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How I Prepare a Bible Study

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Here are 5 practices for preparing effective Bible studies, and here is a sample of the notes I develop when I lead a study. So much for the ideology and the fruit of my preparation, but what do I physically do? How do I employ this ideology to develop a discussion plan that will hit the target?

Dean Thorpe (2014), Creative Commons

Dean Thorpe (2014), Creative Commons

Depend on the Lord

  1. Pray often throughout the preparation process.

Figure out what God has said

  1. Read the passage. I use my quiet times to study books of the Bible I’m teaching. I’ll read the passage as many times as I can, at least once a day for a few days before a study takes place.
  2. Underline or circle repeated words. I always begin with this practice. It’s so easy, and it makes important ideas pop out. I have a copy of the Bible dedicated to underlining and writing in the margins.
  3. Comparison and contrast, characters, and connectors. I round out my initial study with the rest of these 4 key observation skills.
  4. Ask and answer interpretive questions and determine the author’s main point.
  5. Connect the main point to Jesus.

Allow the message to change me

  1. Apply the passage to my life and my world. I’m not ready to teach the passage until after I’ve seen how I should change.

Decide how to lead the group toward what God has said

  1. Craft the main point into a single sentence. From this step on, I’m creating my leaders page for the discussion.
  2. Outline the passage. I want to identify the main point of each paragraph or stanza in a single sentence.
  3. Consider my group members and develop 3-5 observation and interpretation questions to stimulate discussion.
  4. Develop application questions for the individuals, the group, and our church. I’ve found it helpful to consider both what we should do/think/desire and why we don’t normally do/think/desire it.
  5. Consider what worldly ideas or practices might obstruct application.

Consider the beginning

  1. Craft a good launching question or story that will promote discussion and investigation. Often, I use the launching question to help people apply the main point of the passage (even before we’ve clarified what that main point might be).

Of course, your preparation doesn’t have to look exactly like mine. What have you found helpful in your preparation to lead Bible discussions?

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Everyday Application

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Bible application is exhausting. Must we do it every time we study the Bible? Must we constantly add one more thing to our to-do list?

Desiring GodAt Desiring God, David Mathis says it depends on what we mean by Application. If we mean that we must come up with something new to do each day, then no. We’ll never be able to keep up. But if we mean that we must be changed in our thinking or desires, then yes.

Rather than dictating specific actions, he wants to see us formed into the kind of persons who are able to “discern what is pleasing to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:10).

In Scripture, we see the Lord. As we see, we will become amazed. In our amazement, we reflect and meditate until the word is written on our hearts. Then, over time, we’ll see gradual and specific change in our lives.

Mathis is on to something, though I’ve used slightly different language for it. I suggest the 3 spheres for application as a helpful model: Head, Heart, Hands. Yes, change should occasionally hit our hands and produce new behaviors or action steps. But we must not neglect the other two spheres, where we address our thinking and character. Head and Heart application rarely produces doable behaviors, but it makes us into the kind of people who are more attuned to the Lord and his commands. Such people will then see behaviors change over time.

But can we confidently say there’s something for us to apply in every passage? Absolutely!

Yes, take every word as spoken to yourself, with this essential anchor in place: Seek to understand first how God’s words fell on the original hearers, and how it relates to Jesus’s person and work, and then bring them home to yourself. Expect application to your life as God speaks to us today through the Spirit-illumined understanding of what the inspired human author said to his original readers in the biblical text.

Mathis shows us how to follow this plan to bring the Bible home to our hearts. I recommend the article to you.

Check it out!

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Do You Love What Wisdom Loves?

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Wisdom is available to all people who choose truth over wickedness, righteousness over crookedness, and instruction over material gain (Prov 8:1-11). Are you one of those people? The following questions may shake loose some areas for you to consider further application.

Koshy Koshy (2011), Creative Commons

Koshy Koshy (2011), Creative Commons

Do you love truth or wickedness?

  • Does God’s word delight you, or are you happy to set it aside or ignore it?
  • Do you understand more about Christ and his mission than you used to?
  • Have you become a teacher by now, or do you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God?
  • Do you quarrel or quibble?
  • Do you bear witness to the truth, or do you prefer to withhold the message of salvation and its offer of forgiveness from people?
  • When was the last time you sought counsel on your budget?
  • Do you act as though pictures on a computer screen can really make you happy?

Do you love righteousness or crookedness?

  • Are you a man or woman of your word?
  • Where have you made peace with disobedience because life is “too complicated”?
  • What changes have you made recently because of God’s commands to you?
  • What excuses are you prone to make?
  • Are you a party to any unresolved conflicts?

Do you love instruction or material gain?

  • What would you do with a million dollars?
  • How would you fill in the blank? “I would feel much more stable if ___________.
  • Which category of book takes up more shelf space at home: read or unread?
  • What would your last bank statement say about what you value?
  • What would your schedule say about what you value?
  • Would you prefer to have someone correct you or praise you?

These questions are not exhaustive. They just came to mind as I tried to examine my heart, which now looks blacker than I expected. Join me next week in taking these things to the cross, so we can work together to repent and believe the good news.

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Sample Bible Study Leader’s Notes

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Last Friday, I listed 5 practices for preparing effective Bible studies.

  1. Depend on the Lord
  2. Figure out what God has said
  3. Allow the message to change you
  4. Decide how to lead your group toward what God has said
  5. Consider the beginning
My notes for leading a discussion on Exodus 12:29-13:16

My notes for leading a discussion on Exodus 12:29-13:16

This week, I offer a sample fruit of this model. Here are the notes I created to help me lead a recent Bible study[1]. You may want to open these notes in another window to follow along as I walk through them.

Background

I led this study for my church small group that met in my home. Our group met weekly, though we held a Bible study at only 2 or 3 of those meetings each month. We began studying the book of Exodus in August, and this study on Exodus 12:29-13:16 was our next-to-last study before breaking for the summer. (We live in a university town, so our lives are ones of utter enslavement to the academic calendar.) We ended with a climactic study on the Red Sea crossing (Exodus 13:17-14:31).

Our group consisted of a few undergraduate students, a few young singles, a few young families, and a few divorcées. We have a good mix of genders, generations, and life situations represented.

My expectations for the study were that participants would read the passage before the meeting and spend some time thinking about the following questions:

  1. What happened that Passover night?
  2. How are the Israelites to remember that night?
  3. Why are they to remember that night?

They were also supposed to sign up to bring something for dinner, but you probably don’t need to know that.

The Bible study part of the meeting lasted 1 hour. We didn’t read the text, but dove right into the discussion.

Launching Question

The first 2 minutes of the study are the most important (see Practice #5 in last week’s post), so I set the tone with this question:

What is the most important thing you would like to be remembered for in the future?

Though this was my first question, it was the very last thing I prepared. Everything else on this page of notes came first, as I studied the passage and grappled with the structure, main point, and list of questions to stimulate discussion.

Once I knew where I wanted to go, I was ready to construct the beginning. I wanted a strong question that would get us thinking about applying the main point of the passage, but without giving the whole thing away too soon.

After 2 or 3 minutes of sharing about what we want to be remembered for, we were ready to hit the text.

Main Point

I keep this item at the top of my notes, because it’s the most important thing for us to get to. The discussion was pretty fluid as people would observe many details in the text and ask interpretive questions. But, though the discussion was fluid, I made sure to steer it in the right direction.

By putting the main point at the top, I’m more likely to make sure we get to it. Ideally, most of what comes up in the discussion will move us toward this point. And the study climaxes when we arrive here.

But sometimes, the group discovers a slightly different main point on its own. In those cases, I won’t require them to conclude what I wrote in my notes. I’ll be open and responsive to the text. I must hold my conclusions loosely if the evidence suggests a better alternative.

Supporting Truths

This section of the notes lays out the building blocks for the main point.

First, I list key themes in the passage (“This very day is special…”). Second, I outline the passage by discovering the main point of each paragraph. Third, I make sure to consider how the passage connects to the mission of Jesus Christ.

In the meeting, I don’t walk through these items. They’re in my notes to serve as reminders. When the discussion gets close to something in this section, I want to take advantage of the opportunity to lead the people there.

Observation/Interpretation Questions to help lead to main point

In this section of the notes I list the questions that I will use to stimulate discussion. In this case, I had emailed these questions to the group before the meeting, so I was able to work through them in order. Each question led to a treasure trove of observation and interpretation of the text. I won’t let people get away with an answer without mentioning a verse number or a specific observation that supports what they say.

Applications

This section of the notes lists a range of possible application questions I could ask the group. I rarely have time to ask all of them, but I want to be prepared to lead the group in many different directions.

We want to make both inward and outward application. We should consider head, heart, and hands. And we can consider both individual and corporate application. I try to hit every one of these areas over time, since we’re rarely able to hit every area in every study.

Conclusion

So you can see I don’t use these notes as a script, but as a prompter. I plan the launching question and the first observation question, and then I hope for the best and do what I can to keep us moving toward the main point and application. And I pray, of course. Always pray!

———————-

[1]This model for preparing and leading a Bible study is heavily influenced by Colin Marshall’s terrific book, Growth Groups.

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Four Modern Versions of the Bible that are Ruining the Bible

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Donna (2006), Creative Commons

Donna (2006), Creative Commons

Ben Irwin asks if the modern proliferation of Bibles might be part of the reason we’re reading Scripture less. The Bible is so available to us that we don’t hunger for it. And four kinds of Bibles lead us to devalue the Bible.

  1. The Commodity Bible (teen version, young couple’s version, single white female version, etc.)
  2. The Disposable Bible (planned for obsolescence)
  3. The Accessory Bible (colored to match your shoes)
  4. The “Have it Your Way” Bible (pick a translation—and change translations from verse to verse—so it says what you want it to say)

Irwin’s background in publishing Bibles commercially lends a certain gravity to his musings. And he suggests:

It’s not too late to chart another course. It’s not too late to remember that while the Bible was given for us, that doesn’t make it ours to tailor as we see fit. Scripture, as it turns out, is not that interested in catering to my personal “felt needs.”

It’s not too late to remember that the Bible is not just another commodity — that the whole point of owning and reading the Bible is not so I can fit bits and pieces of it into my life, but so I can fit my life into its story.

This thoughtful article is well worth considering. Check it out!

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Wisdom is Available to Those Who Love What She Loves

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I’ve never been very good at the shell game. I’m usually more interested in a good performance than in getting the right answer, so I’m easily snookered by a decent sleight of hand. But wisdom doesn’t work that way. She doesn’t need misdirection or illusion. She tells it like it is, and those who love what she loves will get in good with her.

Proverbs 8 summarizes all Solomon has said about wisdom in Proverbs 1-7, by showing how nobodies become somebodies. The first stanza explains how wisdom is available to all people who choose truth over wickedness, righteousness over crookedness, and instruction over material gain.

1 Does not wisdom call?
Does not understanding raise her voice?
2 On the heights beside the way,
At the crossroads she takes her stand;
3 Beside the gates in front of the town,
At the entrance of the portals she cries aloud:
4 “To you, O men, I call,
And my cry is to the children of man.
5 O simple ones, learn prudence;
O fools, learn sense.
6 Hear, for I will speak noble things,
And from my lips will come what is right,
7 For my mouth will utter truth;
Wickedness is an abomination to my lips.
8 All the words of my mouth are righteous;
There is nothing twisted or crooked in them.
9 They are all straight to him who understands,
And right to those who find knowledge.
10 Take my instruction instead of silver,
And knowledge rather than choice gold,
11 For wisdom is better than jewels,
And all that you may desire cannot compare with her.” (Prov 8:1-11, ESV)

We can break Solomon’s argument into six pieces

1. Wisdom is Available

Prov 8:1 presents the kind of question that is not really a question. It’s similar to the trial lawyer’s query, “Isn’t it true, that on the evening of June 8th, witnesses observed you arguing with my client in public?” The interrogator assumes the answer to be, “of course!” and doesn’t care what you actually have to say for yourself.

McKay Savage (2008), Creative Commons

McKay Savage (2008), Creative Commons

So, too, in this case. “Does not wisdom call?” is not a true question. “Does not understanding raise her voice?” is more of an accusation than an investigation. Of course! She’s on the heights, at the crossroads, beside the gates, and at the entrance (Prov 8:2-3). Wherever people are to be found, she is there. She is available for us to find, anytime, anywhere.

2. To All People

Wisdom cries out in Prov 8:4 to “the children of man.”  In Prov 8:5, she specifies simple ones and fools as the objects of her pleading.

According to Proverbs 1:1-6, there are three kinds of people. The wise person is moving toward the Lord. The foolish person is moving away from the Lord. The simple one stands at the crossroads, about to decide whether to head toward or away from the Lord. The Lord is always the reference point, and Proverbs defines people by their attitude toward him, which is why “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (Prov 1:7).

Wisdom now begs all people to hear and receive her. Look, no ring! She’s available to any who have ears to hear.

3. Who Choose

Wisdom is a choice. Always. It does not fall upon some while missing others. Those who get her want her. Those who don’t get her wanted something else. Folly works the same way. Just as the adulterous woman aims to seduce (Prov 7:5, 21), wisdom tries to persuade.

There’s a choice between instruction and silver, between knowledge and gold (Prov 8:10). Since wisdom is better than jewels (Prov 8:11), it makes sense to choose one and not the other. All you desire cannot compare with wisdom (Prov 8:11).

4. Truth Over Wickedness

Wisdom speaks truth and despises wickedness (Prov 8:7). Those who love her for it become wise.

5. Righteousness Over Crookedness

All wisdom’s words are righteous and approved by God (Prov 8:6, 8). Therefore, those who love wisdom love what God loves and receive his favor.

Wisdom’s words have nothing crooked or perverted in them. You never have to second-guess them. You won’t have to figure out the meaning behind them. They won’t lead you in a hurtful direction, but keep you moving straight toward the Lord (Prov 8:9). Those who love and heed wisdom’s words become wise.

6. Instruction Over Material Gain

Morality usually doesn’t pay. Purity denies sexual urges. Self-discipline limits spending. Hard work goes unnoticed.

But in seeking wisdom—in knowing Jesus—we do not settle for the lesser pleasure (Prov 8:10-11). And wisdom is so infectious that we can say with John, “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth” (3 John 1:4).

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5 Practices for Preparing Effective Bible Studies

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There’s an incredible market in today’s Christian world for Bible study workbooks and leaders guides. Apparently, many people want to discuss the things of the Lord. And God has gifted some writers to unveil the riches of God’s word for broad audiences. These are good things, but the unfortunate side effects are legion:

  • We train people to believe the Bible on its own is not sufficient for life and godliness.
  • We learn to trust the experts more than we learn to trust the text.
  • We never learn how to get lost and find our way through a passage.
  • We promote a priestly layer of materials mediation between people and God.
  • We communicate that others should not try this at home. Leading a Bible study is too difficult and dangerous for those with fewer than two graduate degrees.

So I’m not surprised when people tell me they’re scared to lead a Bible study. They should be scared if their idea of Bible study is limited to what can be published in a workbook. Not just anyone can take big truths and package them up for such wide consumption.

Generation Bass, Creative Commons

Generation Bass, Creative Commons

But a Bible study doesn’t need to be packaged for wide consumption. No publisher knows your friends as well as you do. Nobody is as well-equipped to bring God’s truth to that small group of people as you are. So why not be his mouthpiece to them?

Here’s how I do it.

1. Depend on the Lord

Apart from Christ, we can do nothing. We’ll bear no fruit unless we stay connected to the vine. For me, this usually means I have to pray before I begin preparing, but prayer isn’t the only way to express dependence. Often, I’ll feel short on time, and I’ll try to rush my preparation and get on to the next thing on my to-do list. But when I get lost in the text, I remember I can’t do it on my own, and I ask for the help of the Holy Spirit.

2. Figure out what God has said

Sometimes we make too much of the difference between studying to grow and studying to lead, as though we’d study the text differently for each purpose. Or as though we should block out devotional time and teaching prep time in different sections of the calendar. But both should look the same: Observe and interpret. Figure out the author’s main point. Once you’re clear on what God has spoken in the passage, you’ll be ready to lead others into that truth.

And don’t read study notes or commentaries until after you’ve wrestled with the text yourself. Take a guess at the main point of the passage before you read what others have said about it. That way your reading will correct your mistakes and connect you to the Christian community without replacing your own walk with Christ.

3. Allow the message to change you

Again, studying to teach is not much different from studying to grow. Your teaching should flow out of your growth. If you’d like to see the text change people, you’ll have to show them how it’s changed you. Invulnerable leaders produce invulnerable followers. But the beginning of wisdom is a soft heart toward the Lord.

4. Decide how to lead your group toward what God has said

Now that you’ve humbled yourself before the text, understanding it and applying it to your own life, you’ll be able to show others the way. Only at this point does teaching prep begin to look any different from devotional study. Consider the main point of the passage and how to frame it in a way that will make sense to your group. Think of what’s going on in their lives that might hinder or promote the truth of Christ in the passage. Consider what lies they believe and what encouragement they need to honor the Lord. Make a list of observation questions that will get them into the text. Anticipate some interpretive questions they might have. Develop some applications for the individuals, the group, your church, and their interactions with the world.

5. Consider the beginning

The most important part of the Bible study will be the first 2 minutes. You’ll want to hook them and give them a reason to engage with the rest of the discussion. So think of a specific story to tell, or a specific question to ask, or a specific application to share. Your first words will set the tone for the rest of the study, so nail that part down.

For most of the study, you’ll have a list of possible questions to stimulate discussion, but you’ll want to keep it flexible to allow the discussion to flow freely. But the flexibility works best when you frame the discussion well from the beginning.

The details of preparation will differ from person to person. But always trust the Spirit to equip you through the text to speak the very oracles of God to your people, so God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs all glory and dominion forever and ever. (1 Peter 4:10-11).

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Proverbs 6, Structure, and Careful Observation All in One

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You’ve gotta check out this blog post by Dan Phillips at Pyromaniacs. He walks through Proverbs 6:1-19, showing how his understanding of the text unfolded as he observed more and more carefully. He noticed the structure, and the way the passage hangs together around the three progressively bad kinds of fool.

And his careful observation leads him to many of the same conclusions I drew about this text and these three kinds of fool.

I highly recommend it, if you’re up for a fun journey. Check it out!

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Wisdom Turns Nobodies into Somebodies

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Susan BoyleIn April 2009, a frumpy, middle-aged, and socially awkward Scotswoman marched on the stage of the TV show Britain’s Got Talent. Susan Boyle flouted her spunky attitude and wish to be a professional singer, while judges and audience members alike snickered and visibly mocked her. But they gave her a chance.

You’ve got to watch the video to understand fully what happened that day. Simon Cowell—the world’s most cynical and scathing judge of performance talent—shows little mercy to this nervous woman, but his bewildered expression after her first few notes is priceless. Boyle’s performance gives new meaning to the song “I Dreamed a Dream.”

Boyle’s audition was the most viewed YouTube video in 2009. She went on to take second place in that season of Britain’s Got Talent, but it was enough to secure her a record deal with Sony Music.  Her first album sold more copies than any other début album in British history, and she has since gone on to record 4 more. Two Grammy nominations and 22 million pounds later, she’s performed in Windsor Castle and had a musical written about her. She’s become an icon of success, a contemporary rags-to-riches tale.

Wisdom is like that.

I don’t mean that wisdom will earn you millions of pounds or pageviews. Nor do I mean that wisdom grants your wishes to become famous or successful. I mean simply this: Wisdom turns nobodies into somebodies.

We’re drawing near the end of Proverbs 1-9. Over the next few weeks, I’ll work through chapter 8 in my Monday posts, and I’ll show how this chapter summarizes Solomon’s entire model of wisdom. Before we get to the closing vision of chapter 9—which launches the reader into the body of the book—Solomon will remind us of all that came before. Solomon assembles the pieces of wisdom’s instruction into a few long poems placed on Wisdom’s own lips.

You and I might be nobodies. But God in his grace wants to make us into somebodies. His favor and life are stored up, ready for immediate disbursement to those who love his Son, Jesus Christ. If you grasp Christ, your wisdom from God, your life will never be the same again.

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What Do You Expect of Your Bible Study Group?

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The first Bible study I attended in college let me down terribly. I arrived armed with my new NIV Study Bible—a graduation present from my gram—and fresh out of Christian summer camp counseling mode, ready to get busy. At the meeting, nobody else had a Bible. We never spoke of the Bible. I don’t think Jesus came up much either, except as an alternative lifestyle option. After the study, I wept as I walked back to my dorm room, fearing I had missed the Rapture, for surely I was the only Christian left on earth.

Expectations sure are funny things.

Dani Sarda i Lizaran (2009), Creative Commons

Dani Sarda i Lizaran (2009), Creative Commons

We all have them, but often we don’t realize it until they’re not met. Sometimes we set them disappointingly low to avoid disappointment. Sometimes we set them frustratingly high to push through frustration. We wield our expectations like hot pokers to get people moving in our preferred direction. And we retreat into our expectations to find comfort when life goes awry.

Though expectations can be abused, they are not always a bad thing. God has expectations. God often tells his people what to expect. Jesus called his disciples with expectations (Mark 1:17), and he took care to shepherd them through their expectations preceding his death and resurrection (John 13-16).

As you study the word with others, you may find it beneficial to set and communicate clear expectations. Otherwise, you increase the danger of frustrating or disappointing yourself or others, and you may limit your return on the Lord’s investment.

What expectations should you consider?

  1. Content – what will you study? Will your group be a Bible study or a book discussion group?
  2. Meetings – how often will you meet? What time will the meeting begin and end?
  3. Attendance – do you expect group members to commit to attending, or are you open to sporadic involvement?
  4. Preparation – should attendees do anything to prepare? Do you want them to read the passage once? Five times? Spend an hour or five hours studying it before the meeting?
  5. Participation – is your group more of a cooking class or a cafeteria? Both have their places.
  6. Proficiency – will you aim the discussion at a certain skill level? Should group members have any experience with OIA Bible study before joining this group?

Through the spring, I led a pretty low-commitment, low-expectation Bible study, though I did ask members to read the passage once and consider a few questions before each meeting. The expectations were just right for the group of people we had, though by the end many of them were ready for something more.

This summer, I’ll be leading a Bible study with a higher octane rating. It consists of 13 hand-picked people who are learning to minister to others. I’ll expect them to commit to weekly 90-minute meetings and 3-5 hours of preparation. I’ll communicate up front that, by the time they arrive at the meeting, they should know the text well enough that they won’t need a Bible in front of them to discuss it.

There’s a time and a place for different sets of expectations. But if you’re not clear on them, the law of entropy will drag you down to a slow crawl every time. And disappointment may drown discovery. Don’t wait for circumstances to decide outcomes; life is too short, and Christ’s mission is too important.

But if the Lord has different expectations than you have, go with his. It’s much easier that way.

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