Nov 12, 2009
Stop doing Bible studies
Wouldn’t our terminology better represent what should happen between people, their Bibles, and God if we called it something other than study?
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Theme based on Derek Punsalan's Grid Focus.
Other terminology would likely make for a better abbreviation than “BS,” which is what I usually write on the calendar to indicate Bible Study nights..
LOL!
We had a very animated discussion about this in my small group a few weeks ago. We have people from varying countries some of which are less likely to consider BS to mean something bad. A few of those people kept saying BS in emails and at meetings. The rest of us couldn’t help being a touch immature and laughing at it. My other response upon getting an email titled something like “last nights BS” was to start wondering what really dramatic negative drama went down that i missed.
What would you suggest?
what about “152-insights-into-my-soul”… Meg Ryan, You’ve Got Mail.
Rock on.
I would like to call it:
Eating.
Drinking.
Essence of Survival.
If I don’t do this, I will die.
Joseph, I think your answer gets right at why it feels a little funny to call it study.
Maybe the word doesn’t feel so dry and academic to others.
“Maybe the word doesn’t feel so dry and academic to others.”
Then I pray and hope:
“May the word doesn’t feel so dry and academic to all of us especially me.”
To clarify, I meant the word “study,” not The Word.
:D
I still pray the same that The Word doesn’t feel dry but full of life.
My wife and I like to do our own Bible study… the connotation of “study” in our case being the same as when a high school girl tells her parents she’s going over to a boy’s house to “study”.
Word.
“Bibliophagy” would be a good word to mean “Bible eating”. Academic without being dry.
Definitely not dry. In fact, it sounds pretty sticky, if you ask me.
If you start gnawing on the copies of Micah I print out, I’m going to stop giving them to you.
Sometimes i get confused between the potluck week and the Micah week.
yeah
A more accurate term would be “God Study” … but isn’t that why the term most generally used today is “small group” or “discipleship time”?
oh nm, disregard that commment. I got it.
How about if it was just called “living”.
I think when we make such a big deal out of it…it makes it impossible to live up to the expectation.
I don’t read Hebrew…maybe the original word means something different than the ESV translates it. But I love Ezra 7:10 and I want to follow. So the word study for me fits perfectly.
Wouldn’t new lingo just lead a blog post like this one 50 years from now with an attempt to abandon that lingo and go back to the word Bible study?
a blog post every 50 years might not be too much effort to keep the language meaningful.
I couldn’t agree more Abraham. We approach “it” much as a forensic scientist, a morgue technician or a medical student approaches a dead body. Our study of God is reduced to the study of yet another (dead) subject or specimen. To say that “God is alive” is, of course, redundant, but I do think that the phrase reminds that we are approaching the Holy One, not another subject.
To clarify, what I mean to say is that I think the word “study” is ok if it is defined correctly. When one says “I studied the landscape” I don’t think they are saying that they are actually taking notes like a geologist, but that they are looking at and admiring the landscape.
The object of “studying” is to acquire knowledge about something. I guess what we want to know is not what the Bible says, but to actually know God, and we do so through studying His Word.
Don’t separate knowing God from knowing what His Word says. It’s certainly true we can know categorical truth without knowing God but we cannot know God without knowing categorical truth about Him. We need to know “what the bible says” about the God we need to know.
“It’s certainly true we can know categorical truth without knowing God but we cannot know God without knowing categorical truth about Him”
I 100% AGREE. What I should have said was: “What we want to know is not JUST what the Bible says, but to actually know God.”
I think you actually strengthened my point which was to say that knowing God is accomplished through knowing true things about Him that draw us into closer communion with Him. That’s why I think it’s ok to say that we do “Bible study” as long as we know what that means.
Right on! I completely agree with you.
I think maybe we should be doing more study. Let’s not change the word because it’s not what we do. Maybe we should change what we do because that’s what we’re there for.
The “what happens between people, their bibles and God” is discipleship and community in my humble opinion.
My Biblical Hermeneutics (Biblical study + interpretation) lecturer often quotes:
“Hermeneutics is an art and not a science”
I think the same can be said for our ‘Bible study.’
It is very presumptuous of us to think we can glean things from scripture on our terms. Perhaps we use a term that reflects our theology:
What it we called it ‘talking with God’? Since the scriptures are a dialogue with which we can interact. The Bible is not some text book from which we draw useful ideas or facts.
So, maybe something like “Bible Tour,” or “Bible Exploration,” so it sounds more like vacation and less like work? Or maybe “Bible mining,” which sounds more active, although it doesn’t look better on the calendar.
LOL
I don’t object to the word “study” or any of its connotations. I think the activity (whatever you want to call it) should be done rigorously and with a keen and zealous desire to mine its depths (as if). That approach may sound sterile, but it has resulted in some of the most wonderful experiences of joy in my life.
I’m with Bob. God has made us intellectual, emotional, and volitional–to think, to feel, and to do. The problem is not study; the problem is either mere study or lack of study. Increasing our knowledge of the text is a worthwhile end, but an insufficient one. Propositional, relational, and skill knowledge are all necessary: we dare not set one aside or emphasize one to the detriment of the others.
It’s about balance and intention.
Abraham, funny you should mention it, because I have a Bible study :-) resource coming out in the spring from Threads Media (called “Abide”) that features 5 rhythms of the kingdom, the first of which is what is traditionally called “Bible study” (or devotional reading or something like that), but which I call the rhythm of “Feeling Scripture.” I stole that from your dad, pretty much.
Wow. You got me with the drunken master there. I’m in.
Great are the works of the LORD, studied by all who delight in them.
(Psa 111:2)
Agreed
Maybe we should just get back to work. :)
Abraham doesn’t pay you to comment on his blog?
I call it “meeting” and “abiding” (or “remaining”) – because God has told me to meet with him daily. Remaining/abiding in His love requires obedience.
How about “hungering and thirsting for God”
The guys and I that have a “bible study”. We call it Bibles & Beers. Because, well…it’s sort of self explanatory.
“Bible Engagement”?
i get what you’re saying, but on the other hand . . . if you’ve never studied *anything* until the point of being filled with exhilarating joy and wonder, you’re doing something wrong. to study anything in the created world as deeply as possible is inevitably to worship. how much more to study the creator?
Ok perhaps I am a bit distracted and off task today (as indicated by multiple comments on this post) but doesn’t trying to come up with a new term to describe reading the Bible sound just a tad bit emergent? I am not calling you emergent Abraham, but they love to resist words like “study” and come up with new terms that sound less dry and religious. “We don’t do Bible study, we do Jams With Jesus.” Something like that. Know what I mean?
How about, “love in?” Or, maybe, “lil’ church?”
Here is a more serious response:
Our church gets lots of preaching. Two full sermons on a sunday, if you are part of a fellowship group. Plus, as many of us probably do, I listen to sermons all week (commute). So, I have always looked at “Bible Study” kind of like your dad does – “small groups.” Especially in a big church, you need small groups to fellowship, sharpen iron, serve, and love each other.
So, on second thought, I go with my first response – “Love In.”
That’s a little bit like calling sex merely “biology study.”
I think it was Dallas Willard I once heard say that we need fewer Bible study groups and more Bible obedience groups.
Sorry, it was actually Eugene Peterson.
If I may reinterpret your post using a triperspectival framework:
You believe that the label “Bible study” limits how we engage (primarily) the Bible and (secondarily) the people involved because word “study” overemphasizes the act of learning about God (normative, expressed as scripture reading, memorization and meditation, apologetics, hermeneutics, etc) to the detriment of both connecting with God (existential, expressed as worship, prayer, etc.) and experiencing God (situational, expressed as community, fellowship, service, evangelism).
I agree. But don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Studying the nature of God through his Word is very important. We must strive to achieve a balance of all three perspectives.
Now where’d I set my beer?
I understand and accept what you are saying.
However, in the contexts I am familiar with, Christians are familiar with “study”. They know how to do it, it’s (mostly) a private thing, and it’s safely in the realm of the intellectual.
So calling for “balance” between learning about God and anything else more active, more risky, or more transformational will in practice result in the continuation of the status quo.
Among such folks, I might say something like, “We probably know a lot more about God and his ways than we are putting into practice; maybe we ought to put a moratorium on learning new stuff until we’re doing better at following what we already know.” The immediate and predictable response is, “Knowledge is important! We can’t follow what we don’t know!”
I am not saying these things as guidelines for everyone; I’m just saying that people who are already spending 90% of their focus on “study” (as the ones I’m referring to are) don’t need to be told to try for balance. They probably need to try to give 90% effort to the other extreme and (God willing) they may approach some kind of “balance”.
This is true in my experience with all kinds of spectrums. People who are completely out of whack (way too far toward one end) will react to any suggestion of moving toward the center by objecting that the opposite extreme has insuperable problems.
Well said. That is exactly why I used such an absurd overstatement for the title.
Our tendency is to react rather than respond. When we react, it’s fleshly. When we respond, it should be biblically.
no?
If I may go all triperspectival again (sorry Abraham), the best approach to overcome status quo and/or to limit extreme overreaction might be to engage these people in three ways (simultaneously):
1. normative – tell them what we should be doing, rooted in the truth of God’s nature, desires, and redemptive plan;
2. situational – show them what you mean by demonstrating the alternative in your own life;
3. existential – care for them where they are at, recognizing that they too are flawed in their ability to understand and do God’s will, and that it is only the grace of Jesus Christ that will transform them.
So long as sins still exists in this world we should be constantly moving, seeking to draw closer to God. God is supremely worthy of so much more glory than we can ever give. When we tolerate spiritual stagnation and safety to accommodate people’s comfort with familiarity, we deny him of his glory.
A life transformed by the Gospel of Jesus Christ should never be fully satisfied with any form of sacrament that is expressed through human action or institutions. They can never be enough. We should be constantly moving toward the fullness of Jesus Christ.
If we fully understood who Christ is and what he has done for us, no human institution or activity could do enough to satisfy our desire for him.
Man. Triperspectivalism clears the room again. WHEN WILL I LEARN?
Bible Doing
Where I am, we often just call them “groups” after whatever we’re specifically studying… i.e. “Daniel group,” “Colossians group,” “Life of Christ group,” etc. It’s not exactly an official term, but people just seem to refer to them that way.
It can be a tiny bit awkward if your group continues on to another book or topic, but a lot of times that’s when you get a few people transitioning in and out, so it ends up working okay.
If there’s a group to specifically discuss the end times, we often call those “E-12″s… it’s like the G-8, except there are twelve people instead of eight, and they discuss eschatology. It’s a little bit corny but it’s concise and it communicates.
“Bible conversations” maybe?
Also, I say we should stop calling them bible studies when the study is actually on some vaguely christian book that has very little properly interpreted bible involved.
House groups.
I do see your point, but I don’t think the problem is with the word study. The problem is with us. We often study, but fail to act on what we’ve studied. We often don’t follow through to show that the reason we study is so that we can DO something with what we’ve learned. Maybe that’s because of the way school is set up. Study, study, study, and then before we get to do anything with what we’ve learned, we have to study the next thing, over and over again, so that we can do well on “tests,” and prove that we have learned something. Yet we haven’t really learned things until we can do something with them.
Looking at the definitions* for study found at http://www.thefreedictionary.com, these are all very important things to do. We really should study, and we have to, if we are going to live out the Christian life. The apostles all did it. Their classroom was the world, and so is ours. They didn’t have Bibles and concordances; they had Jesus, but so do we (He lives in us), plus all of the print resources he has made available so that we can do even greater things, which he told us to do.
Knowledge often gets bad press. People think that if you know a lot you’re stuck up or out of touch, but the Bible tells us that we should know God and know his Word, and that we should know it excellently. If we don’t know Jesus, we can’t do what he says, and we can’t do it for the right reason.
Along with our studies we need constant prayer that Jesus will give us opportunities to do what his Word says, and give us a heart to do them. There is an excellent opportunity for this on Saturday, November 14, from 9 AM to 1 PM at locations all around the world. Women everywhere are gathering to pray for students of all ages and schools. You can find a site at http://www.MomsInTouch.org. Walk-ins are welcome. I hope that many who read this will come because prayer makes a difference! Without it, our studies will not amount to much.
* “To apply one’s mind purposefully to the acquisition of knowledge or understanding of (a subject).
2. To read carefully.
3. To memorize.
4. To take (a course) at a school. [We do this for other less important subjects--so it's a good thing to do regarding our faith,a s well]
5. To inquire into; investigate.
6. To examine closely; scrutinize.
7. To give careful thought to; contemplate: study the next move.
v.intr.
1. To apply oneself to learning, especially by reading.
2. To pursue a course of study.
3. To ponder; reflect.
I come from the Calvary Chapel tradition and in our stream, we call everything Bible studies, home groups are Bible studies,
Sunday morning preaching is called a Bible study, the midweek service is called a Bible study and I thought it was great. It shows the attention is on the scriptures.
However, 6 years ago I moved from California to Ireland to work with a church and over here the Sunday morning and Wednesday evening services are called simply “meetings”. And I really like it. It has hints of the fact that we come together to meet with God through scripture and worship and prayer and also we meet with each other.
If I ever end up leading a church in the States I’m going to try to introduce that title.
“WORDfeast”
How about “Prophecy Meeting” (1 Corinthians 14)?
“Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” 2Timothy 2:15
This passages in David Powlison’s book, Seeing with New Eyes seems to go with this post:
Ephesians “is written to change you and make you an instrument of change in the lives of your brothers and sisters. Yes, bring the tools of Bible study and theological reflection to bear. But never allow the support disciplines to degenerate into ends in themselves. Explore the practical wisdom that is Ephesian’s chief end, so that you, too, will live and do ministry the way Paul does.”