People Can Unravel the Bible—If We Let Them

by Martha Reapsome

The key is not telling them but asking them the right questions.

An elderly Japanese woman, a Christian for 50 of her 70 years, sparkles as she describes her weekly. Bible study group: "Every Wednesday morning five or six women gather in my living room. With a different leader each week, we open our Bibles to search, spy, explore the depths of the honorable word. At this meeting where we earnestly desire the Lord’s working, the honorable word is living and at work.

"Using our study guides, we share outspokenly the things we discover. There is not one nodding person. Everyone is so intently finding things themselves that no one has time to nap. In wide-eyed wonder at the truths we discover directly from the Bible by ourselves, time and again we exclaim for joy over the light we unearth together.

"Before this I used to be taught only by listening as one of an audience, but now I have the enormous blessing of being nourished by the honorable word itself, as we friends discuss it and share our findings. I have learned through this method how to handle, touch, approach the honorable word. As a result, when I hear sermons I am able to enjoy and understand them ever so much more than before. And when I fellowship with God alone, I am able to listen to the honorable word with a sense of closeness, to the point of being happy beyond words."

This retired school teacher is typical of thousands of people all over the world who have benefited from a distinctive approach to Bible study that allows each person to discover that the Bible is understandable. Each person learns from the Holy Spirit. The missionary is not the leader or the authority figure; the Bible itself is the authority. Using guides with questions that probe the text, each group member leads by being the question asker. In groups like this, old and new Christians learn and grow together, while non-Christians come to understand the Scripture and receive Christ.

In Jordan, a pastor’s wife said, after a few months in such a Bible study group, "I feel like this is the first year of my Christian life." In Addis Ababa, a church leader declared that the weekly women’s group, now in its second year using this approach, was the only thing in the church that had ever lasted more than four months.

What’s the secret of this approach that excites and involves laypersons and functions and thrives without the regular presence of the missionary or pastor? The secret is that people get the chance to discover {or themselves what the Bible says and how it applies to their lives. Teaching in this set-up does not consist in telling people the right things, but in asking them the right questions.

Asking rather than telling produces participation by everyone. Nobody is a spectator. When a person makes the discovery for himself from the Bible, he is more likely to make a commitment to and act upon the truth. Following the question-and-answer discovery format, one soon finds life-changing differences in attitudes and actions.

Good questions are the key to this kind of Bible study. In the guides, some questions uncover the basic facts of the record. Some questions force participants to work on the meaning of the facts. Then, other questions make them face up to the implications: how what they have discovered and interpreted relates to everyday life.

People need to go through three steps in this order: observe, interpret, apply. We all know what it’s like when someone starts a Bible study by saying, "Let’s read verse 5 and tell what it means to us." Weird, unfounded applications often are made. That’s because the basic facts and their interpretation were not put before the group first.

Some strange ideas are also propounded when people try to interpret a passage without being clear on the data. If we skip the elementary step of asking questions that force us to dig out the facts, we can easily twist Scripture. On the other hand, Bible study is more than intellectual exercise, so we must ask questions about practical applications after we observe and interpret.

For best understanding and application, it is wise to follow study guides that take you through a book of the Bible, rather than a topic. This helps to ensure that interpretations and applications are made in context. Cults prove their points by wresting Scripture from context; we must guard against repeating that error. Christians can be protected from the cults by learning to study the Bible book-by-book in context.

People discovering for themselves what the Bible says, using the right kind of questions in proper order-these are important points in the success of small group Bible studies-but there is another factor at work as well: it’s sound educational theory. This approach is based on how people learn. Technically, it’s called the inductive method.

People learn by doing. The more senses we use, the greater our chances of remembering. If we use only our ears, we retain about 10 percent; if we use our ears and our eyes, we retain 30 to 40 percent; if we hear, see and then say it, we retain up to 90 percent.

That’s why in this kind of Bible study group we want everyone to participate. If a person discovers a truth and then puts it into his own words, that truth is his. He can tell it later to someone else with conviction because he discovered it for himself. The crucial difference, therefore, in this kind of group is that no one lectures, gives all the answers, or puts everyone straight. The leader for the week is not the expert who answers all the questions, but the one who asks and guides the progress of the discussion so the passage is covered in the alloted time. The following week someone else takes a turn at being the question asker. Everyone uses the same study guide; the leader doesn’t use a more detailed guide.

Once started, the group’s health depends on I common sense rules. For example, no one person owns the group; it’s everybody’s. It’s not "my group at my house" or church. Each person takes equal responsibility for ongoing vitality, not just the one who started it. Changing houses and leaders week-by-week promotes shared ownership. Everybody’s ideas get equal time and appreciation in the discussion. People are encouraged to ask questions and to admit, "I don’t understand that," or to ask, "Where did you get that?"

Groups should be kept small, so everyone can talk. Four to nine is a good size. As people get excited, they will bring others. But when the group gets beyond 10, it’s time to start another one, even though that’s often hard to do.

Everyone should know the rules ahead of time, and when new people come they should be clued in too. That way everyone can relax and feel on the same level. Some of the basic rules of a good discussion group are:

1. Stick to the passage. Books of the Bible should be studied from the first sentence to the last, so the group gets the whole picture intended by the author. If everyone limits himself to the passage being studied, everyone has the same chance to say something. Those who are more familiar with the text can look carefully at it, rather than assuming they have learned all there is to know about it.

2. Avoid side issues, no matter how interesting. If the subject does not arise from the passage, stay off it. Privately, or in another setting, these kinds of things can be discussed. Usually, off-the-cuff debates are not productive and may only discourage people.

3. Let the Bible be the authority, not the leader, the church, or any one member. Each answer must be subjected to only one test: what the passage itself says. Sometimes a more experienced person finds that others direct questions to him. If that happens, he must ask that the group look again at the text. He must not become the "answer person."

The foregoing may sound like an interesting theory. Missionaries rightfully ask, Does it work in such and such a country? Yes, there are flourishing groups following this model in various parts of the world. For example:

In Japan, Lorraine Fleischman and Virginia Bowen, who assist the Japanese equivalent of Inter-Varsity (KGK), have been doing this for 13 years. With non-Christians, they start with four studies on God. Then they go through the Gospel of Mark. Using study guides and rotating leaders, members keep the groups going without missionaries. They find these groups work best when not more than half are Christians. If the seekers are outnumbered, they are uncomfortable and do not participate as freely.

Unbelievers have discovered the claims of Jesus for themselves. They also come to faith in him in the context of a supportive, caring group. One mother of a thalidomide baby became a Christian in such a study group and she started studying the Bible with other mothers who had the same kind of babies. Many of them subsequently became Christians.

In churches, this approach is being used in youth meetings, women’s meetings, and prayer meetings. For semimonthly women’s meetings, one church in Japan divides into small groups meeting in seven homes. They have found it easier to get new people into Bible studies this way.

In Costa Rica, Charles and Lois Troutman first started this method with other missionaries because they felt the need for some spiritual intake themselves. Soon, so many other English-speakers joined that they split into several groups. Catholics, Protestants, young professionals, business leaders, some with no church background: all were eager and curious to study in a setting where they could get into the Bible for themselves.

The Troutmans decided not to use the lecture method, so they could help dozens of others read the Scripture and find out what it says. These intelligent, articulate, successful people were in nursery school when it came to Bible knowledge. However, said Lois, "I’ve never been so convinced of the power of the gospel to do God’s work in human hearts."

This approach fits Latin culture. The loving support of the group is the greatest strength. Latins love the free exchange of ideas. God uses this to change their lives.

In Nigeria, Jim and Carol Plueddemann introduced the inductive approach in youth and Sunday school materials. Because the young people were becoming better educated than some of their pastors, they needed help in digging into the Bible for themselves. The possibility of a rebellious attitude was headed off and turned to the good because the young people found out they could study the Bible and understand it. This kind of Bible study revitalized church young people in Nigeria.

Eight-page Bible study guides were published and a thousand copies sold in a week. As new editions are printed, the demand continues to exceed supply. Similar guides have been published for women’s groups.

Diverse kinds of groups have been formed to meet specific needs. This small group, question-asker method is an ideal way to help break down mistrust between missionaries, and between missionaries and church leaders. As they studied as equals, all looking at the text to find the answers and without an authority figure, they learned from each other, prayed for each other, and admitted when it was hard to apply the truth. Attitudes changed and bad relationships were healed.

In another case, a group of busy men thought about getting together, even though their schedules were loaded. They started to study Ephesians and concluded that it was much easier to handle their pressures if they took time for their weekly study.

During the perilous 1960s in Vietnam, Franklin and Doris Irwin taught this approach to church leaders. They knew that this was the best preparation they could give, so that people could learn to feed themselves, using the questions in the guides. After they left, one of the believers wrote, "We are studying Acts and living Acts."

The Irwins moved on to the Philippines and found that small group inductive studies were ideally suited for evangelism. Both Catholics and Protestants were interested. They have since put study guides into simplified English and then translated them into six languages for use in tribal areas. (Available from Alliance Publishers, Inc., MCC P.O. Box 1119, Makati 3117, Metro Manila, Philippines.)

There’s an old proverb that accurately illustrates what we try to accomplish with this approach to group Bible study: "If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day; if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for life." To put this concept into the words of a missionary, "If we do what is reproducible, someone will reproduce it."

We tend to reproduce what we have seen; we tend to teach as we were taught. Perhaps the lecture method is the only one some missionaries have ever seen. We need to develop other models and tools that are easily reproducible by believers in all circumstances.

Christian nurture is not dependent solely on the resident missionary, teacher, or pastor. The whole congregation must be involved. Our methods must be consistent with what we tell believers. If we say to them, "God can use you in evangelism with your neighbors, and God can use you to strengthen your fellow believers," then we must give them methods and tools that work and that truly involve everyone.

The same approach works remarkably well with non-Christian friends, neighbors, professional peers, students, and fellow workers. Two or three Christians invite five or six non-Christians to investigate the Bible together. Using the same three basic kinds of questions, and following the same group discussion rules, non-Christians who have never read the Bible find out that they are not intimidated and not embarrassed by what they don’t know. They aren’t bored, because they get a thrill out of learning for themselves what the Bible says, what it means, and how it applies to their lives.

From the Discipleship Center in Delhi, India, Barry Mackey explains: "Unless every Christian is equipped with methods and materials that can be used appropriately in peer group situations, there is no assurance that the Christian faith will be able to grow or even continue in India." That is why for the last nine years the Discipleship Center (A-42-44 Commercial Complex, Delhi 110-009, India) has published inductive study guides in six Indian languages.

Young and old, educated and uneducated, professional and blue collar, Christian and non-Christian: all of them can make the discovery of a lifetime, that the Bible can be understandable, meaningful and relevant to their interests and needs when they get involved in a self-study group.

(Editor’s Note: For full details about philosophy and procedures, write for a free copy of "How to Start," to Neighborhood Bible Studies, Box 222, Dohbs Ferry, N.Y. 10522. Also request a list of study guides available in 26 languages. Inductive study guides are also published by Inter Varsity Press, Box F, Downers Grove, ILL 60515; Harold Shaw Publishers, Fisherman Series,, Wheaton, ILL. 60187; Tyndale House Publishers, Wheaton, ILL 60187.)

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