by juliaf from www.sxc.hu
The Bible class teacher called me about 6:00 in the evening. Bible study started at 7:00. He had a severe stomach ache and was not going to be able to make it to Wednesday night Bible study. He was our men’s class teacher and I volunteered to cover the class. To be fair, I could have dismissed the class to the auditorium, but we enjoy the weekly meeting of men.
I didn’t know what to teach. I have hundreds of sermons and Bible classes on file that I could of pulled, but nothing seemed to jump out at me.
I wanted us all to be in the same boat. I wanted us all to explore a passage together, truly seeking to work through it as a class without an expectation that the teacher had a “lesson” prepared that would fill the time.
But what text? How could I get us all to come to the text with excitement and intrigue?
I began by explaining my substitution role and then asked one man to pick a number between 1- 4. I asked another man to pick a number between 1-20. The men didn’t know, but these numbers were determining our text.
I limited the book choices to the gospels (numbers 1 – 4). The second number selected determined the chapter we would study. Two brothers picked 3 and 18. So we studied Luke 18. It just so happened that I had actually preached from some of this text on Sunday morning, so we had some familiarity with the passage recently.
We then proceeded to read the text and discuss it. I would ask for observations or ask questions from the text. We had a lively discussion and all seemed to be more engaged than normal.
While I wouldn’t recommend this practice on a regular basis, as there is no substitute for study and preparation, I do think this technique helped us all engage a passage and hopefully taught younger students of the word how to read and investigate a Bible passage from the start.
Give it a try sometime, when you get asked to fill in at the last minute, or when you want the whole group to receive a message from God together.
