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The Bible Study Tim Keller Never Forgot

December 10, 2014 By Peter Krol

Last week, Collegiate Collective published a guest article I wrote about campus ministry entitled “The College Ministry Method that Should Never Change.” College ministry must constantly change to keep up with cultural trends, but in the article I write of the one thing—study of the Bible—that must never change lest ministry lose its moorings.

I got the idea for the article from an interview Tim Keller did with Bible Study Magazine, where he described one particular meeting he’s never forgotten since his undergraduate days:

Keller describes a retreat where InterVarsity staff worker Barbara Boyd gave the students 30 minutes to list 50 observations from a single verse: “And Jesus said to them, ‘Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men’” (Mark 1:17). After 10 minutes, they began to feel saturated, but she encouraged them to press on. When they regrouped to share their findings, they could not believe how many jewels came from this single mine. “Boyd closed her exercise by asking the students how many of them had found their deepest insight in the first five minutes of thought. ‘No one had,’ says Keller. ‘And I’ve never forgotten that.’”[1]

Have you ever been in such a Bible study?

If you’d like to read my full article, check it out!

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[1] Bible Study Magazine, Vol. 5 No. 3, March/April 2013, pp. 12-13.

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Women of the Word

December 5, 2014 By Peter Krol

I once had the privilege to meet with a reasonably well-known man who edits Bible study curriculum. My chief questions for him were: What is your vision for publishing Bible curriculum? Why do you think we need more curriculum, instead of simply greater Bible literacy? How do you avoid creating a dependence with your subscribers, such that they turn to you and your materials instead of going directly to God’s Word?

Now, I may have caught this fellow on a bad day. And our appointment was cut a little short due to factors outside of his control. So I don’t want to blast him for a single conversation. But I must admit I was terribly disappointed that he had nothing for me better than, “The curriculum helps people.”

I pestered him with follow-up questions. Helps them with what? Helps them how? Why must we produce more and more curriculum that only decreases people’s confidence in their ability to read the unmediated text of Scripture? But he confessed to having no answers for me.

A Very Different Answer

Some time later, I came across a guest post by Jen Wilkin about this very problem: training Christians (especially Christian women) to rely on commentary and Christian books more than the Book of books. I couldn’t be any more delighted by her thesis.

I explored Ms. Wilkin’s website and discovered that she, too, wrote her own Bible study curriculum. I couldn’t see how that practice fit with the point of her article, so I contacted her directly to ask her the same questions I had asked the first gentleman. Her answer was far less pragmatic than his and came pregnant with a compelling vision:

I write curricula with the intent of training women how to use the tools…At the beginning of each of my studies I tell the women that, while I hope they will learn the book of the Bible we are studying, my greater hope is that they will better know how to handle their Bibles on their own once we are finished.

Eventually, I hope my women will rely on a curriculum less and less, having learned by repeated use how to ask good questions and honor the learning process on their own.

Here was something I could get excited about. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on Wilkin’s new book Women of the Word: How to Study the Bible with Both our Hearts and our Minds, and Crossway was willing to provide me with a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for an honest review. I could not fault her intentions; would she be able to deliver on them?

Money Moments

I’m happy to say Wilkin does, in fact, deliver. Her little book is a powerhouse of training, inspiring and equipping ordinary people to study God’s Word. I benefitted greatly from this book, even though Wilkin’s target audience is Christian women. The only time I felt like she wasn’t speaking to me was in the last chapter where she gives counsel for women who teach women’s Bible studies.

Here are some of the many highlights that stuck with me:

Right thinking will lead to right feeling, not vice versa. Too many of us get this backwards.
“If Bible literacy is our goal, we need an honest evaluation of what we are currently doing to achieve it.” I’m addicted to what Wilkin calls the “Xanax approach” to the Bible: I feel guilty if my time in Scripture doesn’t make me feel better in some way.
The Bible tells one Big Story of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration. We’ll understand each passage best when we see how it connects to this larger story arc.
Finding historical background is not merely an intellectual exercise. Good Bible study depends upon it. And it can be fun!
The desire for instant gratification is mortally dangerous to our Bible study. Sometimes we get nothing at all from a single reading session. We need to have more patience over time to see the benefits.
“It is good for us to earnestly attempt interpretation on our own before we read the interpretations of others. And this means we must wait to consult commentaries, study Bibles, podcasts, blogs, and paraphrases for interpretive help until we have taken our best shot at interpreting on our own.”

Some Caution

I have two minor differences with the book worthy of comment.

Oversimplification. Wilkin covers a lot of ground with a very low word count. This fact occasionally leads her to oversimplify unhelpfully. For example, her discussion of literary genres contains little nuance and, without caution, may set some on false trails: “Historical narrative uses language to give a factual retelling of events. It intends to be taken at face value…Wisdom literature uses language to communicate principles that are generally true, though not universally true. Reading a proverb as a promise can lead to heartache and doubt.”
Cross-references. Wilkin puts more stock in cross-references than I’m comfortable with. She includes the looking up of cross-references as a critical step in interpretation, but again I think this approach can at times generate more smoke than light. The original readers of James didn’t have access to Paul’s letters to help interpret James’s letter (Paul’s letters weren’t even written yet!). I believe it’s more important for us to understand James in his own right first before we begin the work of connecting his ideas to the rest of Scripture. Accessing cross-references too soon can actually take us down the wrong track and cause us to miss the point at hand.

Conclusion

My minor differences shouldn’t dampen enthusiasm for the book. I’m happy to recommend it to you. I learned from Wilkin’s ability to communicate complex ideas in simple language. And she made a compelling case for the need of more women teaching women in the church. Women teachers have something to offer Christ’s body that no men can provide.

In my email correspondence with Ms. Wilkin, we joked that we must be twins separated at birth and that we wish we had crossed paths sooner. If you have been helped by this blog, you will find much of benefit in Women of the Word.

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How to Lead a Bible Study

December 3, 2014 By Peter Krol

For several months, I’ve reflected on many skills involved in leading Bible study groups. I’ve now arranged the posts into categories and created a table of contents for the series to make it easier to find stuff.

You can find the contents page in the top menu under “Leading” > “Adult Bible Studies”. I grouped the posts into the following categories:

Why lead Bible studies?
Getting the group started
Preparing to lead
Leading the meeting
Outside the meeting
Training others to lead

I haven’t yet completed the series, so I’ll keep the contents page updated as I go.

Check it out!

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What My 5th Child’s Birth Taught Me about Bible Study

November 28, 2014 By Peter Krol

…that I need to take a short break from blogging to care for my growing family.

As Ecclesiastes 3 reminds us, there’s a time to be born, and a time to die. There’s also a time for blogging, and a time to refrain from blogging. Lord willing, I’ll plan to be back at it next week!

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Keep the Context Front and Center

November 21, 2014 By Peter Krol

Last week, I read some amazing things in the New York Times:

The president’s announcement was the first official confirmation of his death.

“They were disappointed, frankly, that I didn’t have some breakthrough.”

Minutes earlier, she had fled there for safety as she called 911, telling the operator that her fiancé had thrown her on the bed and hit her in the face and head. She was two months pregnant.

Thousands of people attended hundreds of enrollment events around the country at public libraries, churches, shopping malls, community colleges, clinics, hospitals and other sites.

Are you amazed?

Enrique Burgos (2010), Creative Commons

The Problem

Though all these quotes came from a single publication with a single editorial board, they also came from a variety of articles, written by different journalists, and spread out over a few days. Each article had a different topic, designed for a different column, reporting on a different sector of the news. But my selection of quotations doesn’t really mean anything to you without more information. You need the context for each one to make sense.

Do you read the Bible like this? Do you find a remarkable sentence or two here and there, memorize them, and base your hope on them? You don’t read anything else in this way. Not newspapers, novels, letters, emails, blogs or textbooks. Sure, sometimes you’ll scan. Other times you’ll highlight key statements that you want to remember. But you won’t limit your reading to isolated sentences.

Do you teach the Bible like this? Do you string together verse after verse to make a point? It’s fine to do so, as long as you’re not doing violence to what those verses meant in context (Paul does it in Romans 3:10-18, David does it in 1 Chronicles 16:7-36, and Jonah does it in Jonah 2:1-9). But Satan can quote isolated statements from the Bible in support of evil intentions (Matt 4:6). Plenty of folks today likewise excel at sampling Bible verses to mix some truth with catastrophic error.

The Challenge of Bible Studies

In a Bible study meeting, you may have 30-90 minutes to dive into a particular text. You’ll look at the details, ask many specific questions, and try to make particular applications. As you work on a small portion of text, how do you keep the big picture (the context) front and center? How do you prevent the group from moving through one isolated text to another, week after week, without ever fitting them together?

A Proposed Solution

These suggestions are not the only ones you could follow, but they summarize what I’ve found most helpful.

1. Do a good book overview

When leading a study through a book of the Bible, I always dedicate the first meeting to a book overview. This overview gives us clarity on the historical context: author, audience, occasion, and structure. But more importantly, it enables us to discuss the entire book’s main point. For example, in my church small group, we’re studying Romans. Our book overview led us to a pretty clear main point: Paul wants to preach the gospel to those who are in Rome (see Rom 1:15-17).

2. Remind the group of where you’ve been

Each week, I make sure to summarize the text’s argument over the last few chapters. This enables us to situate the present text within the book’s flow of thought. For example, our last study in Romans 3:9-20 came as the climax to Paul’s argument that began in Romans 1:18. Before tackling Rom 3:9-20, we briefly reviewed the section up to this point: God’s wrath is revealed against the immoral (Rom 1:18-32), God’s wrath is against the moral (Rom 2:1-16), God’s wrath is against the outwardly religious (Rom 2:17-3:8).

3. Make sure to grasp the passage’s main point

It’s worth it to fight for the main point. By definition, doing so enables you to focus on what God considers most important. Incidentally, it also helps you not to get lost in the sea of sub-points and minutiae that so easily commandeer your attention. As you keep main points front and center, you’ll decrease the likelihood of missing the context.

4. Connect each passage to the book’s main point

Every week, as we study a new section of Romans, we ask, “How does Paul preach the gospel (good news) in this passage?” The key here is to take the passage’s main point and show how it advances the book’s main point. Of course, in Romans 1:18-3:20, there is not much “good” news yet. We’ve had profitable discussions about why it’s so important to understand the extent of the bad news before the good news will seem truly good.

5. End with a book review

A book review is just like a book overview, except that it takes place at the end instead of the beginning. When you’ve completed examining all the book’s pieces, take time to put them back together. You may even need to revise your overview in light of what you saw as you dug deeper through the details. So I find it helpful to dedicate an entire meeting to reviewing what we learned from the book, both themes and applications. This review may solidify the lessons and help people to remember them when they return to this book in their personal study.

Conclusion

When you lead people in careful, contextual Bible study, you’ll be amazed to see that some of your favorite memory verses don’t actually mean what you once thought.

For example, in context, Romans 8:28 doesn’t mean that “all things” you could ever experience work together for the “good” you might hope for. No, Paul is saying specifically that all of “our present sufferings” (Rom 8:18-27) work together for that single good purpose which God predestined from the beginning: that we might be conformed to the image of his Son (Rom 8:29). Romans 8:28 offers not so much an alleviating comfort as a promise of crushing, suffocating pain — albeit a pain that will make you more beautiful for having gone through it.

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My Love-Hate Relationship with Bible Study Tools

November 19, 2014 By Peter Krol

Last week, the Gospel Coalition published a piece I wrote called “My Love-Hate Relationship with Bible Study Tools.”

What if I were to ask you to solve 30 long-division problems? One thing, though: there’s no calculator. Sure, you probably remember how to do it by hand, but since you haven’t since childhood, you’re rusty. As a result, the whole idea seems a little threatening and needlessly difficult, doesn’t it?

Thanks to the blessings of the modern age, nobody does long division by hand anymore. We’ve become dependent on the tool. Why go to all that intellectual effort when you can punch a few buttons and have an answer at your fingertips in a matter of milliseconds?

I love that we have access to calculators. I don’t even mind that using them has permanently atrophied my math skills. But I refuse to let modern Bible study tools—as great as they are—do the same thing to my Bible study skills. I never want to become so dependent on these tools that I forgo the deep joy that comes from sitting down with a Bible, plus a pen and some paper, and simply digging in. I never want to pretend that reading the fruit of someone else’s Bible study efforts is the same as plumbing the depths of God’s Word myself. And no matter how biblically wise or learned I may become, I never want to train anyone to rely on me more than they rely on Scripture.

What’s more, I’m convinced that if the New Testament authors were alive today they would back me up: modern Bible study tools are a great blessing—but if you rarely or never study the Bible without them, you’re not only doing it backward, you’re seriously missing out.

The article then lists 3 fruits of personal Bible study and makes a brief case for the OIA method. If you’d like to read the full article, have at it!

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3 Disciplines to Develop Wise Speech

November 14, 2014 By Peter Krol

You’ve tasted and seen the effects of a wise leader’s words, and you want to be that kind of leader. You want to speak words that deliver, delight, gladden, and heal. You’d like to be able to defuse, persuade, inspire, and influence. You can picture leading such Bible studies, but you don’t know how to move in that direction. You see the potential, but you don’t know how to realize it.

You’re not alone, and you don’t have to feel stuck. Proverbs describes not only the product but also which best practices will help you get there. The following 3 tips don’t include everything that could be said about how to become a wise leader. But if you give yourself to these 3 disciplines, you’ll quickly find, by God’s grace, you have something to offer. “The lips of the righteous feed many” (Prov 10:21).

Steven Shorrock (2011), Creative Commons

1. Listen more than you speak.

If one gives an answer before he hears, it is his folly and shame. (Prov 18:13)

When leading Bible studies, your goals should be, first, to hear others, and second, to give an answer. Reverse the order, and you’re on the way toward shameful folly.

What does this mean? What does it look like to hear before giving an answer?

You care more about winning people than about being right.
You want to know what other people think more than you want them to know what you think (even when you’re the leader).
You learn how to ask good observation, interpretation, and application questions that stimulate discussion and don’t shut it down.
You create a group culture where crazy, even false, ideas can be freely spoken. Please note: This doesn’t mean you create a culture where crazy, even false, ideas are accepted. Loving people doesn’t mean compromising the truth. And loving the truth doesn’t require you to feel threatened by questions or objections.
You ask open-ended questions.
You avoid questions that have only one answer. Such questions are not really questions but mind-reading exercises.
You pay attention to what people say.
You reflect what you hear people say, rephrasing their comments in your own words. This reflection demonstrates that you understood the substance and didn’t merely catch the words.
You don’t answer every question yourself but toss questions back out to the group.

2. Draw others out.

The purpose in a man’s heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out. (Prov 20:5)

Listening is good. It’s an important first step. But if that’s all you do, you’ve got a support group or love fest on your hands instead of a Bible study. People are like wells, and your goal is to drop the bucket and scoop out their purposes. You want to help them understand themselves better than they did before. Once they do, change becomes possible.

Let me illustrate. One person leads a Bible study on Romans 3:9-20 and teaches the material well. He observes the text well and gets people looking up all the Old Testament quotes. He shows how these passages about Israel’s enemies are used by Paul to describe Israel herself. Even Jewish mouths are thus stopped, and the whole world is held accountable to God. The leader communicates a clear doctrine of human depravity, and he challenges people to trust in Christ and not themselves. They listen eagerly, happy to learn and grow.

Another person leads a study on the same passage, but does so through thoughtful questions, careful listening, and stimulating follow-up questions. He covers the same content as the other leader, and he gets people talking about the topic of depravity on their own. One person mentions an obnoxious family member, and the leader asks her how that relationship has colored her view of the world. Another person challenges the doctrine of depravity, and the leader—who doesn’t jump on the objector with immediate correction—asks more questions to understand why it’s so hard to swallow. Another participant confesses feelings of guilt whenever the topic of sin arises, and the leader sensitively coaxes further context-appropriate detail from him.

When you actually understand why people think what they think, you’re in the best position to convince them to think something else. When you understand why people respond the way they do, you’ll be able to connect the dots for them so they can repent and choose different responses in the future. If you don’t scoop out the purposes in their hearts, you’ll end up with a group that agrees with what you’ve taught, but doesn’t understand how to make specific changes to their lives. The result? Very little change in their lives.

3. Sweeten your speech.

The wise of heart is called discerning, and sweetness of speech increases persuasiveness. (Prov 16:21)

If you listen and draw others out, the time will come for you to speak. And you don’t have to say much, because your words will weigh far more from all your listening and investigation. But it’s a good time to remember the age-old adage that has inspired many a fledgling leader: “You’ve done well so far, but don’t screw it up.”

When the time comes for you to speak, it’s not a good time to criticize people who aren’t in the room. “I can’t believe how wrong all those Arminians [Calvinists, Baptists, Presbyterians, whatever] are…”

It’s also never a good time to scold a participant, belittle one in error, or ignite a quarrel.

Instead, you have an opportunity to woo, persuade, and build trust. You get there by sweetening your speech. Give them reason to trust you and lower their defenses. During a Bible study:

“Other translations say…” is better than “You should get a more literal translation.”
“I can see what you’re saying, but have you considered…?” is better than “I disagree.”
“That’s a good question for another time. For now, what does the passage say?” is better than “Please don’t go off-topic.”

This is not mealy-mouthed refusal to engage in public discourse. This is not political spin. This is sweet, persuasive, winsome ministry.

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3 Ways Not to Use Greek in Bible Study

November 12, 2014 By Peter Krol

An all-too-common myth in Bible study is that there is a “true” or “deeper” meaning in the original languages that doesn’t come across in English. Not only is this idea almost always untrue, it is also normally damaging to careful Bible study.

I’m not saying that Greek and Hebrew are worthless. They matter, and pastors and Bible teachers will benefit from studying the languages. But we must study them as languages, not as secret codes. It’s far more useful to learn how language works than to learn how to reference Strong’s numbers and identify Hebrew and Greek word roots.

For example, “agape” means very little on its own. It finds meaning only when it’s used in a sentence. Matthew, Luke, Paul, and John may have very different things in mind when they use the same word. We benefit much more from examining the sentences than by scrutinizing the exact vocabulary. And normally we can do this just fine in English.

Justin Dillehay walks through 3 common errors committed by those who dabble in Greek vocabulary in their Bible study. We do well to take notice!

Usage trumps etymology: Avoid the root fallacy. The origins of a word have very little to do with that word’s later usage.
Scholars are necessary: Avoid the cult of the amateur. Praise God for those members of the body who dedicate their lives to rich understanding of Greek and Hebrew. Perhaps we ought to be slow to suggest how a certain passage “should” be translated.
Context is king: Avoid the overload fallacy. When a writer uses a certain word, he’s not normally tapping into every other use of that word in prior literature. Therefore, Dillehay writes, “An ounce of good contextual analysis is worth a pound of poorly done Greek word studies.”

Dillehay’s full article is well worth reading. Check it out!

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8 Effects of a Wise Leader’s Words

November 7, 2014 By Peter Krol

When you lead a Bible study, you quickly discover that people are different. And when your meeting consists primarily of discussion, people’s differences can make things messy. It’s not hard to find good advice for moderating the messiness (such as how to confront conversation hijackers or redirect discussion detours), so I won’t repeat such advice here. Instead I’d like to reflect on the effects of wise words.

The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence. (Prov 10:11)

The lips of the righteous feed many, but fools die for lack of sense. (Prov 10:21)

Drew Bennett (2008), Creative Commons

The righteous wisdom from God is a great blessing for the people of God, because those with such wisdom on their lips “feed many.” Thus, I’d rather attend one Bible study led by a master sage whose godliness disinfects any mess, than a hundred Bible studies led by an inquisitive guru who has memorized all the proper techniques. The wisdom of God demands that we not only do wise things (Prov 1:2-3) but also become wise people (Prov 1:4-6). Thankfully, the Lord has made the evidence of such wisdom easily observable so we can search it out and increase our risk of contamination.

1. Wise Words Deliver

With his mouth the godless man would destroy his neighbor, but by knowledge the righteous are delivered. (Prov 11:9)

Wise leaders speak knowledge that delivers. Repentance and faith take root. Conflict resolves. Lives change.

2. Wise Words Delight

To make an apt answer is a joy to a man, and a word in season, how good it is! (Prov 15:23. See also Prov 16:24, 24:24-26, 25:25)

When wise leaders speak, people rejoice. Seasonal words can’t be programmed; they merely flow from a heart conditioned to consider others’ needs more than its own.

3. Wise Words Gladden

Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs him down, but a good word makes him glad. (Prov 12:25)

The difference between this point and the previous one is the difference between a process and its result. If you want those you lead to find delight, you’ll need to learn how to go about encouraging them through their dark moments. This “good word” that gladdens has very little to do with getting the sentiments exactly right. It has everything to do with listening, asking questions, and letting yourself feel what they feel. Often, the good news comes when they find they don’t have to suffer and groan alone (Rom 8:22-27).

4. Wise Words Heal

Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body. (Prov 16:24.)

Wise leaders speak hope that not only rescues from sin but also directs toward righteousness. Such heart surgery is the Christian’s highest health. Sometimes we misdefine “healing” as “freedom to stew and to speak every angry thought you’ve had toward the person who offended you.” But true spiritual healing stands in stark contrast to such violent sword thrusts (Prov 12:18).

5. Wise Words Defuse

A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. (Prov 15:1)

When a wise leader gets involved, tempers dissipate and misunderstood people learn to seek understanding. A wise teacher won’t refute an opposing viewpoint unless the opponent would agree his position has been represented fairly. Generalizations are not overused, and particularizations are not asinine.

6. Wise Words Persuade

The wise of heart is called discerning, and sweetness of speech increases persuasiveness. (Prov 16:21. See also Prov 16:23.)

Wise leaders have a reputation for distinguishing truth from error. People in need of help seek them out and ask for their opinions. Such leaders can pinpoint main ideas, use accurate labels, predict actions’ consequences, and enumerate clear recommendations. And hungry souls find such speech extraordinarily sweet.

7. Wise Words Inspire

The tongue of the wise commends knowledge, but the mouths of fools pour out folly. (Prov 15:2. See also Prov 15:7.)

When good leaders adorn the truth with beauty, people discover a thirst they didn’t know they had. The knowledge of God becomes more desirable, and folly looks not only foolish but also repellent.

8. Wise Words Influence

Righteous lips are the delight of a king, and he loves him who speaks what is right. (Prov 16:13)

Sometimes we worry about what people think of us, and we should repent. But other times we don’t think about it enough, and we should. People can love you for the wrong reasons, and they can also love you for the right reasons. The problem is not with the love but with the reasons. Do they think of you as someone who speaks what is right? Do people follow your leadership because they have to, or because they want to?

By all means, please learn good techniques for leading Bible study discussions. But more importantly, please gain lips of wisdom.

Question: What are your next steps for developing a heart and mouth of wisdom?

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Escaping the Box: Main Session Videos

November 5, 2014 By Peter Krol

One of my greatest privileges is teaching the Word of God. Another is teaching God’s Word alongside teammates whom I respect and from whom I love to learn. I love serving with an organization that loves God’s Word and is committed to helping college students learn how to study it.

On October 24-26, DiscipleMakers held our annual Fall Conference. This year’s theme was “Escaping the Box: The Mind-Blowing Message of Jesus.” At the main sessions, we taught on key aspects of Christ’s salvation from the book of Romans. Below are clips from each session, and you can click the links to video of the full talks (mine was the closing session).