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Before one can be a teacher of the Bible, it is essential to become a student of the Bible. This section gives the help you need in preparing biblically accurate lesson plans.
Consider the words of J. I. Packer. What were we made for? To know God. What aim should we set for our lives? To know God. What is the “eternal life” that Jesus gives? Knowledge of God.… What is the best thing in life, bringing more joy, delight, and contentment, than anything else? Knowledge of God.
What, then, is the purpose of the Bible as special revelation? It is this: Through God’s written revelation we come to know and believe in Christ, the Messiah. Then, by Scripture’s objective truth, we are able to confirm the validity of our knowledge of Him. John puts it this way: “Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:30–31).
Paul told Timothy, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15). Correctly handling the Word of Truth is an essential issue for the creative Bible teacher. Creative Bible teachers have a high regard for the Scriptures, and they see their ministry as a sacred trust. They are servants of God used to communicate His Word in a timely and relevant manner. As such, they desire to be faithful to its teaching in their teaching.
Walton, Bailey, and Williford’s point is an important one. But how can teachers be certain they are teaching what the author intended? The answer to that question is found in the process of Bible study. Through careful exegesis (reading the meaning out of the passage) using some foundational rules of hermeneutics (the rules of Bible interpretation), the student and teacher of the Bible can indeed come to an understanding of the biblical author’s central principle. That principle can then be applied in appropriate ways today.
At this point you are ready to draw some interpretive conclusions about what you have been studying. The overarching question in this stage of inductive Bible study is, “What does it mean?” Although the Scripture may have many different applications it can only have one correct interpretation. The correct interpretation is the one that the author intended the reader to come to understand. The task of the Bible student is to discover the original intended meaning.
One of the dangers that Bible students must avoid in the interpretation of the Bible is “Scripture twisting.” Scripture twisting is taking a text out of its context in order to make it say something we want it to say.
Notice the four-fold use of Scripture proposed here. For teaching, for rebuke, for correcting, and for training in righteousness—all of these are points of application. We can ask, Is there a teaching here to be learned and followed? Does this passage communicate a rebuke to be heard and heeded? Is there a correction to be noted? In what way does this passage train us to be righteous?
Teachers who do not personally apply what they teach lack credibility and can even risk developing the pharisaic, hypocritical attitude that Jesus condemned.
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In his book Taking the Guesswork Out of Applying the Bible, Jack Kuhatschek says, “As we immerse ourselves in Scripture, our goal is to develop within ourselves the mind and heart of God. We want to be able to think and to respond to every situation the way God himself would.”8 This, then, is the ultimate implication of Bible study for personal life—godliness.
