There are various types of tricky passage we can encounter when studying the Bible. There’s the densely theological (I’m looking at you, Paul!), the over-familiar, and the long-and-confusing. We’ll look at the densely theological another time, but today I thought I’d give you some ways in to the other two types. (If there’s another type that you’ve come across, let me know in the comments!)
The over-familiar
I’m thinking here of things like parables and some of the Old Testament stories that you may have known since childhood.
It’s easy to read through these without really noticing the words at all. Then you realise you’re meant to be leading a group through a study on it (or just learning from it yourself), and think, ‘Where do I even start?!’
A helpful tip I’ve had for parables, particularly, is to try to picture the scene when Jesus was saying this for the first time. Where was he? What types of people were listening? What prompted him to give this picture-story? How do you think the original hearers might have reacted? Don’t forget, the Pharisees would have had a different reaction to the ordinary people; the rich would have felt it differently to the poor; the Jews’ responses would have been different to the gentiles’ etc.
Look at the context of the parable in the Gospel, too – is it with a group of others that, when taken together, build a fuller picture? Why, out of all the things Jesus did, did the writer choose to include this for all people everywhere to read? Why did he put it in this particular place (not everything in every Gospel is in strict chronological order)?
For Old Testament stories, you can do most of the above, but add in thinking about how the story points to Jesus. Where do we see foreshadowings of him, or our need of him?
For application, think about:
– What does it tell us about God? Use your answer in your prayer response.
– What do you need to do in response? Try to be specific – what will this change today, or this week? Do I need to repent of something that God is reminding me of through this?
The ‘long-and-confusing’ passage
In church at the moment we are studying the Minor Prophets – one per week. This means that in Home Group we’ve had books of up to 14 chapters to try to get our heads around! We (group leaders) have been given some study notes, which are helpful in giving the context of the book, and usually a big-picture outline, but then they just pick small portions, usually the bits many people are familiar with, and just talk about them. I have wanted to take this opportunity to try to develop our Bible study skills as a group, and get to know the books a bit better, by discovering them for ourselves.
It has been a really fun exercise so far (and I think most of the group agree!). I have developed this week’s attachment as a basis for each week’s study. It has some standard questions that I use each time, but then I usually try to add in something more tailored to each study.
Preparation
I read through the book a couple of times (or read the notes for the longer books!) and divide it up into sections so each group member has a manageable chunk to look at (no more than 1 side of A4). Sometimes this will cover the whole book, other times just a particularly significant portion (guided by the handouts we were given). I print out the sections on separate sheets, partly so that we’re all using the same Bible version, and partly so people can write on the sheets, highlight things etc, which they might not want to do in their own Bibles. It is also partly so that people with Study Bibles don’t go too quickly to the notes, but have time to think about anything they don’t understand and try to figure it out with their brains first.
In the study
We start by looking at the context of the book, and getting our heads around who it was written to and what was happening around them at the time (with the help of an Old Testament timeline that I found online, but now can’t find again!).
Then I set a timer and for 12 minutes we each read through our own section and answer as many of the questions on it as we can. Twelve minutes seems to be about the right length of time for most people. I never get finished, but some are twiddling their thumbs, so that’s the length we’ve settled on!
We then share what we’ve discovered. Each person starts with giving a summary of their section, so between us we get a good sense of the general shape of the whole book. That alone has been really helpful – for instance, I now know that Micah has a few chapters of doom and gloom, but then a positive one in the middle!
A couple of times I have tailored questions to the book we were on. For example, the sermon about Micah had included the very well-known verse:
He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:8, NIV)
As I prepared the study I noticed that injustice and pride came up a lot in the other chapters, so I had everyone look out for examples of justice/injustice, mercy/mercilessness and humility/pride in their sections. I didn’t explain it very well, and in hindsight, should have got them to mark each instance in some way, so it wasn’t very successful on this occasion, but I think if you learn from my mistakes it could be a very fruitful thing to do. When you highlight all the ways Israel was acting without justice, mercy and humility, that verse has much more impact.
I’m also trying to help us notice themes and phrases that we recognise from other places in the Bible. My reading in last week’s study, in Joel, included God telling the nations to “beat [their] ploughshares into swords and [their] pruning hooks into spears” (Joel 3:10). ‘Hang on a minute,’ I thought, ‘Isn’t that meant to be the other way round?’ So I looked it up. The reverse comes in Isaiah 2:4.
He will judge between the nations
and will settle disputes for many peoples.
They will beat their swords into ploughshares
and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
nor will they train for war any more.
There the prophecy is about ‘the last days’, when God’s people will no longer have to turn their tools into weapons, but instead can turn weapons into tools. It is clearly not a coincidence that the exact same wording is used by these two different prophets. God intended us to notice, and I never had until last week.
In short, I’m finding these few simple questions a really helpful tool for approaching what can be quite daunting books.Download the sheet here, and let me know in the comments if you find it helpful for whatever you’re studying at the moment. I really hope you do.
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This post is part of a series of ideas for how to get started with studying the Bible either for yourself or as a small group leader. Follow this link to find the other posts in the series.
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