welshie's wanderings

Barcelona - Notes from "How To Prepare an Evangelistic Bible Study" - Susanne Koch and Jo Wilson

God does the work! (Breathe a sigh of relief!)
Prepare the Bible study for yourself.
PRAY! (And again, and again, and again!)
Ask God to reveal the truth to you.
Read the passage AS THE PASSAGE (often the passages we read/study with people evangelistically are ones we’ve read loads of times before and so we read it, think we know what it says, and then tell people what we think, using our wisdom! But you could be telling a 22 year old student something you learned about that passage when you were 5!)

Read it as if you’ve never read it before.

Once you understand the passage for yourself, think about what you want others to get out of it. What’s the main point? Have this in mind whilst preparing the questions. But keep praying! Then observation, interpretation, application. Think about questions – how do they help someone understand the main point?

God is speaking to us as we read his word. “opening the Bible is like opening the lips of God.” It’s exciting! It’s exciting that God speaks to US while we’re preparing something for others to hear. And this reminds us that it’s the Bible that will speak to people, not us.

We often interpret a passage before we’ve actually observed what it says. If we observe badly we interpret badly and don’t learn.
Context, structure, little words, repetition, comparison/contrast, characters, circumstances…

WHY is this passage in the Bible? What does it mean? PRAY!!!

What does the passage teach us that we can apply to ourselves today? Is there something we need to change? What do we learn abut Jesus?

posted by Welshie @ 10:37 pm