goals of discipleship :: biblical understanding
biblical (adj) : of, relating to, or contained in the Bible (Oxford American Dictionary)understanding (n) : mental process of a person who comprehends; comprehension; personal interpretation (dictionary.com)
The second goal of discipleship is to see your disciple's biblical understanding develop. Your disciple should understand the origin and reliability of the Bible, know how to study the Bible, and be able to trace salvation through the story of the Bible.
Here's the reality. The assumption is being made that because students have spent some amount of time in church, or youth group, or whatever, that they know their Bibles. That somewhere along the line, they've picked up the skill of Bible reading.
Wrong.
The more time we spend with students, the more we recognize that they don't know how to read their Bibles. They don't know where to start, what exactly they are supposed to do, even what they're supposed to get out of it. They have no plan and no skills, and we just keep telling them 'Read your Bible'. Not too helpful...
We need to help our disciples see the need for reading their Bibles. What's the point? Well here's a few:
- nourishment (1 Peter 2.2)
- mental transformation (Romans 12.2)
- victory over sin (John 8.31-32)
- discernment and wisdom (Hebrews 5.13-14)
- ministry (2 Timothy 3.16-17)
- appreciating grace (Romans 2.4)
- understanding self
- motivation (this was mentioned in the character portion -- we want our disciples to make right choices because their hearts desire to follow Christ. Conviction, motivation, instruction-these all should come first from Scripture.)
(List taken from Organic Disciplemaking, by Dennis McCallum & Jessica Lowery)
As your disciple understands the need for reading Scripture, he or she will need to know how to study. This summer, we taught our students' a simple 4 step hermeneutic (Bible interpretation) method:
- Grasp the text in their town: who is the original audience? where did they live? what are important aspects of their culture? what is the meaning of the text to this audience?
- Measure the width of the river to cross: what are the differences in time, culture, language, situation, covenant, etc? (this is where we focus on differences between 'them' and 'us')
- Cross the principlizing bridge: what is the theological principle in this text? (this is where we focus on similarities between 'them' and 'us')
- Grasp the text in our town: what is the application for a believer today?
We need to teach our disciples that they cannot just apply every verse that they read immediately to their lives. They need to go through the process of interpreting the passage and understanding how they fit into the story of Scripture, instead of how the Scripture fits into their story.
To aid in this process of studying Scripture, our disciples should be equipped with good tools. At the very least, a good study Bible. (We highly recommend the ESV study Bible -- it is a reliable translation, has great notes, and excellent articles (such as an God's Plan of Salvation, Biblical Ethics, Interpreting the Bible, Reading the Bible, the Reliability of the Bible, the Bible and World Religions, Salvation in the Old Testament... just to name a few).) There are also tons of commentaries, Bible dictionaries, sermons (free online!), and Bible studies. We live in an age with a plethora of Biblical materials available to us. Let's help our disciples learn to make use of them.
Lastly, your disciple needs a plan. Without a reading plan, it is so easy to skip one day, two days, three, five, ten, a month ... When there is a plan in place, it is much easier to stay on track day to day. The plan may be to read through Matthew this month, and study the sayings of Jesus. Or it may be to read the Bible cover to cover and keep track of principles of God, however long it takes. Or it may be to read Ephesians once a day for a month. It doesn't matter what the plan is, just as long as there is one.
- You may need to show your disciple why we study Scripture.
- You may need to teach your disciple the basics of hermeneutics.
- You may need to provide your disciple with some study tools.
- You may need to help your disciple develop a reading plan.
- You may need to ask your disciple every.single.day. if he or she is reading.
- You may need to actually read with your disciple when you get together.
Do whatever you need to do to stress the importance of Scripture. The reality is, you don't want your disciple to rely on you. You want him or her to rely on the Lord, on His Word. You will only truly communicate that if you model that, and if you empower & enable them to rely on Him.
Labels: biblical understanding, discipleship, ESV study Bible, Grasping God's Word, hermeneutics, Organic Disciplemaking, principlizing bridge
posted by sarah @ 2:14 PM
1 Comments:
couldn't agree more.
-especially commendable is your observation regarding the motivational limits of "read your bible" if they do not know "how."
-concerning your "how" approach, i used the same (conceptual) approach when i taught my students how to study the bible this summer. good stuff.
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