Latest revision as of 22:58, 3 March 2019

Objectives

• Teachers will learn to observe what a passage says.
• Teachers will learn to see how a passage fits in a wider context
• Teachers will leave with a set of ideas about a passage that they can use as they look through other teacher's resources.

Introduction

• Consider the following image. How many squares do you see?

To see the answer select the text between these two There are 30 squares words.

In order to be effective in studying the Bible and teaching the Bible we must learn to observe.

Main Body

What Does the Passage Say?

Observation

• Take a moment, compartmentalize away everything you have previously learned and now read Acts 10:1-3 with fresh eyes. Write down as many observations about the passage as you can. These observations should be just plain facts about the passage. Try not to get caught up in previous knowledge or anything like that, just make observations about what the passage says. See if you can come up with 21 observations.

As you can see, these approximately 60 words of text contain a whole lot of information. For most of us, when we read, we miss a lot of information. This is not always a bad thing, after all, we need to get to the main point of the text. However, when we are teaching a text it can be helpful to carefully look at the text to see what all is in the text.

Important Questions

Anytime you are looking at a passage of Scripture it is important to ask yourself a few key questions, who? what? when? where? how? and why?

• Again, try not to think about anything other than the passage and answer the following questions:
  • Who? Cornelius
  • What? Spent time praying
  • When? At the ninth hour
  • Where? Caesarea
  • How? He saw an angel of God clearly in a vision
  • Why? Probably because he feared God and spent a significant amount of time in prayer

• Now try the same activity on one of the following passages:

Making Sense of the Passage

At this point you have probably only read a few paragraphs of the passage. As we study the process of preparing a lesson, we have much to learn, so rather than go through the steps for every single paragraph in Acts 10, (certainly a useful activity) we are going to move forward in the planning stages. Take a few minutes and read through Acts 10 in its entirety.

Background

Now that we have discussed what the passage actually states, it is time to start filling in the larger contextual and cultural details. Several questions will help us to fill in these details.

• To whom was the passage written?

• When was the passage written?

• Why do you suppose the passage was written?

• What cultural artifacts do you see in the passage that might not be present in the culture of those to whom you are giving the lesson?

Purpose

• Why do you think the writer chose to include this narrative? What were they trying to do?

• Create a brief outline of the passage. One is provided below but before looking at the outline below try to make your own.

• • I. Setting the stage acts (verses 1-8)
    • a. Cornelius (verses 1-2)
    • b. A surprise visitor (verses 3-4)
    • c. A surprise request (verses 5-8)
  • II. Setting the stage acts 2 (verses 9-23)
    • a. Peter (verses 9-16)
    • b. A surprise visitor (verses 17-18)
    • c. A surprise request (verses 20-23)
  • III. An Ordained Meeting (verses 24-33)
    • a. God calls all people not just Jews (verses 24-29)
    • b. God has provided preachers to spread His word (verses 30-33)
  • IV. The Purpose (verses 34-43)
    • Jesus is Lord (verses 34-38)
    • Jesus is Savior (verses 39-43)
  • V. The Result (verses 44-48)
    • a. God can save gentiles (verses 44-46)
    • b. God brings gentiles into the church (verses 47-48)

• Now that you have an outline try to write a single sentence using fewer than 10 words that summarize the entire passage.

Divine appointments demonstrated Christ's salvation is for Jews and Gentiles.

• Finally, write a propositional statement, something that you want your students to walk away with. For example, "we must individually accept the gift of salvation that Christ offers to all mankind."

Using Resources

There are a lot of resources available ranging from commentaries, outlines, and other summaries to specific dictionaries. Each of these resources is useful, but I think it is most useful to first go through the steps above so that you have an understanding of the passage. This will help you identify and distinguish opinion from fact. Some people have really good opinions, but others have very bad opinions. The steps above will help you sort through what others have said so that you can more objectively interpret scripture.

Some Outside Resources

Other Translations

As a next step it can be very helpful to begin looking at the passage in other translations. As you do so you might ask yourself the following questions:

• Are there significant differences between translations?
• Are there places where one translation helps make sense of a phrase over another translations? (Note: you also should weigh the trustworthiness of the translation in this process.)
• Are there words that one translation uses that my audience will understand better? Can I use these words while still being faithful to the text?

Commentaries

Commentaries general provide some deeper background, culture, and overview of a passage. A good commentary can really help a passage come to life. For the purposes of this discussion we will not get much into commentaries. However, a few commentaries are worth particular mention. Both the Bible Knowledge Commentary and the Bible Exposition Commentary are good resources for general study. I would not classify either resource as a scholarly resource, but for the purpose of planning a lesson, both commentaries have excellent material.

Dictionaries

Bible dictionaries come in all sorts of levels. Some Bible dictionaries are closer to commentaries while others are simple dictionaries. Some dictionaries work in English while others are in the original language of the text. Using a Bible dictionary can be extremely useful for studying a passage.

Specialized Curriculum

In many cases you may have access to a specific curriculum that was designed for a Sunday School class or VBS. These curriculums can be very useful, but they can also be a crutch. My advice is that before using a curriculum you first go through the preparation steps outline above. Once you have taken these steps then you can go to the curriculum and use the curriculum to supplement your work. What follows are some general guidelines for using curriculum.

• Look for learning objectives, read those objectives, and ask yourself, are objective specific, measurable? If not, rewrite them so they are.
• Do the learning objectives fit the passage? At this point you should have a good grasp of the passage and you should be able to see how the learning objectives match the passage. If the objectives do not match the passage then you should alter the objectives or look for a better passage.
• Next, skip over the introduction, activities and pre-lesson material, before we get to any of that we want to look at how the curriculum will handle the passage itself. Read through the curriculums handling of the passage. Ask yourself the following:
  • Is there anything I missed in the passage that the curriculum is bringing out?
  • Is there anything the curriculum authors missed in the passage that I found?
  • Is there good reason to other omit or include those observations? In particular, do they support the learning objective? If they do then you should consider including them.

After walking through these steps you are now in a position to use the curriculum to plan out a full lesson plan. For further help on planning the lesson plan we refer you to Introduction to Lesson Planning.