Unleash the Word

Studying the Bible in small groups

Karen Soole

• Publisher: 10Publishing
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781910587270
• eBook ISBN: 9781910587270
• Subtopic: Christian Church

This is the eBook version of Unleash the Word, the eBook can be downloaded onto a number of different devices including, Mac, PC, Kindle, etc. A help document can be found here explaining how to access your files.This eBook is available FREE with a purchase of the physical version of Unleash the Word, click here to buy.

A helpful, practical guide for getting the most out of your small group studies. Karen Soole has been there and done that and writes down her experiences, helps and wisdom on 'Unleashing the Word'.

This is a very good book indeed. I will use this book myself as a regularrefresher, and recommend it to students as essential reading. Andy Gemmill, Co–director, Cornhill Scotland

Here is a wise, encouraging call to take in God's Word with others.Karen Soole not only convinces us that small–group Bible study mustbe done; she clearly explains how. Kathleen B. Nielson, Director of Women's Initiatives, The Gospel Coalition

This timely short book will refresh and help Bible study leaders, encourage others into the task and envision church leaders. Greg Strain, Senior Pastor, Spicer Street Church, St. Albans

Karen is the first person I would go to for advice about small groups.It's wonderful that her wealth of experience is now written down forus all to share. Maurice McCracken, Minister, Christ Church Liverpool

Karen's approach to small group Bible studies seriously enriches them;I'm so glad that in this book her wisdom is being more widely shared. Peter Dray, UCCF Team Leader in Yorkshire and the North East

A really helpful resource for any Bible study leader committed tohandling the Word of God correctly in order to engage the mind, theheart and the will. Carrie Sandom, Associate Minister for Women and Pastoral Care, St John's Church, Tunbridge Wells

Oh my, @karensoole 's new book 'Unleash the Word' is so INCREDIBLY useful. If you're involved in any Bible teaching get it now! @10ofthose — Amy Wicks (@amywicks) May 30, 2015

1

Should we give up on small-group Bible studies?

What has been your experience of small-group Bible study? Has it been a joy, a time of encouragement, an opportunity to grow in your love and knowledge of the Lord? Perhaps it has been all of those things or none. Maybe some weeks the Bible study has been really good but at other times it has felt as though you were going through the motions. Possibly, if you are honest, the Bible bit of the evening is the weakest part and you go along because you enjoy getting together with other Christians. These relationships are what encourage you – they provide accountability in your Christian life and a sense of responsibility for your church family – whereas the Bible study is like an added extra but not central.

Perhaps you lead a Bible study. Have you ever had a sinking feeling before you set off to lead? Maybe you took the job on because you know it is important and no one else was willing to do it, however now you feel out of your depth and scared every time you begin. Or maybe you work really hard studying a passage before you lead and prepare lots of questions, but when you begin the group look at you blankly and none of your questions work. Or do you feel frustrated by your group? It takes so much effort to prepare for it and yet often group members fail to turn up and don’t even let you know they’re not coming. You know that Bible truth is life-changing and transforming but no one seems to be excited or challenged or convicted. The Bible study feels like an academic exercise, a duty not a delight. Or perhaps no matter what you do people always drift away from discussing the Bible and end up sharing their own experiences.

Many of us approach group Bible studies with conflicting emotions; we want to study God’s Word with others, we know it is important but sometimes the whole exercise feels like ploughing through treacle. The most animated anyone gets all evening is when the discussion turns from the Bible and people begin to talk about football or the latest film they have seen. Each reply to a question is hard won and every answer is brief and followed by a long silence. As a consequence the leader fills in the gaps and talks far too much while gradually becoming aware that everyone else is switching off and looking at their watches. The remarkable thing is that each week folk turn up. They want to come, they do want to meet together and study God’s Word but they can’t help feeling that they are being short-changed. Is there a way of really engaging with God’s Word together so that everyone benefits?

People who have a heart to serve can find themselves given the responsibility of leading a Bible study group but often feel out of their depth in terms of both Bible knowledge and leadership skills. There can be several consequences of this: the leader may be dependent on published material of mixed quality and which does not translate well into their particular setting; the group can begin to lack cohesion and people perhaps become erratic in their attendance; the small group possibly starts to spend most time sharing and praying together, with less and less time engrossed in reading God’s Word; eventually the group may focus on alternative activities instead or gradually diminish in size until they decide to give up altogether.

Of course there are many positive experiences of small groups in churches. Some testify to their enormous value: I am one of them. I look back to my student days at St Helen’s Bishopsgate when I reluctantly joined a small group to study Mark’s gospel. I thought I knew the gospel, after all I had been brought up in a Christian home and became a Christian as a small child, so I confess I was enormously arrogant. I now thank the Lord for those who persevered in encouraging me to join this group because it revolutionised the way I studied the Bible. It not only gave me clarity about who Jesus is and what He came to do but it began my journey in how to understand the Bible. I suppose you could say it taught me how to read. Over the years I have led many Bible study groups in various settings and seen the same thing happen to others. Reading God’s Word together reveals God’s truth to us while simultaneously teaching us how to understand God’s Word better and therefore know Him better.

But some churches are losing confidence in small-group Bible study. There are several reasons for this. Perhaps they are fed up with the frustration of sitting around together in a Bible study that feels like pulling teeth, or perhaps other multi-media presentations seem more dynamic and immediately relevant. In some churches small-group ministry can become quite unhealthy: a place where teaching is not accountable, relationships become cliquey or people fall out. One Christian leader was once reduced to saying, ‘Small groups are the worst thing that has happened in the church in the last thirty years.’ Church leaders are not routinely taught how to lead Bible studies in theological college and their experience of them may have been poor. Preaching and leading small groups are different skills and small-group ministry may be something they do not naturally feel comfortable with. It is also hard for busy pastors to prepare Bible study material for their home-group leaders to use, therefore the midweek Bible study becomes one more pressure and an extra burden. So perhaps small-group ministry should be avoided? In a strong Bible-teaching church, are Bible study groups an unnecessary extra meeting?

To answer this it is important to consider what small-group Bible ministry adds to the life of a church. By meeting together to read and study the Bible in small groups we are living out the instruction that Paul gave to the Colossians: ‘Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom’ (Colossians 3:16).

This injunction was addressed to the whole body of Christ, for everyone to be involved, not just in speaking any encouraging words but also in speaking to one another the message of Christ. Our Bible studies can be a place where we help one another to dwell richly in the Word and begin to teach and admonish one another. They can help us begin to talk about the Bible together and for the Bible to be the natural focus of our conversation. In our churches we want Christ’s Word to govern us, but how often do we manage to talk about it even after we have all sat through a sermon? It seems to be amazingly difficult for us to talk about the Bible; instead we find ourselves discussing the sports results, our weekend, our kids, our plans for the week to come, in fact everything but God’s Word. Speaking the Word of Christ is not our natural inclination. Even when we have a strong desire to talk about the gospel, we hesitate even among ourselves because we fear we may be seen as ‘overly spiritual’ or pushy. Yet small-group Bible studies are a place where we can begin to talk together over an open Bible in a safe environment and help one another grow in gospel confidence. Discussing God’s Word together not only teaches us to feel comfortable talking about Christ with other believers but can begin to give us boldness to open up a Bible when we are in one-to-one situations, maybe eventually reading and studying the Bible with a non-Christian friend.

The best small groups complement the life of a church by adding something that Sunday services alone cannot provide. In the sermon the preacher speaks into a large group. He has prayerfully prepared, not only seeking to understand the text but also working out how to communicate it and apply it in the most appropriate way. God speaks through this proclaimed Word and the Spirit applies it to our hearts and minds. Even though we struggle to discuss the sermon afterwards, we know that God’s Spirit works in every hearer’s life, convicting them of the truth of the Word and transforming individuals to become more like Christ. The preacher rarely gets instant feedback (although some address this by building in a question time or even receiving tweets during the talk) but it is generally fair to say the sermon is a process that involves one man communicating to many in a kind of scattergun approach. He hopes to faithfully teach the truth in a way that will relate to those he is teaching but is aware that he may not be able to engage everyone. However, the group study is an interactive process which brings the opportunity of engaging directly with individuals. It is hard to fall asleep in a small group and not be noticed! (Actually when my husband was a junior doctor he did fall asleep but the group in kindness only woke him up if he snored too loudly.)

The dynamic nature of group Bible study is its strength; God’s Word is being taught in a relational way. The preacher may guess that hearers will find a particular verse difficult and seek to address it; in a Bible study these difficulties will be made explicit and it may turn out that people have difficulties and questions that you have never thought of. As a study develops it can become clear that people are further on in their understanding or further back than you had imagined. The Bible study leader has to be responsive and think on their feet in a way that the preacher does not. It is this element of small-group work that is at once thrilling and daunting. This is the truly scary bit of small-group ministry; you have no idea what others are going to say!

As a leader this can make you feel very vulnerable. For example, in one of my studies someone once started speaking authoritatively about the original Greek of the passage and it turned out that he had studied ancient Greek at Cambridge. However, this proved to be of great value to us all, although it was a little intimidating to begin with! We worry that we do not know enough, and that we will not be able to answer people’s questions. We worry that we will not be able to manage a discussion, or that people will disagree, or that they won’t say anything. In short we worry that we will fail both in our understanding of the Bible and in our ability to lead a discussion around it. But we can turn this fear on its head because the very thing we find difficult – the response of others – is the strength of a small group.

A small-group leader is not there to lecture group members, but to help them engage with the text. Through this engagement individuals can see if their understanding fits with what the passage says. In a study wrong thinking about the Bible can be exposed in a way that provides an opportunity for the leader to help people move on in their understanding. In a small group where individuals know and trust one another, we can help each other become more in line with God’s Word. Sometimes we will discover that we thought that the Bible said something that it doesn’t; at other times we will be discovering things that are completely new to us. Reading the Bible like this together in a group should sharpen everyone. The key element for the leader in this process is knowing what questions we need to ask of a passage in order to help one another read it.

Paul urged Timothy to: ‘Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth’ (2 Timothy 2:15). This is a valuable injunction for the Bible study leader. Our task is to correctly handle the Word of truth. Bible handling is a skill that we improve on even as we lead our studies week after week. As we ask questions of a passage we model to our groups how to handle the Bible better.

One of my greatest joys as a leader has been when people in my group grapple with the text, and ask challenging questions of me. It gives us all an opportunity to check out if we are handling the Bible correctly. I confess that in the middle of a study when someone challenges something I have said, it can initially knock me off guard, but after a few moments of reflection I am really grateful as it teaches me too. It is vital at this point to acknowledge what has happened: ‘Yes, I am wrong – that point is really helpful. Does everyone else see this?’ So rather than questions being something to fear, I rejoice because they are part of what it means for us to be just like the Bereans: ‘Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true’ (Acts 17:11). Asking questions and checking what the Bible says is something that we should encourage. The real tragedy is when people show no appetite to really understand God’s Word, not when people carefully keep checking everything.

At heart the task of a leader is to help others discover what God’s Word says. A small-group Bible study can help us really read the Bible instead of just assuming we know what it says. When this is done well, the Bible study becomes a place that involves everyone in changed understanding to changed thinking and living. I am convinced that small-group ministry is a brilliant way to engage with others over God’s Word, and these principles of small-group ministry are transferable to a variety of other settings – from youth groups to investigating Christianity groups as well as for groups of mature believers meeting together to build one another up in their faith and even in one-to-one ministry.

So as we approach the idea of leading a Bible study, we have two aims in our minds: the first is to get people to really engage with God’s Word so that they are rooted in Christ; the second is to make sure the Bible is handled well within a context that handles people well. The model of Bible study that this book will seek to outline is based on these two principles: we need to read God’s Word well and listen to others motivated by our love of God and our love for those in our group.

I hope that by the time you have finished this book you will have greater confidence that leading Bible studies in groups and reading it with individuals is something that you can do. For now it is important to underline the fact the Bible study leader does not need to know everything but does need to model a desire to sit under the authority of God’s Word, a hunger to learn and a heart for others.

2

Is there a ‘right answer’?

The room is full and there is a warm buzz of conversation, drinks are sipped and a rather delicious cake is passed around. The Bible study begins and the group settles down with an expectant hush. Someone opens in prayer and the passage is read. What follows resembles a game of tennis. A question is served by the leader and hit back by a group member. The leader asks another question and someone else responds. The questions are directive and the rallies short. During this exchange many of the group are merely spectators; the warm buzz of the earlier chat has vanished. It is clear that the leader has an answer in mind when they ask their question. Some group members never speak because they are afraid that they will get the answer wrong. The group becomes progressively quieter as the study continues and finishes when the leader tells everyone what the passage is about.

In a different church another small group meets. There is the familiar chat before the study begins. This study begins with prayer as well. The passage is read and then the leader asks an open question: ‘What do you all think?’ There is an explosion of voices as various people have been reminded of something they heard somewhere before and are keen to share their stories. Others are familiar with this passage and immediately share how it has impacted their lives. Another voice pipes up with the words: ‘I like to think …’ This is followed by a completely contradictory idea by another person who says: ‘Well, to me …’ Finally the group leader draws it all to a close with a prayer when they realise what the time is.

Are either of those scenarios familiar? I have experienced both. Different churches have different tendencies. Some run Bible studies that make you feel as though you were in school; their studies are rigid with little room for discussion, though their strength is that the leaders have a strong commitment to the Bible and proclaim its truth. Other churches see the small group as a chance to develop relationships and a place to encourage one another; their Bible study is a springboard for people to share with each other things that they already know and their strength can be in the relationships that develop. So both approaches have strengths: it is good for people to learn truth when they come to Bible study and it is good for people to engage with each other over God’s Word. However, the first model denies a group the opportunity to engage with the text relationally so that in some instances they might as well give up the pretence of it being a group Bible study and listen to a talk instead. The second approach fails to help the group move on in their understanding, instead becoming a place where people discuss their experiences and what they already know. Both approaches can be frustrating if you want to grapple with what God is saying and grow in your own knowledge and love of God.

In reality a lot of group Bible studies move between both approaches, at times very directive and other times much looser. Underlying all of this is our approach to hermeneutics. Hermeneutics is an intimidating word to describe the art or science of interpretation, or for our purposes how we interpret the Bible. Using a term like hermeneutics may make you want to skip this chapter but I ask you to bear with me because if we can understand how hermeneutics fits with small-group Bible study, we will be able to address both of the previous scenarios.

I show my age by admitting that I remember when ‘I Don’t Like Mondays’ by the Boomtown Rats was the UK number one. Now I’m going to ask you, reader, to try to remember it as well, and if you have never heard it, check it out on YouTube (do it now before you read on). What is this song about? The title gives you some clues! I have played this song to folk of various ages, from students to those who are now retired, and asked them the same questions: ‘Well, what do you think? What is this song about?’ Here are a selection of the different responses I have had:

	‘It’s about not liking Mondays.’
	‘It’s about a teenager who doesn’t like school especially on a Monday.’
	‘It’s about the universal feeling of being stuck in the rat race that is symbolised by the Mond...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1: Should we give up on small-group Bible studies?
• 2: Is there a ‘right answer’?
• 3: Approaching God’s Word
• 4: Models of Bible studies
• 5: The ‘big question’ model
• 6: Meditating on God’s Word
• 7: Nuts and bolts
• Epilogue
• Appendix 1: Five ‘big question’ Bible studies in Mark
• Appendix 2: Eight ‘big question’ Bible studies in 1 Samuel
• Notes