Methodical Principles
IS IT POSSIBLE
Methodical Principles
IS IT POSSIBLE
“I don’t know how to study the Bible. When I try, I seem to get so little out of it. Is it possible for me to learn how to study the Bible so that I can experience the joy of discovering the wonderful truths in God’s Word?”
The Need for Bible Study
Today, Bible study is promoted and encouraged. Most religious programs include Bible study. The need to get into the Bible is recognized and accepted by religious leaders. As we consider this special emphasis on Bible study, we need to ask some serious questions:
Are we learning how to study the Bible?
Do our programs accomplish desired goals?
How can we help people become better Bible students?
How can we help them be better Bible teachers?
In spite of the prominence given to Bible study, too many Christians know little about the Bible. They feel that it is difficult to understand because of a limited knowledge about its arrangement, purpose and content. Thus, it’s a strange book, seemingly too hard and too dull; they have little inclination to read it often. On the other hand, some have a deep yearning to know their Bible better – to know how to share the Bible message with others. However, most of them need definite help to learn how to study and how to teach, either under the direction of a teacher or through a prepared course of study with questions to guide them. When someone really learns how to study the Bible so that its truths become meaningful, the result is always a deepening of spiritual life and a hunger for more study. Once the truth begins to grip a life, the desire to share it with others becomes reality.
The Challenge
Most would probably agree that the problem in local churches has been the lack of members who know how to study the Bible so they could share its message with others. Or, if they were good students of the Word themselves, they did not know how to present it so that others could also become students. Too many Bible teachers have been under the impression that teaching is mainly a giving-out process. They have failed to consider that what the teacher gives out does not become learning to the student unless the learner becomes actively involved in the process. There has to be more than just inspiration if Bible studies are to create Bible students.
Participant or Recipient
The learning involved in Bible study and Bible teaching can be compared to several other skill processes, such as making bread or playing the piano. In each process there are two possibilities: being a participant in the act or being a recipient of the product produced by another. We may think of the teacher as performer and the student as either recipient or participant. In the case of making bread, the teacher can prepare the bread and then feed the student or he can teach the student how to make his own bread. In the field of music, the student can learn how to play the piano or he can just listen to the playing of the teacher. In each case the student may be inspired and pleased with what the teacher provides, but no skill is learned in the process unless the student becomes a participant in the act, personally learning how to do it.
As wonderful as it is to receive what others have done, that is no satisfaction compared to what a person receives in personal accomplishment. No loaf of bread, no piano concert which is the result of someone else’s labors can bring the quality of joy to a person’s heart that he experiences when sensing that he, too, can bake good bread or play reasonably well on the piano. The joy of discovering through accomplishing is an inner experience that touches the very core of a person’s soul because it satisfies one of the basic needs in life: the need to achieve, create, and express oneself in concrete ways.
A Possibility for All
“Is it possible for me to learn how to study the Bible so that I can experience the joy of discovering the wonderful truths in God’s Word?”
In our fast-passed society, the joy of discovery in Bible study is an experience too few people are having. It is only natural that some would doubt the possibility of learning to discover truths in the Bible. After all, we are accustomed to:
Having others do our thinking
Eating “Biblical bread” prepared by others
Listening to “Biblical music” composed by others
No wonder so many find it difficult to believe they can learn the skill of making Biblical discoveries for themselves.
The purpose of this treatise is to reveal how to study the Bible so that we can discover precious Biblical truths for ourselves; to reveal how to teach so that we can lead others to Christ – to the joy of spiritual discovery. We desire to place a spade in your hands, teaching how to dig; offering some exercises that will hopefully limber up the thinking processes. The majority of people do not know how to study because they do not know how to think. When we learn the skills involved in Bible study, we should in turn go out and teach others the same skills so that soon we may have congregations of Bible “students” rather than Bible “listeners.”
The emphasis on Bible study skills may sound cold and unspiritual to some sincere Christians, but such is not meant to be. The pianist who can inspire others is the one who has mastered the skills of playing so that mechanics have become second nature and he is free to lose himself in the interpretation of the composition. In like manner, when we learn the mechanical skills of Bible study we will experience the Holy Spirit using us in a greater degree as an instrument to win others. Without mastering the mechanics of study, how can we hope to encourage others to become Bible students?
