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How to Teach the Bible

Transcript - HR202 How to Teach the Bible © 2019 Our Daily Bread University. All rights reserved.

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LESSON 02 of 04HR202

Preparing Your Bible Passage to Teach

How to Teach the Bible

What Is a Bible Teacher?

Bible teachers fill various roles. Seminary professors with PhDs teach the Bible to pastors in classroom settings. Church pastors teach the Bible in their sermons. Like their professors, many pastors have extensive libraries that help them understand the Bible before they try to teach it to others.

This course on teaching the Bible isn’t designed for seminary professors and pastors but for people who are committed to faithfully teach the Bible in Sunday school and small-group Bible studies, in homes, offices, colleges and high school clubs, as well as a number of other settings. Even though many of these teachers may have little or no formal Bible training, they can still help others learn and live by what the Bible teaches.

Whether we teach the Bible in a seminary or a Sunday school class, our teaching must begin with our own study of the Bible passage we intend to teach. So before we talk more in our course on how to teach a Bible passage to others, this lesson helps us learn how to teach a Bible passage to ourselves. We can only teach what we know; and this lesson focuses on how to better understand the Bible passages we want to teach.

The Bible Teacher’s Toolbox

Because the books of the Bible were written in ancient historical eras, cultures, and languages that are vastly different from our twenty-first century cultures and languages, we have a number of hurdles to cross before we can understand a Bible passage well enough to teach it to others. We must have some help when we attempt to study, interpret, and apply a Bible passage. Although very few of us can afford, or would ever use, all the books pastors have in their libraries, we do need some essential tools to help us

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understand the Bible passages we want to teach.

That does not imply that no one can benefit from reading the Bible without buying or gaining access to some Bible-study tools. But there is a difference between a devotional reading of a Bible passage and preparing a lesson on that passage.

There are some essential tools we need to help us prepare a lesson on a Bible passage. You should consider purchasing them in the order listed below if you are unable to buy them all at one time. Most church libraries will have these books, so even if you don’t own them they might be available to help you prepare your Bible lessons. The basic tools include the following:

• A good Bible translation. Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart, in How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, provide a thorough discussion of various English Bible translations. They recommend the New International Version (2011) first of all. They also believe the Good News Bible (1992), the Christian Standard Bible (2003), and the New American Bible (1970) are especially good.

• A Study Bible with introductory notes, cross-reference notes, footnotes, and brief explanations of some difficult passages and concepts is invaluable. The NIV or NASB Study Bibles published by Zondervan are widely used.

• A Bible commentary. There are a number of single-volume commentaries on the whole Bible. The Believer’s Bible Commentary (Thomas Nelson, publishers), the New Illustrated Bible Commentary (Thomas Nelson), and the Holman Illustrated Bible Commentary (Holman Reference, publisher). The two-volume Expositor’s Bible Commentary goes a bit deeper into most passages’ meanings than a single-volume commentary. There are both Old and New Testament commentaries based on the NIV translation as well.

• A Concordance. This tool lists all the places where a word is used in the Bible and is an essential tool for the kind of study needed to prepare a passage for teaching. You may find it helpful to select a Bible translation first and then get a concordance to match that translation. For instance, if you use the NIV Bible translation, you can get the NIV Study Bible and the NIV Exhaustive



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Concordance as an integrated set of tools. A Study Bible has a concordance, but an unabridged concordance will serve you more fully.

• A Bible Atlas will help you locate cities and regions mentioned in the passage you are preparing. If you type “Bible Atlas” into your computer’s search engine, you will find a variety of price ranges and descriptions. Since most Bibles contain maps, this is a place to conserve if you have budget constraints.

• A Bible Handbook summarizes a great deal of information on the background of the Bible books and many topics you will need additional information on when you prepare your lesson. Halley’s Bible Handbook is the standard volume, but you can search online for others.

Studying a Bible Passage

Repeated Reading

The first step in lesson preparation is to saturate our minds and hearts with the passage we plan to teach by reading it multiple times. Five or six readings will help you begin to see its main ideas and outline. It helps to make the first two or three readings meditational and prayerful, asking God to minister to you through these readings. Until God reveals His deeper wisdom in a Bible passage to the teacher, there is no way the teacher can lead students to that same Spirit-guided truth. Then in your next few readings you will begin to consciously look for the passage’s main idea and outline. You should be open to the Spirit’s teaching and should always be mentally alert in any reading of a Bible passage, but different readings can focus on different emphases.

Complete a Systematic Study of Your Passage

Systematic Bible study includes the three steps of observation, interpretation, and application, which should be conducted in that order. First, we observe the passage’s details. Then, we synthesize our observations and state the passage’s interpretation with a one- or two-sentence statement of what the passage means. Third, we



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identify ways to apply the passage to life stating what the passage says we should “do.” James 1:22 warns us to be “doers” of God’s Word and not just hearers.

The Observation Step of Bible Study

Before we can interpret what a Bible passage means, we have to carefully observe what the passage actually says. We need to take time to observe the details of both the book that contains the passage and the passage itself.

First, we complete a macro study of a Bible book.

There are two phases in the observation step of systematic Bible study: a macro-observation and a micro-observation. Before we delve into the details of a passage (a micro-observation), it’s essential to discover how the passage we want to study fits into the Bible book where the passage is found. We identify the passage’s context by doing a macro study of the book where the passage is located.

When we do a macro-observation study of a whole Bible book, we are seeking the answers to six observational questions:

WHO wrote this book? WHO was the book written to? And what was the relationship between the writer and the original reader(s)?

WHAT is the book’s major theme or themes?

HOW is the book’s content organized? What is its outline? How does our passage fit into the book?

WHERE was the book’s writer and its recipient(s)?

WHEN was the book written?

WHY was the book written? What was its intended purpose?

We emphasize the word book in each question because as we read the book it’s easy to become fascinated with the details of certain passages and lose sight of our first task. We can’t accurately study any single text in a book until these larger questions about the whole book are answered. So we resist the temptation to stop and



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sample specific portions of a Bible book before we have finished the important macro-observation step.

Many of these questions will be answered in the Bible book itself, and that’s a great place to start our macro study. In the shorter Bible books, it’s a good idea to read the whole book over a number of times before studying a single passage in the book. Books like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Genesis, and some others take a while to read, but if time permits, this is an extremely helpful step.

In our macro-observation step of Bible study, we will need our Bible-study tools to find the answers to many of our questions. But whether we find the answers in the biblical text or in our study tools, it is essential that we answer the macro questions before we try to understand a passage in the book.

Second, we do a micro-observation of passages in the book.

After applying macro-observation to the Bible book where our passage is found to garner essential background information, we focus on our passage and complete a micro-observation. We use the same six observation questions of who, what, where, when, how, and why when we apply the micro-observation step to the passage. But instead of finding our answers in relation to the whole Bible book, we ask them of the specific passage we are studying in that book.

To answer the “who” question in our micro study, we list all persons named or implied in the passage. We also identify who each pronoun (he, her, you, them, etc.) refers to. Then we use our Bible-study tools to help us describe the characters in one or two sentences each.

Under “what,” we first name the verbs that describe what characters are doing or are told to do or not do. Then we list any objects or animals named in the passage, define or describe them, and explain their role in the passage.

To answer “where,” we list and describe the significance of any geographical places named in the passage. Include any countries, regions, cities, buildings, or other locations named.

We also state “where” in the book (beginning, end, transition point, etc.) the verse, chapter, paragraph, or paragraphs we’re



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studying occur(s) and describe what significance its location has, if any. We use the book’s outline to find in the Study Bible or commentary where the passage is located in the book’s structure and how it fits into the writer’s flow of ideas.

Under “when,” we list any year, month, time of day, holiday, or feast day listed and describe its significance. We also state the timing of events in the lives of individuals: early, middle, late, after their death, etc.

Under “how,” we examine explanations found in the passage about how we should do things. Or we can list questions that arise in our own mind that may require further study. When we teach this passage, our students may raise these questions, and we serve them well if we have already found the answers.

Under “why,” we identify and examine reasons given for why things happened or should happen. We can also ask why this specific statement or story or passage was included in the book. What did God intend for us to understand by writing these words?

The Interpretation Step of Bible Study

After we have thoroughly observed our passage and have a clear picture of its details, we state the passage’s interpretation or what it means. To do this, we summarize the passage’s meaning or idea and state it in one or two sentences. Then we state and explain what the passage contributes to the book’s theme or purpose. Our Study Bible and commentary will help with this crucial step. Stating a passage’s interpretation sometimes takes some deep thought and prayer and multiple reviews of the macro- and micro-observations we have written down. But we cannot eliminate this essential middle step in our study.

The Application Step of Bible Study

Next we prayerfully consider how to apply this passage to our daily lives. Sometimes there are suggestions or commands in the passage itself that we must not miss. But the passage may address relevant circumstances in our lives or culture that didn’t exist in the writer’s. Although we can add additional applications that aren’t specifically named in the passage, we must be very careful that there is a legitimate connection between what the passage



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teaches and the application we suggest.

So before we are ready to construct a lesson to help us teach a Bible passage, we must diligently study it by using the three steps of observation, interpretation, and application and doing so in that order.

More Help for Preparing Lesson Content

This very brief introduction on how to study a Bible passage is only that. It is an introduction to teaching the Bible. But rather than repeat information that is already available in other courses offered at ChristianUniversity.org that teach Bible-study skills, I want to emphasize how important it is that you take those additional courses. They will help you develop Bible-study skills to a much greater capacity than this single lesson is designed to do.

As you consider teaching the Bible, there are three focuses of study that will help prepare you to teach the Bible well. First, your Bible-study skill will help you gain an in-depth and personal understanding of the Bible that reading commentaries alone cannot accomplish. They are essential tools, but they can never replace the personal feel we have for a passage that only comes from our own investigation of the passage.

Second, it is important to be well versed in the whole Bible. The more we learn about the Bible, the richer our teaching will be when we teach any passage in the Bible.

And third, learning some basic principles on how to teach will make our teaching sessions more interesting and profitable.

There are two courses available at ChristianUniversity.org to help you develop your Bible-study practices.

• Bible Study Basics

• He Gave Us the Scripture: Foundations of Interpretation

To learn more about the content and background of the Bible, you can complete one of ChristianUniversity.org’s many Bible courses.


Christ-Centered Learning — Anytime, Anywhere

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For overview surveys:

• Bible Basics

• Old Testament Basics

• New Testament Basics

For more advanced Bible studies:

• Biblical Hermeneutics is a more in-depth course on how to study the Bible.

• Old Testament Survey and New Testament Survey are composed of twelve courses each that offer in-depth studies of the entire Bible.

Conclusion

Because the Bible is God’s Word, we must treat it with the greatest respect when we teach it. But because it is an ancient book written in other languages to people in other cultures and historical settings, it is sometimes difficult to clearly understand what a passage is teaching. So in order to be effective Bible teachers, we must first be effective Bible students. v

each the biblet o how t how to teach the bible hr202 lesson · news bible (1992), the christian...

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