevance and power to transform hearts?
- Will this material equip women by supporting the overall discipleship strategy I’ve prayerfully developed for this group?
- Will this material equip women by coming under the teaching ministry of my pastor(s) and elders? Does it align with my church’s vision and doctrinal convictions?
Willson has very helpful things to say on each point, and I recommend you check out her article.
And I can’t help but ask a few questions: Why do we assume we must choose good Bible study material? Why can’t we just have good Bible studies? “This year’s women’s study will use Luke.” Would we not inspire people with deeper confidence to study God’s word, if we showed them how to do it? If every study uses another resource, another study guide, or another workbook, don’t we perpetually reinforce the idea that they need the experts to do the Bible study for them? Thus we might unintentionally undermine the first question Willson asks.
Imagine a women’s group (or men’s group, or co-ed group) that sat down with their Bibles, read their Bibles, and discussed what they read. Of course they’d want to reference supplemental materials from time to time to help with the thorniest parts. But what if they helped each other simply to open, read, and discuss? Soon enough, they’d each be able to do it on their own. Then they’d teach others who would teach others. And something truly amazing would take place in our churches and communities.
Just last night I read “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” We tend to put such an emphasis on Christian gender roles that many lose focus of foundational biblical principles.
Why not replace the word “women” in each of those questions with “Christians”? ALL scripture is god-breathed and useful for teaching; we need to study the whole word and see what it says to us, not force it through the filter of our limited lens of gender, age, race, etc.
Good questions, Catherine. For context, the article I linked to was written for women leading women’s ministries. That’s why it focused on women. But I would agree that these principles would apply to either gender, or to mixed-gender Bible studies.