1. Welcome to Baptist Board, a friendly forum to discuss the Baptist Faith in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to all the features that our community has to offer.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon and God Bless!

Adult study classes

Discussion in 'Baptist Theology & Bible Study' started by evangelist6589, Apr 19, 2017.

  1. evangelist6589

    evangelist6589 Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Nov 22, 2010
    Messages:
    10,285
    Likes Received:
    163
    Faith:
    Baptist
    Does your church or small group use books or just only the Bible? Our church uses books in discipleship classes but for Sunday school we are going through the gospel of John and a book was mentioned but not required to purchase. In another class they are going through a book that the teacher wrote. So you can conclude that at our church we use both books by human authors and the Bible. At some churches they use only the Bible for discipleship and Sunday school. What about yours?

    When I mean books I can mean commentaries, study guide books, or topical books with a theological theme such as the Gospel According to Jesus or Slave.
     
  2. rlvaughn

    rlvaughn Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Mar 20, 2001
    Messages:
    10,544
    Likes Received:
    1,558
    Faith:
    Baptist
    We use only the Bible to read and discuss, nothing like a study guide. That does not mean that individuals do not use helps, commentaries, etc. as they study.
     
  3. blessedwife318

    blessedwife318 Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Aug 29, 2014
    Messages:
    2,358
    Likes Received:
    445
    Faith:
    Baptist
    If a class is called Bible Study one would and should expect the Bible to be the primary books being studied. If you want to do a book club and discuss a book that is another thing all together. One of the problems I see in the American Church at large is to much reliance on what other people say the Bible says instead of digging into the Bible themselves.
    BTW studying the Bible doesn't mean not having study aids such as a commentary, and Greek, Hebrew Lexicon, but the main book should be the Bible not the other way around. Too often the Bible is treated as the aid to what ever the latest pop Christian books is.
    A good test I think is if you can articulate a Biblical argument from the Bible, not what so and so wrote.

    Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
     
    • Agree Agree x 2
    • Like Like x 1
  4. Don

    Don Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Oct 7, 2000
    Messages:
    11,048
    Likes Received:
    321
    Faith:
    Baptist
    Had a situation where we were told that anyone leading a lesson would use the quarterly lesson book. No one said anything about not using the bible or any other aids; but it was emphatically stated that they didn't want us doing lessons "on our own."
     
  5. Baptist Believer

    Baptist Believer Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Jun 20, 2002
    Messages:
    10,720
    Likes Received:
    781
    Faith:
    Baptist
    Sounds like there has been a previous problem. That's a shame, because quarterly books tend to avoid controversial matters to keep from alienating churches which buy them.
     
    • Agree Agree x 1
  6. Baptist Believer

    Baptist Believer Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Jun 20, 2002
    Messages:
    10,720
    Likes Received:
    781
    Faith:
    Baptist
    My conviction is that a Sunday School class should be a place where people learn to study the Bible for themselves instead of being captive to a teacher having to explain everything. I think the best way to teach is to conduct whole book, verse-by-verse, studies of scripture so that nothing is avoided and the book can unfold in a natural way, each week building upon the week before it. If students miss a week, it's not the end of the world because they can study on their own, knowing what we are going to look at each Sunday, and they already have a sense of the themes, stories and arguments being made, so they are well-equipped to teach themselves.

    In my experience, this way of teaching is quite rich, and students look forward to each week because they are in the middle of a story or argument, and they want to see how it turns out.

    As you would expect, the Bible is front and center in our studies. I provide handouts that I prepare for each lesson that provide handy references and connections to other parts of scripture, with the occasional quote, definitions, maps, and other study aids, but we spend 80% or more of our time working with the text, pulling out the meaning.

    I have, from time to time, broken up the longer book studies with shorter, more topical series of lessons designed to make connections between various parts of scripture or deal with topics often not explicitly discussed in church. For instance, in recent years I have taught a series on Genesis 1-11 where we looked at the foundational stories of humanity; also a systematic study of the human body, where we looked at the the nature and character of the human body, from Creation, the Fall, what the Incarnation tells us about the body, the Resurrection and Paul's teaching on our resurrection bodies, and the eternal physical state of humanity; and then a study on God's careful and methodical re-approach to humanity after the Fall, through Abraham, the Tabernacle, the Temple, the Babylonian Exile, the Second Temple, the Incarnation, the Holy Spirit, and the Apocalypse and Final Judgement.

    While the topical classes are fun to teach because so many people are figuring out how all of their previous knowledge fits together, I think careful verse-by-verse study is a stronger way to make disciples - which is my mission. While I deal in knowledge, I also stress application because head knowledge is useless without faith (action).
     
    • Like Like x 3
    • Agree Agree x 1
  7. Buckethead Baptist

    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Mar 19, 2017
    Messages:
    30
    Likes Received:
    1
    Faith:
    Baptist
    Ha ha ha ha ha... yeah, "don't go learnin' on yer own outside of class! Whaddaya think yer doin'... self feeding!?!"
     
  8. Salty

    Salty 20,000 Posts Club
    Administrator

    Joined:
    Apr 8, 2003
    Messages:
    38,982
    Likes Received:
    2,615
    Faith:
    Baptist
    Many, many years ago, I became a SS teacher at an Army Chapel. A few weeks into my teaching, the Chaplain wanted to know what material I was using for my 4th grade class. I told him - just my Bible - he insisted that I get SS quarterly - so he ordered some - the kids did not care for it - and prefeed my teaching straight out of the Bible. - So that's what I did - stop using the quarterlys.
     
  9. Darrell C

    Darrell C Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Jan 30, 2010
    Messages:
    9,631
    Likes Received:
    332
    Faith:
    Baptist
    That is precisely what the associate Pastor told me in the last discussion I had with him. Talk about being disappointed.


    God bless.
     
  10. Buckethead Baptist

    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Mar 19, 2017
    Messages:
    30
    Likes Received:
    1
    Faith:
    Baptist
    Hey Darrell... you want to watch his head explode? Tell him you're going to teach a class on the "Nephilim"... ha ha ha ha ha....
     
  11. evangelist6589

    evangelist6589 Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Nov 22, 2010
    Messages:
    10,285
    Likes Received:
    163
    Faith:
    Baptist
    Who cares about the quarterly lesson book. My church does not use them!
     
  12. Don

    Don Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Oct 7, 2000
    Messages:
    11,048
    Likes Received:
    321
    Faith:
    Baptist
    Many churches do.
     
  13. rlvaughn

    rlvaughn Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Mar 20, 2001
    Messages:
    10,544
    Likes Received:
    1,558
    Faith:
    Baptist
    This is confusing. You are the one who asked, "Does your church or small group use books or just only the Bible?" The quarterly lesson book is a book. What gives?
     
  14. Yeshua1

    Yeshua1 Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Mar 19, 2012
    Messages:
    52,624
    Likes Received:
    2,742
    Faith:
    Baptist
    We normally work thru a DVD , with study guides and the Bible! Time frame 4-8 weeks normally...
     
    • Like Like x 1
  15. evangelist6589

    evangelist6589 Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Nov 22, 2010
    Messages:
    10,285
    Likes Received:
    163
    Faith:
    Baptist
    Oops. A mistake of a reply on my part. I should have not been as sarcastic forgive me.
     
Loading...