If you’re part of a church, you are likely part of a Bible study group within that church. Home Group, Life Group, Small Group… call it what you will, hopefully you are getting regular opportunities to study God’s word together. (If not, why not join one, or start your own if none are available!)
Most of the time, the study outline will be provided for you, either because you’re using an external study guide, or because someone on the church staff has written questions. If your experience is anything like mine, you may find that you’re saying what you know the question-writer wants, but feel like you’ve come away without really having got to know God’s word better – let alone grown in your relationship with him.
But without spending years at Bible College, is it even possible to actually study God’s word for yourself?
The excitement of discovery
The good news is, it is! Having read Jen Wilkin’s Women of the Word and been inspired by my mum studying with a lady from her church, I decided to have a go. I found a small group of girls at my church, who were similarly hungry not just to answer someone else’s questions, but to discover the texts for themselves, got permission from the church leadership, and just started.
We had a brilliant time. We looked at half of Exodus, then at the beginnings of the four Gospels. We discovered that although it’s short, 1 John really isn’t something you can get to grips with in three sessions, and then we hit on Haggai.
We enjoyed it so much, and found it so fruitful that I developed in into a study format that I can lead as a day or weekend group exploration study. I’ve led it a few times, now, and groups always have lots of fun with it. I’m about to lead it again at my current church, as the women I did it with there enjoyed it so much, there’s demand for a second run!
This excitement at discovering that studying God’s word is both possible for ‘amateurs’ and a lot of fun has inspired me to try out some other things in my Home Group. (We are given materials by the pastor, but are also given the freedom to adapt/modify/abandon them if they’re not meeting our group’s needs.)
I’ve also developed some study materials for use by individuals, that I was commissioned to do for a study programme. Some of these would work in small groups, too, with a bit of adaptation.
You can do it, too
I thought it might be helpful to share some ideas here, so I’ll post a few over the next few Mondays. I hope you will find them helpful, either for your own study or for leading a small group. Feel free to adapt them, print them for your group, or – even better – let them spark your own ideas.
Most of what I have come up with was inspired by Jen Wilkin, both in her Women of the Word book, and through her Bible study guides (like this one on Hebrews and this on 1, 2 and 3 John). Check out the Women of the Word podcast, too, in which she talks in more detail about a range of aspects of Bible study.
Dig Deeper, by Nigel Beynon and Andrew Sach, is also really helpful. It has a chapter on each of 16 ‘tools’ you can use to help you…err… dig deeper into God’s word. I’ll be sharing some of them in a couple of weeks.
[NB Some of the links above are Affiliate Links, meaning if you buy something after clicking through from them, I get a small amount of money – at no cost to you.]
To get you going, here is a sheet inspired by some of Jen Wilkin’s teaching, that will help you make a start on studying any Bible passage. I used it in all the studies mentioned above, and found it really helpful for understanding the context the books were written in. Enjoy!
—–
PS All these resources are absolutely free, but if you find them useful, consider making a small donation through my Ko-fi page. Thank you!
PPS If you receive my post updates by email, I hope you haven’t had a new message with each update. My apologies if you have – I’ll stop fiddling now!
on May 5th at 9:46 am
Jennie, you are such an enabler. Thank you.
on May 5th at 12:00 pm
Thank you, Brian!