Part 2: Bible Studies for the Hungry Christian

A course of study for turning students into teachers

Overview

Most Sunday School or small group studies wind up being an aimless meandering from one topic to another without regard for accomplishing what Bible study is meant to do: cause spiritual growth. Once we get past salvation and Christian behavior we don't seem to know what to do with the rest of our lives. The leader of the study group typically just happens to come across an interesting book to discuss, or the church lays down a riid structure to be followed regardless of the makeup of the individuals in the group.

This is hardly what Jesus and the first disciples modeled. He had only about three years with primarily a group of twelve, but the lessons were done in "real time": Jesus lived and breathed what He was teaching. We can't always spend 24/7 with our small groups, but we can certainly make better use of the time we have. What we need is something more than just waiting for the next quarterly to be published so we can fill in more blanks to answer shallow questions. We need a plan, and not just to cover the Bible lightly. We need to learn how to sink our teeth into it.

The goal of this series of lessons is to take the believer from the very basics to spiritual maturity. While it's geared mainly to the new believer, long-time Christians can benefit as well. At the very least, it will give the Bible teacher the tools to break open the Word and truly feed the students what they really need: the solid meat of the Word instead of the infants' milk of the average Sunday School curriculum. We want to "teach them to fish", not simply hand them a fish.

I'm all for allowing the Spirit to lead, but he can't guide you if you're not in motion. I can't count the number of times He has spoken to me by means of scripture passages, so what would He have had to draw on if I had not first studied the scriptures? The point I'm making here is that the untrained Christian is not fertile ground for God to plant seed into. The soil must be first be prepared, and the Christian must first be filled with the Bible, our anchor of objective truth.

But please, don't turn even this study series into a perpetual merry-go-round for the same group of people. We want the students to actually graduate, not stay in school forever. At the end of the study the students should themselves be qualified teachers, if the Holy Spirit so gifts them. But there is no excuse to keep churning out believers who just sit like baby birds with their mouths open, waiting for someone to dump knowledge into them. They must learn to fly, to find their own food in the pages of the Bible. Let's not "do" Sunday School for Sunday School's sake, let's see some progress.