Video Transcript: How to Lead a Topic Bible Study

Henry So we're back today, we're going to talk about how to lead Bible study  specifically in topic.  

Steve - So what, for example, we'll try this as an example. What does the Bible  say about and we're going to look at parenting. But you could put marriage, you  could put family, you could put business, you could put money, you could put  miracles, you could put angels, you could put anything like we mini courses are  like and this theme, often, yeah, theology topics. It really, actually, you know,  theology one and two is really a Bible study about the topic of doctrine. Right?  And doctrine are really just the really, really big, important topics that the Bible  talks about, right? You know, where did the world come from? Where is it going? What is this salvation thing? We call it soteriology, but it's sort of a topic of  salvation, yes. So some topics are grand and comprehensive, and other topics  are small, but what relevant topics do you have with your group? What's going  on in the lives of the people? And then you can pick something relevant. Okay,  so let's say you do this. You don't have an off the shelf thing. We talked about  how you can do this with books and off the shelf things, but, but how would you  do it with a topic that you're interested in? So, for example, parenting. So the  first thing you would do is search parenting or parent in the Bible, right? So you  can go to like Bible gateway it's a free site, biblegateway.org, or com, I forget,  right? And and you can just in the search button, you can put any word you  want, and then you will get a list of all the verses in the Bible that use that word  

Henry - right. And you may have to use words like father, mother, because  parenting may not be a Bible word,  

Steve - but that's where you start. You start with the word that you're trying to  amend. You can use some of the derivatives of that. So I did this. I searched  and right away, these two were the first two, and there were others, but these  

two came up. Proverbs 22:6, Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it. Right then Ephesians 6:4,  

Henry - fathers do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the  discipline and instruction of the Lord.  

Steve - Okay, so you have now you might come up with 10 different verses,  right? So then what do you do with these verses? Okay, well, you apply the  techniques that we learned in session two and three, and you write your own  Bible study. Remember those techniques. So what? What gets your attention as  you read these verses? So you go around the room, what, when you see the  verse, Train up a child in the way he should go, when he is old he will not turn  depart from it? What in there gets your attention? And fathers do not provoke 

your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline, instruction, Lord, okay, so what would what? So someone might say in the first one? Well, a lot of  people will choose, he will not depart from it because they have a child that has  departed. So they pick that, and it's very but you see how it's very personal.  They pick that because they have a child or a grandchild that has walked away  from the Lord, and they picked that that got their attention. That's what they're  concerned about. And then when you go around the room and talk about it,  guess what they're going to share, they're going to share their heart about how  their grandchild has walked away from the faith, and they prayed and they've  talked, and they're on their knees and nothing is changing, and is God listening? Does God care? And all of a sudden, you're into some pretty deep waters, right? Because you let them figure out what part of the verse. Now another one might  be train, you know, a young family, okay? What does it mean to train up a child?  What exactly would you do? Right? So then they gravitate towards that part of  the verse. So all the things that we talked about in section two and three.  

Henry - Now I noticed that sometimes some preachers will have a topic, but  then they really come into it through a Bible passage that, let's say, train up a  child, but then they'll include all kinds of other Bible passages about that, but  they're kind of like entry into the water was one Bible verse, right, right? That  Bible verse was the gateway to all kinds of other Bible verses related to that  

thing, right? And sometimes they talk about, you know, like even preaching, you  know, exegetical preaching, but really it's topical preaching, but it really comes in by one verse, right?  

Steve - And the reason why topical is so important, some people have an  allergic reaction, for example, not maybe not with the Bible study, but certainly  with preaching. Times they think following verse by verse is the only. Way, and  they're afraid of topical but we need people to think topically, because, for  example, I have a problem in my life. You know, do I move to another state to  take this job or not? I have to be able to ask, does the Bible have anything to  say about this subject that I am right now facing, or your mother is, you know, in  the hospital and you're praying, you don't know what to pray. Does the Bible  have anything helpful on this subject of grief and letting go and all these things?  So we live our lives, we have all these problems, right? And why not have the  ability to take from the problem and then find something. I mean, in a way, Jesus did this. He saw a problem. You know, life is like, it's like, like a sower. The  kingdom is like a sower. He probably saw a sower, so he reacted to it. But the  Pharisees said one thing, so he tells a story in a reaction to the question. So he  was always responding to the topic, 

Henry - how do you treat your neighbor? And then he goes to the story of the  Samaritan. Yes, everyone was a Samaritan. Yes. There was a man on road,  right? Because who was the neighbor, right? So people know what that is, right,  the priest or the Samaritan? Right? The answer the Samaritan.  

Steve - So how about off the shelf, topical Bible studies? So we have some of  them. We have the CLI books here. I've got a bunch of them. Henry, okay,  here's a few. Has written some. Here's a couple more. What is Christianity?  

Henry - Well, you know what's nice about this Christianity book, it's in the  Christian Basics class, which is, this is the topics of doctrine, the key doctrine,  right? And what's great about this one is it actually has a Bible study that picks a topic from the topics, yes, so you might have a bio. Let's say you have a serious  group of people who want to really go deep. You can get this word of  Christianity, and then you can say, well, we'll meet and we'll do the Bible study  on one of the topics of the topic, but yeah, they're all here, and they're in our  bookstore, but they're in Christian bookstores all over.  

Steve - So a lot of books like this will have questions already in them at the end  of every chapter, and that becomes some of them won't, but then you can apply  those other techniques we learn. Well, what got your attention in this chapter?  Why did it get your attention? What might God be saying to you? So you can  sort of write your own questions if there aren't questions.  

Henry - You know, I remember a technique that taught seminary, which is sort of  what we're doing with you. They called it to think theologically. Now, what they  really meant was any topic, you have to somehow think, what does the Bible  have to say about it? What is a settled doctrine that is a really topical study, the  doctrine of the Trinity is really a doctrine, then it's a doctrinal topic. Yes, it's about who God is, who's God. And then you look at the Bible, and the Bible has a lot of different places that it talks about. You have to come together and see where is  the Holy Spirit actually a trinity in the Trinity, why and how? And so you took  centuries to figure all this out clearly, and it was okay. So, so now you're resting  on a theological topic, but now there's the biblical instances, and they're all  factored in there. But yet to think theologically, this is why you're doing the  ministry training, is that you'll start like getting a feel for what is topical, what is  an instance of a biblical teaching, what is practical life, and how the theology  and the instances of the biblical teaching connect through the power of the Holy  Spirit. And it sounds complicated, but when you're in it, it becomes second  nature. 

Steve - I think it's like a language. You learn the language of English, you just  speak it. I think, I think like when I went to seminary, the topic of theology, it was  all sort of like other worldly because I didn't know exactly what it was, right,  right? But when I finally figured that theology is just a topic, right? It's a topic, a  big topic, and then you go to the Bible to find out what the whole Bible has to  say about that topic. Okay, it's not that scary. It's just like parenting. It's just a  bigger topic, like, who is God rather than who is a parent? Yes, incredible. All  right, so off other off the shelf topic, the Bible says we have books here at CLI  the purpose driven life by Rick Warren is really popular in the Heidelberg  Catechism. We grew up with the Heidelberg Catechism. This is a reformation  document, and there's 52 questions and answers that sort of go over the broad  topics of the bottom the big topics like and what about the United Nations? Have a catechism? Yes, Presbyterian, but that's what a catechism is, right? Is a  topical study. We call it theology because the topics are big, right? 

Henry - It really, really one thing to know about that a lot of the disagreements  that come through church and denominations while they're separated are really  the disagreements about the topic in the theology of what the Bible says about  that, right? For instance, the example is some some believers don't believe that  there is a pope today. The head of the church, and the Catholic Church, of  course, does believe that. So where do they come to that? Well, they have a  history of this topic discussion. But then there's a passage that the that they  each group interprets so different, and that's that passage on Peter, you are  Petra, you're the rock. And on this, Petra, I will build my church. Petra means  rock and Peter and Peter. Petra now, but what does Petra refer to? Just refer to  Peter, or they refer to what Peter just said earlier, when Peter said, You are the  Christ, the Son of the living God. So you are Peter, and on this rock that is pet  the Petra himself, the person or testimony that Jesus is Lord. You know, what is  what? What is the rock? Well, that is a theological difference in both of them.  Refer to the Bible, and that's where the Holy Spirit and in the really, sometimes  you won't have all the answers about everything and what is the right answer?  And that's why we're very respectful of different traditions. We ourselves know  that that the Bible is really, really clear, but there are probably 15% of things that  are, you know, like the divides of baptism. You know, the divide of you know  women in office. You know even professors here, some people believe like you  and I believe that women can be ministers, but there are some professors here  who do not believe and that and there's different passages.  

Steve - That doesn't mean that one believes the Bible and one doesn't believe  the Bible, right? So, and none of these are salvation issues, no. Well, that's a  really good point. 

Henry - The Salvation issues are in agreement. Actually, most of Christian  dominia believe Jesus died for our sins. He rose again for our victory over  death. He is sitting on high. It says on Holy Spirit, really the Trinity. I mean really  apostles, creed, apostles. There's the  

Steve - Reformed churches or Protestant churches say the Apostles Creed.  Catholic churches say the Apostles Creed, right, the basic Right, exactly. And  that's our heart, as we say, the Bible here to see that we  

Henry - really agree on most things and where a lot of the disagreements come  in, how history, theology, historical, political landscape of Europe and then  America, or the mission field, all of these things. Now where we would differ is  on things like this, is the Bible, the Word of God is but many places make  arguments that, you know, the Bible isn't really just made up by men, right? You  know, there's where  

Steve - the basic doctrines of the church, yes, there's no disagreement. All right  back. So you can do this topical way of doing a Bible study with any book, any  book, so any book that you're interested in. So where do you see the Gospel  story in this book? So you might read The Lord of the Rings or something.  Where do you see the Gospel story in this book? Right? Tolkien was a Christian, so what? How did he put your faith? Yeah, where do you see a searching for the truth in this book? So it might be someone like I read Marcus Aurelius his  meditations, and he was a stoic philosopher. He didn't believe in Christianity, but he was like searching. I remember as a young college student, I had to do a  report on him, and I read his meditations. And one of the questions I asked the  professor, one of the things that bothered me was, here was a guy searching so  hard, how come he didn't find God? That's what I asked him. But you know that? Can lead some really good discussion. Where do you see the lies of the devil in  this book? So you can read a book that is so bad, but then, okay, fine, this is an  example of what the devil is trying to do, right, and that can be a teaching  experience. How can this book serve as an inspiration or a warning to your life,  yeah. So you can any book, a novel. You can have a group that's reading novels together, and you can turn it into a Bible study. Wow, really good movie. You can make a Bible study out of movies. What anti Christian values did you see in this  movie?  

Henry - Yeah, I remember one Bible study had with teens, and that's basically  what we did. They had like certain path of their movies, and some people came  to know the Lord through that study of movies and how Christ 

Steve - now, is it the movie itself that's saving the kids? No, it's the study of the  asking the right questions to get to the theological underpinnings, because  really, there's one story, and every movie follows this story, and it's in the Bible,  so we can learn whether there's something good or bad from these things. And  at the same time, we're teaching people how to be discerning when they read  about discerning theologically, right discerning when they read a movie, because that what's happening in our culture today, especially with young people. They're on their phones. They're watching videos all the time, but we haven't taught  them, perhaps, to be theologically aware of what they're watching, so they're  just taking it in like a sponge with no questions, right? Dangerous. What verses  relate to your observation? So you're watching a movie and you have this  negative I think this is not good, okay, why? What verse in the Bible would make you say such a thing? What Christian values did you see in this movie? Yeah,  okay. And again, what verses related maybe sometimes, yeah, right? A lot of  times they're even in a bad movie, like, want to be a movie about gangsters, and they're doing horrible things. But within the code of the gangsters is a love code, right? We support each other, we back one another up. We What If the Church  would be a little more like that, right? Yeah, so there's often in the middle of  something bad, because, you know what? Something bad won't work unless  they have some good things. We can point those things out based upon the  biblical world, new perspective and the in the bottom line is we're teaching  people to be more discerning when they take in things the world has to offer  current events. Okay, so what current event in the world got your attention,  right? Okay, there's all kinds of crazy things happening in our world, and people  are dealing with it. And a lot of times it's a it's so negative that people are  burdened by it. And to actually have a little study about it. People get it's sort of  a cathartic thing. It leads to hope. So, why do you think it got your attention?  Why did that thing?  

Henry - You know, it's a pattern to these questions, what got your attention?  Why did it get your attention? Right?  

Steve - Because there's a reason why this thing is bothering you or got your  attention, and God doesn't waste anything in their life. So God can teach you  through current events. But again, in some ways, we're teaching you to and  you're teaching your group to think theologically about everything.  

Henry - Jesus Christ was the Lord of every inch of our life, right?  

Steve - What scripture passages come to mind as a result of these current  events that are happening in your thinking of it? Right? So now, all of a sudden,  people are putting passages of the scripture to everything in their life, right? 

Secular or religious, so amazing grace. You could go over each stanza, right,  and talk about how you know what stanza stood out for you. What does this  mean? Why  

Henry - I think like fun, especially in the past, were like theological topics, yes,  like, abide with me, fast falls, the Eventide is the topic of our mortality in faith of  certain death, and what are you going to do about it? Right? I mean, okay, it  goes through into the last stanza before my closing eyes, you know, shine  through the gloom and point me to the skies. Heaven's morning breaks and  Earth vain shadows leave in life and in death. Oh, Lord, right, and so abide with  me.  

Steve - So some of us that are older are going, Yeah, I see some of these vain  shadows. A lot of these songs will relate to people's lives and. They will. Okay,  how about secular so I got Bohemian Rhapsody and show me the way, but  show me the ways by Stix, and I actually have the lyrics. So this is from  Bohemian Rhapsody queen. Okay? Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy  caught in the landslide? No escape from reality? Open your eyes. Look to the  skies and see I'm just a poor boy. I need no sympathy, because that easy, come  easy, go a little high, little low. Anyway, the wind blows doesn't really matter to  me.  

Henry - You know, there are so many theological I mean things where you got  some Proverbs in there. Those are, you know, what doesn't really matter? Look  up to the skies and see but they also see despair in there. I mean, there's,  

Steve - I think it's not only a really popular song, but I think it's an anthem of  many young people. Do they that they really right? They're really living their lives by the wind. The wind blows this it blows that way. What difference does it  make? Right? So I'm gonna grab what I can right now, while I have it, and let the chips fall where they may. Lot of young people are living quiet lives of despair.  The suicide rate has never been higher, and I think it's this mentality, because  people are letting go of God,  

Henry - but it's also too in the first line, isn't the real life or this legacy? Those are too flashy. There's modernism, impulse modernism, right? In one sentence,  right? It's probably why everybody identifies the song. Is a song that into the  zeitgeist. We call that of how people think.  

Steve - So. Here's another one. This is by Stix. Show me the way. Every night I  say a prayer in the hope that there's a heaven, but every day, I'm more confused as the saints turn into sinners, other heroes and legends I knew as a child, the 

Fallen titles of clay, and I feel this empty place inside. So I pray that I've lost my  faith. And then he goes, show me the way. Take me tonight to the river and wash my illusions away. Please show me the way. Now I think that, like that chorus is  

so powerful, because I think this is where people are searching, yeah, that  people are looking. And it could be people in your Bible study, yeah, that, you  know, they're facing certain things in their family, Lord, show me the way, right?  Or they got some difficult decisions to make about their futures, and I don't know what to do, show me the way right? And so these secular songs, because these  are people. Some of the secular people are still God's people. They're created in His image. And there's that he placed that sense of eternity in the heart of  people. So they're going to communicate some of these things. These are  universal thoughts and feelings that people have. So you can have a Bible study on songs. So what are we trying to show here? We're trying to show that any  topic that comes to you anyway, whether it's a book or whether it's television or  whether it's the news or whether it's art or whether people went to a play. It's like we need to help people think theologically and biblically, right? Like there's  nothing that God isn't in and there's nothing that God isn't interested in your life  and everything can be turned into a theological Bible study, all right, so we'll  meet again next time