Robin Barfield writes in Evangelicals Now:
“What is your ideal Bible study? It may be one where your young people give you all the correct answers, quietly nodding as you dispense wisdom, and you get through all the questions you had prepared. I want to suggest that this may be the worst possible study!”[1]
As it happens, it isn’t my ideal form of Bible study. It is possibly true that for some people this is the norm and I’ve at times observed that people come into the kind of bible study I tend to encourage and struggle a bit because they have been used to this kind of thing which leads to a feeling that you have to be spoon fed.
Barfield is right to argue that
“When we open Scripture with them, it is worship! It is not a textual exercise like a high school study of Shakespeare.”
Though I think it is helpful for us not to presume we have a helicopter so I’d be cautious about pronouncing
“ that is what we so often make them.
You see it is worth remembering that often the unhelpful extreme we find people going to is a reaction to something else and at the other end of the spectrum are those kinds of studies that sit loosely to the text and encourage the group to discuss questions like “how do you think x felt”, or questions that encourage the group to identify answers which may fit with a general understanding of Scripture but do not necessarily arise out of the text in front of them. I’ve been in all three kinds of study. If I have a personal pet hurt, it is one related to the second where the text becomes the stepping off point for a Bible safari with lots and lots of different Scriptures turned up to back up the point that the leader wishes to make.
Robin points us to a Bible study method known as The Swedish Bible Study method. This approach encourages the group to read the passage and annotate with lightbulbs to show those things that stand out for them, question marks concerning things that are difficult to understand and arrows to show personal application. These are shared with the group.
There are, some things to like about this method. First, it does get the group reading the text and hopefully that will encourage them to look at what it actually is saying rather than what they have been led to assume it says. I think we have to be a little bit careful though to ensure we provide for those who struggle with reading. Secondly, it gets them to ask questions and to discuss what they struggle with. I would want to develop this to include not just difficult to understand but difficult to accept. Finally, it gets them to think in terms of application.
However, I think the method as explained in most places I’ve seen it falls short. You see, it gets us to pick up on things we find interesting but it doesn’t get to the heart of what the passage is about and that risks encouraging people to follow the habit that sometimes comes up in sermons too where we meander through the passage missing its main theme and big application.
And that might be where I part company a little with Barfield, if I’ve understood him correctly. To be sure, as a Bible study leader, you are not there to be the sage who has the answer for everything and your success is not determined by whether people hear your wisdom and manage to give the answers in your head. Your job though is to teach people God’s Word and that means bringing them into the encounter where they hear God speak to them through Scripture.
This means that your role is a bit more than facilitating a discussion. There are things that you should know because if the aim is to explore the passage then you are there as the guide to show them around. That means helping them to discover the structure and flow of the passage, whether that’s a narrative flow or logical flow. It means helping them with things like how a literary genre works or words and syntax function. It includes helping them to get context. It also means that as that happens, you do want to help them get to the point where they are not just picking up on ideas that strike them but rather they are picking up on the specific thing that the passage has to say.
It’s not a good study if we get through with the right answers given and our wisdom dispensed. Nor though is it necessarily a good study if people have asked lots of questions and processed things, though it may be. You see, what makes it good is not what happens in it but the outcome from it.
If you want to know if a Bible study was any good, then as with a sermon or a pastoral conversation check in later to see what difference it made in the person’s life. It is possible to do all the shoddy stuff described at the start and yet through God’s grace be able to see that it did make a difference because the people did encounter God in his Word.
What is the worst Bibe study? Well I would suggest that it is one where God’s Word was never allowed to disagree with the group, so that God was not clearly heard and where it made no difference in their lives.
[1] How to run the worst possible Bible study | Evangelicals Now
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