Show, Don’t Just Tell

It’s a key principle of educational philosophy: Show, don’t just tell. Communicating ideas is a good thing. But it’s even better if you can show your work, present persuasive argumentation, explain it clearly, and illustrate it vividly. The show-don’t-just-tell principle has many applications for teachers and leaders of all stripes. And I would like to zero in on one particular application of the principle to any who seek to teach the Bible: Show them how you arrived at your conclusions so they can repeat the process for themselves.

Last week, I suggested that the best response you can hope for from those to whom you teach the Bible is, “What a great text, that shows me our great God!” Now I propose that one of the most important means for producing such a response is to show your work, and not merely tell them your conclusions. Here are some examples.

• You can tell them that God loves them. Or you can show them the “for” in John 3:16 and show them the logical connection in the verse between the first clause and the second clause. Now they can forever see for themselves that God sent his son, not because he was mad at the world, but because he loved it.
• You can tell them that the Christian life is hard, but that it will be worth it. Or you can show them the context of Romans 8:28, how the “good” all things work together for is the “good” of conformity to the Son’s image (Rom 8:29)—which is a promise not of a healthy and wealthy life, but of crushing pain yielding to resurrection glory (Rom 8:17-25).
• You can tell them the story of God’s great power demonstrated over Egypt in nine plagues. Or you can show them the structure of three groups of three plagues, each group with a unique emphasis, proving Yahweh to be the judge, the divider of peoples, and the destroyer of worlds. Once you have shown them this structure, they won’t be able to un-see it when they read these texts in the future.
• You can tell them that chapter divisions are not part of the inspired text and should be taken with a grain of salt. Or you can show them Isaiah’s repeated refrain that clearly links the four stanzas of Isaiah 9:8-10:4 into a single poem, forcing us to read the text across the chapter break. “For all this his anger has not turned away, and his hand is stretched out still” (Is 9:12, 17, 21; 10:4).

Now I am not saying that Bible teachers should show all their work. There are always more observations to be made than can be included in a sermon or Bible study. We can’t include everything, and we ought not explain everything that happened to excite us in our preparation. One key principle I communicate when I train teachers is this: Do only as much observation as you must do in order for them to see how what you’re saying is rooted in the text. As soon as they have seen it from the text, move on. Explain it. Illustrate it. Show them Jesus. Apply it.

But sadly, teachers often show too little of their work. They may move their people to tears or inspire them to take drastic action. But ask those people after the sermon or discussion why they should take such action, or how this Scripture moved them so, and too often they can’t explain it. It just “is.”

Let’s show them a better way.