Bible Studies - Learn from The Bible

Why include discussion in a Bible study, small group, or Sunday School class? Why not just lecture, or watch a great preacher or teacher on DVD, then call it quits for the day?

Discussion is an essential part of every Bible study or teaching time for six important reasons:

1. Discussion keeps people attentive. It’s easy for listening to become a passive activity. If a class is composed of pure lecture (including DVDs or videos), people can tune out at any time. Discussion encourages people to listen actively because they don’t know when you might ask a question and request their input on the topic at hand.

2. Discussion lets people actively participate. People want to be involved. Discussion opens the floor to let people share their wisdom, talk about themselves and their experiences, and help others.

3. Discussion helps people make principles their own. By talking about a topic, discussion helps people make the movement from hearing facts (head knowledge), to understanding truth (heart knowledge).

4. Discussion brings additional insights. Teachers are not magically gifted with all knowledge. The participants in the group or class will often be able to add examples, insights, and encouragement that the teacher simply doesn’t possess. By giving people a chance to speak, leaders allow God to get across everything he might want to say.

5. Discussion keeps balance in the group. Sometimes people are tempted to put a teacher or leader on a pedestal as “the keeper of all knowledge.” Discussion helps level the playing field: by inviting discussion, leaders affirm that they are also students of the Word, and that each person can learn from everyone else.

6. Discussion fosters relationships among members. When people talk and share, they build bridges between one another. Especially in a small group setting, discussion is critical for developing true relationships with one another.

© 2008 Paula Marolewski

You have my permission to reprint and distribute this article as long as it is distributed in its entirety, including all links and copyright information. This article is not to be sold or included with anything that is sold.

Glenn

It is not applicable only with the Bible. In fact holy epics in every religion have certain difficulties and these are parts of original text. It may be true that entire holy scriptures are perfectly inerrant but it can be adhered only with the original writings. Though, all of us claim to have the holy copies on our bookshelf but those are just duplicate copies and all those have ample chances of spelling errors, repetition, omission and many more.

King James Version of the Bible is one of the most popular versions of Bible but it is translated version and hence we find here some errors as well. Language is really the biggest one problem. The prime reason is differences between writing style of ancient Hebrews and modern man. For instance; ancient Hebrew have used only capital letters, did not use vowel and words are not separated from each other. So, the word structure is like jumbled puzzle and quite tough to unlock.

Translation of idiomatic expressions is quite tricky. Sometimes, exact translation might not be possible and its representation in speech pattern may convey bit differ messages.

Difficulties in the interpretation of Bible do not end here. Hebrews have used alphabets instead of numbers. So, sometimes words suggest numerical meaning and it becomes a riddle for us. Apart from all these difficulties, there is an interesting fact that most of the copyist’ errors do not affect original messages of the Bible.

The Hebrew of the Old Testament and the Greek of the New Testament uses hundreds of different figures of speech which are quite tough to identify. Somehow, if it could be possible to recognize then it does not be possible to covey full meaning in other language.

For instance: “Hitting the bull’s eye” is a very common term in English but the literally translation in other language leaves funny meaning.

A non English speaker translator may use “God’s sheep’s child” for the term “the lamb of God”. Uses of the word like “sister” for lover in songs of Solomon 4:9 is simply the mistake of translator because in Hebrew there are a many identical words which have different meaning and the word sister is just a sample.

Carl

When I taught a class on how to lead Bible studies and teach in a group, the biggest push-back I received was when I promoted writing out - in full - your lesson for the week. People objected that writing out a lesson would squelch the Spirit of God and would make the lesson mechanical.

After having led adult Sunday School classes and small group Bible studies for over fifteen years, I disagree. Instead, I have found that thorough preparation - including writing out as completely as possible everything you want to say - brings only benefits to the group or class you are leading. And that holds true regardless of whether the class is more lecture-oriented or more discussion-oriented. Here are three areas that benefit significantly from taking the time to write out your lesson:

1. Content

Writing helps you focus your lesson and achieve your goals. It requires you to define your main point and decide how to explain it, support it, illustrate it, and apply it.

Writing out your lesson ensures that you have enough content to fill the allotted time. You won’t have to suffer the embarrassment of being done with your material and still have 15 minutes of dead time to fill, nor will you find that the bell has rung and you have 15 minutes of material still to cover.

Teaching is about expounding on points, not just stating points. It’s one thing to say “God calls us to forgive others.” It’s another to talk about the reasons we resist forgiving others, the process of forgiveness, and the benefits of forgiveness. When you write out your lesson, you can carefully develop all aspects of your main focus.

Since you know the points you want to cover when you write out your lesson, you can also prepare effective handouts and note-taking sheets to help the participants engage with the material and remember it.

2. Presentation

By writing out your lesson, you can learn how to pace yourself. You will see in black-and-white where you are spending most of your time, and what points need to be strengthened.

You will not find yourself groping for words, forgetting your points or sub-points, or faltering to make transitions between sections.

If you find that some portion of your lesson has taken longer than you planned and you are running short on time, a written lesson will help you evaluate faster what to eliminate and still achieve your goals for the session since you can literally scan the remainder of your content in a few seconds.

3. Discussion

Written lessons help you determine where to intersperse discussion to keep people involved and engaged.

By writing your lessons out, you are also able to guide discussion more effectively. Instead of asking “What do you think? Does anyone have any input?” - which can open the door to absolutely anything - you can ask targeted, well-crafted questions that lead the discussion in order to support the focus and goal of your class.

When you develop a written lesson, you are more likely to realize ahead of time where people might have questions - and prepare for them.

A written lesson will also help you recognize and derail tangents as soon as they happen - whether it’s you who are tempted to go off on a rabbit trail, or whether someone else is veering off during a discussion time.

When you consider the benefits, the time and effort it takes to write out a lesson becomes an investment that you can’t afford to be without. Rather than squelching the Spirit of God, God is able to move more powerfully in the hearts, minds, and lives of others because of your thorough preparation. And rather than make the lesson mechanical, your preparation sets you free to be at ease during the class - to lead and teach with confidence.  

© 2008 Paula Marolewski

You have my permission to reprint and distribute this article as long as it is distributed in its entirety, including all links and copyright information. This article is not to be sold or included with anything that is sold.

Madeleine