100 Stand-Alone Bible Studies

To grow healthy home groups

Penelope Wilcock

• Publisher: Monarch Books
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9780857214201
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

These studies provide a bridge for people to find their place in the Bible story. Designed to be used individually, they can also be followed thematically ' with twenty-five studies on Bible characters; twenty lessons from the life of Jesus; five studies from the Law and Prophets, and more. Each double-page spread has a Bible passage, supporting commentary, a series of questions and a prayer. -Have fun with these outlines, - writes Pen Wilcock. -May your home be a place of friendship, somewhere people can learn to love the Lord Jesus, a safe place to become more self-aware and awake to the beauty and the vulnerability of their fellow-pilgrims.

Adam

Bible passage – Genesis 3:8–12

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”

And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree from which I commanded you not to eat?”

The man said, “The woman you put here with me – she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”

Commentary

How the stories of the Bible manage to fly like an arrow straight to the heart of the human condition!

The description of God “walking in the garden in the cool of the day” is so evocative. If you ask most people where they experience God most deeply, they rarely say “in church”, “at a meeting”, or even “reading the Bible”. Their first response is usually something like: “walking in the hills”, “by the seashore”, “in the woods”, “at the lakeside”, or “sitting quietly in my favourite spot in the garden”. In a quiet moment, surrounded by the wonder and beauty of nature, the presence of the Lord can be felt so profoundly.

In this particular story, it was unwelcome. Scared of being found out, guilty because he’d done something wrong, Adam hid from God.

It seems so daft to try to hide from God, but we do it. Running away from ourselves, dodging reality, refusing to face the truth – these are all different names for the thing Adam did.

And God calls: “Adam! Where are you?”

It is a heartbreaking moment; losing touch with love, drifting out of reach of the one who can make us whole, turning away from hope and peace – this is what it means to lose our integrity. This is how humanity starts to disintegrate.

And when God finally catches up with Adam, and reality confronts him in the shape of some very unwelcome questions, what does he do? He blames his wife.

Questions

• Can you think of a moment in your life when you felt very close to God – so close that you could actually feel him there? Where were you? What happened?
• Can you think of any instances in the lives of people you know, or in the lives of public figures (politicians, celebrities), where you have seen them evading responsibility instead of being willing to face the music?
• Is there anything in your own life, just at the moment, that you wish was not happening, would go away? Is there anything that it might help to talk through, that you know you need to face squarely but you have been trying to avoid thinking about?

Prayer

O loving Lord, you see us and you know us. You, the God who made us, search us out and find us. You see through our pretences; our evasions mean nothing to you. You understand us, because you see and know who we really are. There is no need to put on an act for you – and no point in trying to. You are the only one in the whole of our lives who will never be taken in, who will always see the heart of us, who will always understand. Thank you for loving us, thank you for coming to find us, thank you for really seeing us. As we sit quietly here with you now, may the truth of who you are touch the truth of who we are and, in making the connection, make us whole. In Jesus’ holy name; Amen.

Eve

Bible passage – Genesis 3:1–6

Now the snake was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

The woman said to the snake, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

“You will not certainly die,” the snake said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

Commentary

This is the story of the ultimate consumer. It reminds me of every shopping trip I wish I hadn’t made.

Relocate to the mall. You have wandered into a hardware store where a salesman is doing a promotional demonstration of a kitchen gadget you never knew you wanted – until now! Somewhere underneath it all, you have left behind the frank reality that a kitchen knife, a wooden spoon, or a vegetable peeler will supply everything you need for the job in hand. The salesman convinces you that what you already have can’t really be good enough – look: this is so much better!

Think of the time you will save. Think how much more economically you can use every scrap of fruit/vegetable/flour/whatever-it-is if you use this gadget to prepare it. Think how neat and pleasing it is – much more elegant than your tatty old implements tossing around in the drawer. And so much easier to clean! Why, it would be irresponsible, wasteful, and slovenly to try to keep house without it.

You call your husband over to have a look. You put it into his mind that, if only you had this, you’d probably have time to make apple dumplings again. And plum pie. With cream. And maybe ice cream as well. If he doesn’t think you’re being a bit extravagant, of course…

Six months later it’s another useless lump of rusty dusty junk in the landfill site, and there you are back with your kitchen knife, your wooden spoon, and your vegetable peeler.

Questions

• Do you have a story to tell of a time when you, or someone you know, made a really disastrous choice and regretted it afterwards? What did you learn from that?
• Is there a temptation you always fall for – something you can never resist? Is cheesecake your downfall, or shoes? Or computer games? Some people find it hard to walk away from a stationer’s without a bagful of Absolutely Indispensable Purchases, just as some people can see how all their problems could be solved with one more little bet on a horse… And what about sales patter? Is there a line that will always pull you in? Is there a particular bait that will always be sure to make you swallow the hook?
• Do you have any tips to share for helping us take a step back from temptation, helping us claw our way back to the truth we really know?

Prayer

Wise and loving God, you know what is good for us better than we know ourselves. You know how easily we are taken in, how readily we are tempted and persuaded. Please help us to put in place in our lives the firebreaks that will protect us from the consequences of temptation. May we learn to know ourselves and our vulnerabilities so well that we know when to walk away, take a breather, give ourselves twenty-four hours to think things over. And as we go about this world where the serpents, craftier than any other wild animals, are just waiting for suckers like us to come walking by, please travel with us, please remind and recall us – for you, God of love, know us better than we know ourselves. In Jesus’ holy name; Amen.

Abraham

Bible passage – James 2:14–24

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”

Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that – and shudder.

You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend. You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.

Commentary

Paul, in his letters to churches, is concerned to ensure that they understand that the love and grace of God cannot be earned; they are unconditional. No matter who we are or what we have done, it is as we put our trust in God and enter the wonder of a personal relationship with Jesus, knowing the life-giving joy of his presence in our hearts, that we discover for ourselves what salvation is. As the letter to the Ephesians says: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8–9). So we cannot earn salvation; it is not deserved. It is the gift of God’s love that blooms in our lives as we put our trust in him.

But James balances up that teaching by pointing out that once a person has found faith in God, the evidence of faith will be clearly apparent in that person’s life. If we really have entered into a personal relationship with the living God, the transformation will surely be seen in our choices and actions.

Abraham, man of faith and great intercessor, put his trust in God so completely that he left behind everything he knew to travel into the uncharted territory of the desert – because that was what God called him to do. Perhaps he was called God’s friend because the hallmark of friendship is trust.

Our Bible passage refers to Abraham’s willingness to offer his own child in sacrifice if that was what God asked (the story is in Genesis 22). If you imagine the ancient nomadic Hebrews hearing tales of their people’s faith around the evening campfires, you can see that this story has great power. Sacrificing children was part of the old Canaanite religion; when crops failed or disaster threatened it would have been easy to slip back into old ways. In this exciting story the whole future of the people of Israel is jeopardized as Isaac is bound and laid on the altar. God’s provision of a ram instead of a child must have made an indelible impression on their understanding. For Christians, the only son carrying the wood on his back to the place of sacrifice has other overtones. The story of Christ who was the Lamb of God as well as God’s only Son develops further our insight into the mystery of sacrifice – the acknowledgment that at a very deep place we are all one. Jesus took upon himself the lostness and suffering of all humanity.

Questions

• Can you trace in your own life the difference made by believing in God and knowing him? Can you identify times when that has made the difference to your choices and actions – or those of someone you know?
• Thinking back to people you have known who had real, deep, authentic faith in God – how could you tell?
• What does it mean to you, to be someone’s friend? What are the essentials of friendship? Would you describe your relationship with God as friendship? Or does that not express the way you personally feel about God?

Prayer

Lord God, as far above us as the stars, as close as our heartbeats and our breath, make yourself real to us. Draw near to us; make your home in our hearts. Just as Abraham, travelling out into the unknown vastness of the desert, walked so closely with you that people said you and he were friends, so may we also enter the mystery of that relationship, and find your living reality in the intimate chamber of our hearts. For we ask it in Jesus’ holy name; Amen.

Ruth

Bible passage – Ruth 1:8–19

Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back, each of you, to your mother’s home. May the Lord show you kindness, as you have shown kindness to your dead husbands and to me. May the Lord grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband.”

Then she kissed them goodbye and they wept aloud and said to her, “We will go back with you to your people.”

But Naomi said, “Return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons, who could become your husbands? Return home, my daughters; I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me – even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons – would you wait until they grew up? Would you remain unmarried for them? No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord’s hand has turned against me!”

At this they wept aloud again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her.

“Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.”

But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.” When Naomi realised that Ruth was determi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Praise
• About the Author
• By the same author
• Contents
• About this book
• “Tell me about it!” – Bible characters in moments we can identify with (25 studies)
• Themes from the four Gospels – key features from the four Gospels (20 studies)
• Walking in the light (15 studies)
• Tracing the circle of the church’s year (15 studies)
• Learning from the life of Jesus (20 studies)
• Insights from the Law and the Prophets (5 studies)