Selections from Study Guides: (Click here for full text)

 Study Guides

Six studies for small groups. Leader notes and Questions.

These discussion sessions can be used in a Bible Study setting or after a presentation based on the material in this book. Each session contains three parts:

• brief notes on a Bible passage which can be used as the basis of a study
• summary of relevant sections of this book which can be used as material for a presentation
• discussion questions.

The last of the six sessions is optional because it deals with the more general topic of how we read the Bible. This issue comes up in various sections of the book and is something which many people won’t have thought through. You may decide that this topic is so fundamental that rather than leaving it to the end, the series should instead start with this session.

The questions are designed to provoke discussion rather than produce a straightforward answer, so the leader should use them as tools to produce an exchange of ideas. There is no need to answer them in the order presented or to complete all the questions.

A group will work well if the leader and the ‘expert’ are separate people. The ‘expert’ should give a talk or introduce the Bible passage and be familiar with the material. The leader should direct the discussion and keep everything moving. This does not mean that the leader should be the main speaker –he should in fact try to be the person who says the least because his main role is to encourage and aid the debate. The ‘expert’ should also try to keep out of the discussion except when the leader invites him to make a contribution.

In a group Bible study, members will best remember the things they have found out for themselves and what they have said themselves. They may possibly remember what the ‘expert’ has said, and they will probably remember what other group members have said (especially if it was related to a story with emotional content). Therefore a successful group discussion is one where everyone feels that they have personally discovered something (so the ‘expert’ should leave some things to be ‘discovered’) and where everyone has contributed something to the discussion (so the leader should make sure everyone has their say).