The Logos blog recently republished a classic piece by my most excellent colleague Ryan Higginbottom about “How to Ask Excellent Bible Study Discussion Questions.” This article summarizes a lot of important work about launching questions, observation questions, interpretive questions, and application questions.
7 Tips for Small Group Questions
We’ve provided lots of guidance on this blog for leading small groups. For another angle, consider this helpful post from Derek Fekkes with 7 tips for small group questions. His tips:
- Locate authority in God’s Word, not the facilitator
- Help the group discover what the text says for themselves
- Avoid questions that spark unhelpful theological debates
- Choose your rabbit trails wisely
- Don’t make questions too hard—or too easy
- Include some boilerplate questions
- Move questions beyond personal opinions & feelings
How to Find Answers in Your Bible Without Leaving the Page
This is a guest post by John Davison, the founder of Christian Wake-Up Call, a ministry dedicated to helping Christians develop biblical discernment. Having studied Scripture across multiple denominational contexts, he’s experienced how different interpretive approaches can lead to different conclusions about the same biblical texts. His systematic approach to Bible study emphasizes letting Scripture provide its own interpretive framework. You can read more about his commitment to biblical authority at Christian Wake-Up Call, where he explores why Scripture alone must serve as our ultimate authority for understanding God’s truth.
If you’d like to write a guest post for Knowable Word, please see the guidelines page.
I used to panic when I hit a confusing Bible verse. My instinct was to immediately grab a commentary or search online for explanations. But I discovered something liberating: most of the time, the Bible passage itself contains the clues I need to understand it.
The Bible was Written to Be Understood
Here’s an encouraging truth: biblical authors wrote to communicate, not to confuse. When Paul wrote to the Corinthians or when Luke recorded Jesus’ parables, they intended their original readers to understand their message. This means the clarity we need is often right there in the text itself.
The key is learning to slow down and look more carefully at what’s already on the page.
Start with What You Can See
When you encounter a difficult passage, resist the urge to immediately jump elsewhere. Instead, ask yourself: “What can I observe right here in this text?”
Look for the author’s own explanations. Biblical writers often define their terms or clarify their meaning within the same passage. For example, when Paul uses the word “flesh” in Romans 8, he explains what he means by contrasting it with “spirit” in the surrounding verses.
Notice repeated words and phrases. If an author uses the same word multiple times in a passage, that repetition is usually significant. The repeated word often carries the main theme or emphasizes what the author wants you to catch.
Pay attention to connecting words. Words like “therefore,” “because,” “but,” and “however” show you how the author’s thoughts flow together. These little words often unlock the logic of the entire passage.
Let the Immediate Context Guide You
The verses right before and after your difficult passage are your best friends. They provide the natural flow of thought that helps explain confusing statements.
When Jesus says something that seems puzzling, look at what prompted him to speak and how his listeners responded. When Paul makes a theological statement that’s hard to grasp, check if he provides examples or applications in the surrounding verses.
I remember struggling with Ephesians 2:8-9 about salvation by grace through faith, wondering exactly what “this” referred to in “this is not of yourselves.” Instead of immediately consulting a commentary, I read the entire paragraph. The flow of Paul’s argument in verses 1-10 made his meaning much clearer.
Ask Questions the Text Can Answer
Train yourself to ask questions that the passage itself might answer:
- Who is speaking, and who is the audience?
- What situation prompted these words?
- How does this statement connect to what came before?
- Does the author provide any examples or illustrations?
- What is the main point the author seems to be making?
Often, reading just a few more verses will answer these questions without requiring any outside resources.
Use Your Bible’s Built-In Helps
Most Bibles include helpful features that keep you focused on the text itself:
Chapter and paragraph divisions might show you natural thought units. When you’re confused about a verse, read the entire paragraph it belongs to.
The author’s own cross-references matter most. When Paul says “as I wrote before” or when Jesus refers back to Old Testament passages, those internal connections are significant.
Headings in study Bibles can help you see the broader flow of thought, though remember these are added by editors, not the original authors.
The Joy of Discovery
When you learn to find answers within the text itself, Bible study becomes much more satisfying. Instead of fostering dependence on experts, you develop confidence that God’s Word is accessible to you as an ordinary reader.
Start small. Pick a familiar passage that has always puzzled you slightly, and spend 10 minutes just observing what’s actually written on the page. You might be surprised by what you discover when you slow down and look carefully at what God has already provided in His Word.
The Bible was written for ordinary people like us. With careful observation and a little patience, we can often find the answers we’re looking for right there in the text itself.
Help Your Small Group Members Ask Good Questions
Greta Schölderle Møller (2016), public domain
Most of the small group Bible studies I’ve attended have a familiar format.
First, the group leader introduces the passage and asks someone to read it aloud. Then, either the leader talks about the passage, pointing out interesting or important details and connections, or the leader asks the group questions to spark discussion. Hopefully the conversation turns to application before it ends.
There’s nothing necessarily wrong with this structure. I’d much rather someone attend a Bible study like this than not be involved in any small group. But this model leaves group members mostly passive. Everything centers on the leader, and group members act as an audience. As a result, group members leave the group with more knowledge about one Bible passage but no greater Bible study skills.
There’s a better way.
Small Groups for Training
At this blog we’re passionate about helping ordinary people learn to study the Bible. This learning can happen in all sorts of venues, including small groups!
One way to make this happen is to design the group explicitly as a Bible study training group. In other words, advertise the group as one in which you’ll learn and practice Bible study skills. After all, learning the basics of Bible study doesn’t take long, and for those who are new to the custom, a group setting is a great way to practice.
Alternatively, you can build this training into the normal rhythms of your small group.
Training Along the Way
One key to good Bible study is learning to ask good questions of the text.
When observing the text, ask about the genre, the grammar, and the structure. When interpreting, ask questions about your observations; seek out the main point of the passage. And when applying, ask what this all means; press the main point of the passage into all the corners of your life.
In the course of a regular Bible study, a leader can train group members to get better at asking these kinds of questions. These are skills that members can then use in their personal Bible study.
De-center the Small Group
Small group discussions that revolve around the leader can have unintended consequences. I’m afraid that a byproduct of such groups is that group members rarely study the Bible outside of small group meetings.
We need to dispel the lie that Bible study is just for the experts. I’ve been in lots of small groups where everyone looked to the leader to answer all questions and resolve all difficulties. But everyone can study the Bible! Bible study is not a task to be left to the academics (and leaders) with everyone else picking up stray crumbs that drop from the table.
How to Train for Good Questions
Here are five ways to help your small group members grow in their OIA skills and ask better questions.
- Be transparent. Don’t hide what you’re doing—no one likes to be manipulated or to fall victim to a sneak attack. Explain why learning Bible study skills is important for everyone and describe what you’ll be doing.
- Teach mini-lessons. Decide on a few small group meetings where, as part of the conversation, you’ll offer brief instruction on one aspect of Bible study. The group can practice that particular skill immediately after the explanation. This way, group members can pick up OIA training over the course of several meetings.
- Use worksheets. We have some excellent worksheets available on our resources page. Make copies and pass them out with your instruction. Encourage your group members to use them for personal study.
- Leave space for questions. After you’ve had a chance to take your group through the different aspects of Bible study, involve your group more centrally in future discussions. Allow time during the conversation for observations and interpretive questions. Instead of asking application questions yourself, call on the group to produce them.
- Be imitable. If we’re doing it well, our group members should be able to imitate our teaching. That is, they should be able to arrive at the same conclusions we do. The key here is simply showing your work. Explain your process and your thinking. Minimize your appeals to experts and commentaries; focus on the text of the Bible and what you can draw from it.
Equipping the Saints
Leading a leader-centered small group can be nice for the ego, but it rarely builds skills in group members. It has no multiplying effect.
When you help your small group members learn Bible study skills, you equip them for a consistent, deeper relationship with God. They won’t rely on you to understand the Bible, they’ll be able to interpret and apply God’s word themselves.
And that’s something anyone would want to pass along!
Note: This post is a small attempt to restate portions of Peter’s excellent, earlier post.
This post was originally published in 2018.
Knowing Your People Helps You Ask Better Questions
Tegan Mierle (2016), public domain
One of the underused gems on this blog is Peter’s series on How to Lead a Bible Study. It’s thorough, practical, helpful, and winsome. If you haven’t read those articles, I recommend it.
Loving Your People
One dynamite entry in Peter’s series is One Vital Behavior Determines the Success of Your Teaching Ministry. In that post Peter writes about the importance of leaders loving their people. Leaders are called to this investment, and without love their teaching will be like a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
But what effect does this love have within a small group? Peter explains what happens when a leader gets to know the people within the group.
- It makes the leader’s application more relevant.
- It shows the people Christ.
- It sharpens the leader’s insight.
- It bolsters the leader’s credibility.
Yes, I can see it! When I am actively building relationships with my small group members, it makes me more effective as a leader and it conveys greater benefits to my friends during our meetings.
After a recent small group meeting, I was reflecting on one of my subpar questions. I came back to this point about knowing my people. Had I remembered the experiences and backgrounds of my friends, I would have asked better questions.
The Questions to Avoid
Knowing my friends helps me avoid certain questions. For example, if one of my small group members has a grown child who has turned away from Christ, I probably will not ask a launching question related to apostasy. Instead of warming this person up for participation in the discussion, it might have just the opposite effect.
There are other sorts of questions I might avoid if I know my friends’ backgrounds and personalities.
- When I know there is pain, bitterness, or sensitivity related to a certain issue, I won’t ask that person for a comment on an application related to that issue.
- If a group member has an issue about which they are outspoken and passionate, I will be careful when we discuss that topic. Having a person like this in the group also makes me careful about just how open-ended my questions are.
- Some people learn and grow more by listening and processing instead of speaking. Some people who are going through heavy or sad events in their lives benefit from attending a small group but not participating much. Knowing my people can help me recognize and respect this.
I’m not saying that small groups should avoid all difficult or sensitive topics. But some times are better than others for those discussions. My small group time is limited, so in my attempt to keep our meeting length reasonable—and, often, in an effort to respect and love a hurting friend—I’ll try to have some of those hard conversations outside of small group.
The Questions to Ask
As I’ve gotten to know my small group members, I realize just how much work God has done in their lives. And I want the rest of my group to know it too!
It is a great encouragement, especially to younger believers, to hear of testimonies to God’s goodness and faithfulness to his people. This can give boldness and practicality to application discussions within a small group.
- If a member of your small group has a history of beginning evangelistic conversations with friends, ask them to share an example when discussing application related to spreading the gospel. (It’s not a bad idea to warn/ask them ahead of time!)
- Suppose one of your application questions will emphasize the training/growth that’s necessary as a disciple of Jesus. If some of your small group members have a sports background, you could incorporate athletic training into a targeted launching question.
- Depending on the purpose of the group and the relationships within it, you could invite a friend to share a doubt or question about the Christian faith. If a member is weighed down by questioning their salvation and someone else in the group has wrestled with that same concern, this might be a valuable conversation to have as a group.
Closing
One of the great benefits of small group Bible studies is the interaction between group members. When a leader knows the people in the group, they can ask and avoid certain questions to make that interaction even more valuable.
This post was originally published in 2018.
Ask Honest Questions
CDC/Dawn Arlotta (2009), public domain
A teacher asks a question. And then, silence.
The students shift in their chairs; they squirm; they avoid eye contact. More silence. This question has jumped out of the nest, tried to flap its wings, and fallen to the ground with a thud.
Too many questions by teachers and leaders go unanswered. They’re often too vague, too personal, or unclear.
So what makes a good question? Specifically, how can a small group Bible study leader ask good questions?
The Job of a Small Group Leader
A small group leader should be a persistent and skilled question-asker. Good questions are the key to helping a group understand a Bible passage, encourage interaction, and apply the main point of the text.
I put a lot of energy into writing questions for my small group. It is difficult but essential work. My group’s engagement and discussion usually rises or falls with the quality of my questions.
I want to ask my group honest questions. In other words, I want to know how my friends are thinking about and processing the text. I’m not just looking for them to agree with me.
Far too often, I’ve simply wanted confirmation of my conclusions. Through my questions—or my posture or reactions—I communicated that I was looking for just one answer. And that stopped the discussion cold. No one likes to feel manipulated.
Humility
Asking honest questions requires a mega-dose of humility. It takes a work of God’s grace within the heart.
After all, as the group leader I put a lot of time into preparation. I pray, study the text, read commentaries, and work hard on my notes. I meditate on the passage for at least a week before we meet. It’s natural for me to approach my group with confidence in my conclusions.
But I can still be wrong! My study hours don’t guarantee infallibility. I may have missed the main point of the text.
Here’s the good news: My mistakes do not doom my group. After all, God’s truth doesn’t depend on me!
If I believe the Holy Spirit lives within each Christian in my group, and if I know he gives wisdom and understanding as he pleases, then I need to hold my conclusions with an open hand. I’m not an omniscient teacher; I need to approach my group as someone who still has much to learn.
I can help my friends look carefully at the text and ask for their understanding. I can continue to seek the meaning of the text myself. God can still teach his people the truth of his word.
Handling Disagreement
To be clear, I’m not advocating for a small group free-for-all. There is immense value in a leader’s preparation.
But we must acknowledge God as the ultimate authority. We submit to him in his word. We also submit to each other as the Spirit works and opens eyes. If I arrive at my small group convinced of one interpretation but my friend convinces me otherwise from the text, I should rejoice.
Asking honest questions means I must prepare for disagreement. I might be contradicted. Hopefully the atmosphere and the people in my group mean those discussions will be gentle and loving. But I need to prepare—my reaction to a dissenting opinion makes a huge difference.
By looking surprised or offended or dismissive, I may shut down my friend and even the rest of the group. But if I am curious and welcoming and humble, inviting my friends to observe and interpret the text honestly, I communicate how much I value them and trust the Spirit to lead his people.
For me the crucial question is: Will I trust in the Lord or in my preparation?
I’ve found it rare that a Bible study leader is wildly wrong. It’s more likely that input from the group add angles and nuance the leader didn’t see at first. (Greater diversity within the group will help with this.)
For Whose Glory?
What is the focus of your small group?
Are you hoping your friends will leave your meeting raving about your teaching? Or are you committed to helping your friends understand and apply the Bible at all costs, regardless of whom the Spirit chooses as his messenger?
Give yourself to serious, prayerful study and preparation. But then ask honest questions of your group, knowing that you may have as much to learn as they do.
This post was originally published in 2018.
3 Questions I Ask During Every Bible Study
Good questions are at the core of good Bible study planning. And the best questions are crafted to relate both to the text at hand and the people in the group.
However, there are some general questions I ask during just about every Bible study I lead. Sometimes I’ll modify these questions slightly, but mostly they can be used as is. These questions almost always help my group look closely at the Scriptures, work to understand its meaning, and draw out its implications.
What Do You Notice?
The people in my Bible study group know this question is aimed at observation. I’m not fishing for anything specific; I’m genuinely curious what they observed when this passage was read aloud.
With some planning, I can usually (though not always!) anticipate some answers to this question, directing the conversation to further observation or interpretation.
Alternate versions of this question: What jumped out at you? What are some important details in this text?
What’s the Flow of Thought?
To understand the author’s main point, we must determine what he is saying and how he is connecting his ideas. When the logic connecting one paragraph to another is obvious, I don’t need this question. But when the transition is more subtle, this question does wonders.
This question forces people to identify or remember the main points of the smaller units of thought and think about their connections. When we can link these ideas together and follow those connections through the passage, we’ll almost always be able to sniff out the main point.
Alternate versions of this question: How do these paragraphs connect? What’s the logical flow? Why does this paragraph come before/after this one?
How Can We Apply This?
After we have observed and interpreted, we want to apply the text of Scripture. We don’t want to look into this mirror and remain unchanged. We want to be hearers and doers of the word (James 1:22–25).
This is an open-the-door question, asked to see what work the Holy Spirit might be doing in the hearts of my Bible study friends. I try to have more pointed questions prepared in case this doesn’t draw any responses. But sometimes a generic question is all we need—the conviction or comfort a person needs may have already come to them powerfully, and this question kicks off a fruitful conversation aimed at genuine application.
Alternate versions of this question: What does this mean for us? How might we live differently because of this text?
Not My Only Questions
A Bible study leader’s plan cannot consist of only these questions. However, sometimes the best questions are the ones most likely to get people talking. We can take advantage of the interaction for which a Bible study group is designed when we make it easy for our friends to enter the discussion. And these three questions are a good start.
Why “What Does it Mean to Me?” is a Bad Question
Our method for Bible study can be summarized with just three letters—OIA—which represent three skills that govern all human communication: observe, interpret, and apply. Those three skills provide the answers to three basic questions:
- What does it say?
- What does it mean?
- How should I change?
Over the years, I’ve regularly heard well-meaning folks ask that third question—the question of application—in this way: What doest it mean to me?
That question has the benefits of rhythm and resonance. It flows right off the tongue to recite: “What does it say, what does it mean, what does it mean to me.” And that rhythm can certainly aid with memory.
However, the costs we pay in clarity and accuracy are not worth the gains of memorability, for at least four reasons.
It confuses application with interpretation.
By asking “what does it mean?” we are doing the work of interpretation. We are figuring out why the original author says what he says, and what that meant to the original audience. By using the same verbiage of “what does it mean,” despite the qualifier “to me,” we communicate that we are doing the same thing, only with a different audience in view.
Why does that matter? Who cares if we do (or communicate that we are doing) the same thing for different audiences? That leads me to the second reason that “what does it mean to me?” is a bad question.
It relativizes truth.
The question presumes that meaning is a matter of indifference. That a text’s meaning depends on who reads it. On how they perceive it. And so a text can mean one thing to one person or community, and another thing to a different group.
When we relativize the truth in this way, we ought not be surprised when the realities of Scripture are brought into question whenever they grow too inconvenient. For example, many who once stood for the Bible’s definition of marriage have come to interpret those pesky passages to have a different meaning, now that severe cultural pressure has been exerted.
And while I’m a fan of relativizing application, we must not do the same with interpretation. A passage doesn’t mean what any reader believes it means. A passage means what the author meant by it. For this reason, the concept of meaning carries much weight and is not something with which to tamper.
Wi to the intent to apply, it makes sense to ask “what does the text mean for me?” That question prods for implications and applications. But to ask what the text means to me is to tamper with its meaning.
You can choose to agree with the text or disagree with it. You can like it or dislike it. But you can’t change what it means. Do you see what I mean?
It makes application an exercise in self-fulfillment.
I recently wrote a thank-you note to a generous person who did something extraordinary for my family. In that note, I said, “it means so much to me that you…” That phrase, “what it means to me,” has a particular force and use in modern English, which has more to do with inspiration and delight than with truth or understanding.
The average person in today’s Western world, hearing the question “what does that mean to you?” doesn’t naturally hear a challenge or stimulation toward life change. That person hears an expression of self-fulfillment.
And self-fulfillment is not always a bad thing (as long as it’s not a godless or ultimate thing). I hope many people find great satisfaction and delight in their study of God’s word. But such satisfaction and delight is not the same thing as robust application.
It predisposes application to only one direction.
By asking “what does it mean to me,” we communicate momentum from the text to the individual reading it. Perhaps unintentionally, this frames what is happening as something that terminates on the reader. Therefore, even if the question itself is understood as one of application and not interpretation, it sets the reader up for inward application alone. The reader is not likely to consider outward application as well.
And since many of us are already naturally inclined to forget application’s second direction, we don’t need to reinforce the inclination with the way we frame the question.
Conclusion
For these reasons, we have never recommended “what does it mean to me” as a way to summarize the application step. We prefer to ask “How should I change?”
That doesn’t mean I’ll start flipping tables if I’m in your Bible study and you ask “What does this text mean to you?” I promise I’ll do my best to be polite. But I’ll also do my best to reframe the resulting discussion in a more useful way.
A Check-Engine Light for My Small Group Preparation
Preparing for a Bible study meeting can take a lot of energy. But the amount of time it takes can vary from passage to passage and leader to leader.
Since we can always put in more time to read, pray, and think, how do we know when we’re done? How can we tell when the study is ready?
I’m not sure there’s a universal answer to that question. However, I think there are indicators that show up when we haven’t prepared enough. In this article, I’ll share one of my indicators in the hope that it might help others to discover theirs.
The Relationship Between Preparation and Explanation
My small group preparation falls into two phases. First I study the passage; then, I think through the discussion about the passage I hope to have with my small group.
If my preparation time is shortened in any given week, it’s likely the second phase that suffers. And while I’m seldom conscious of how much focused time I’m spending on my study, I have identified a helpful litmus test for under-preparation.
For me, there’s an inverse relationship between my preparation time and how much talking I do during the Bible study meeting. The less prepared I am, the more I talk, and the more prepared I am, the less I talk.
Perhaps this is surprising. After all, if I’m more prepared, wouldn’t I have more to say?
Drawing on the Strength of Small Groups
Let’s not forget, the chief advantage of a Bible study is interaction. The discussion and conversation we have as a group can turbo-charge our engagement with a passage of Scripture.
Therefore, as a leader, I prepare with the goal of interaction. I try my best to write questions to draw my friends into the Bible and help them see what I have seen.
The less prepared I am, the less time I’ve likely had to spend on my questions. So, my explanations take the place of discovery and learning among my group members. I’m serving my friends a filet instead of helping them wrestle the fish into the boat.
It’s often the interpretation phase of Bible study that gets short-circuited. In my head, I know the interpretive dots must be connected, so I connect the dots myself instead of posing the questions that help my friends draw the line between points A and B.
The result is not always a disaster. Some people in my group might not even notice. But I can tell, and our application never seems quite as sharp when we haven’t arrived together at the author’s main point.
A Light of Your Own
Talking too much—trying to give too many explanations myself—is my check-engine light. It tells me that I didn’t spend enough time on the right things as I got ready for my small group. For future meetings, I’ll need to carve out focused time to plan for the small group discussion. (For those with similar struggles to me, you might find this question-writing worksheet helpful. I still do!)
Your indicator light might be different from mine. One way to make progress thinking through your own leadership is to meet with a trusted friend from the group after the Bible study. Specific, loving feedback can go a long way toward helping you grow.
Bible Study Leader Tip #33: Let the Spirit Lead
Back in college I led a number of Bible Studies, each very well-intentioned and some even mildly well-done. One of the biggest struggles I had, however, was that I led the studies as though I were the one on whom everything depended.
Dumb.
Here are three suggestions for how to be smarter than I was by letting the Spirit lead:
Suggestion #1: Pray
You’d think this would be obvious, but I neglected it often. Rather than acknowledging on my knees that I was a Bible Study leader in desperate need of grace, I’d spend hours preparing, I’d use free time for recruiting and I’d survey people afterwards for feedback. Notice the repeated word? I…
Dumb.
Did I author these verses…?
For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
(Isaiah 55:10-11 ESV)
Nope. The Spirit did (2 Peter 1:20-21). So pray, then let Him lead.
Suggestion #2: Be satisfied with who shows up
I remember one time a guy I’d been inviting to come to the study for weeks finally showed up. In fact, he was the only one who came that night. Know what I did? I canceled it.
He never came back.
Dumb.
If only one or a handful of people show up to your study, take full advantage of the dynamics and relational opportunities that avail themselves to small groups. Don’t assume that a group of 5 or 13 or 20 will mean that you’re godlier somehow or that you’ve arrived. Jesus had a Bible study of 5000+, but not many of them panned out.
And don’t forget the corollary to this suggestion: Be satisfied with who doesn’t show up – even if you’ve been inviting them for months or years. If the Spirit is leading, He’ll bring just who He wants just when He wants them.
Suggestion #3: Throw out the script
I used to spend a ton of time trying to come up with just the right sequences of questions to help those in my study really “get” the Bible. Yet without fail, by the time I got about two questions in, someone would make a comment or ask a question that steered me off my “script”. I’d usually end up frustrated and/or staring like a deer in headlights as I tried to come up with a way to get the study back on my agenda.
Dumb.
If the Spirit is working in the hearts of those who come, you needn’t rely on your perfect planning. Yes, you should lead them through the basics of observation, interpretation and application, but the specifics of what that looks like needn’t be precisely pre-planned. After all, the Spirit has already been working to “convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.” (John 16:8 ESV). You’re basically just along for the ride.
One sure-fire way to see what the Spirit is revealing to the group after reading the text is to ask the simple question, “What stood out to you?” You might assume it would be verse 2, but someone says, “Wow… verse 4 is amazing… I never realized that God loved me that much…” In those moments, you’ll be delighted that you weren’t the One “leading”.
Your turn: what other suggestions would you give in regard to letting the Spirit lead?
