Studying a Passage for Lesson Planning

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 teachers 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.

Most of us are probably not all that good at being observative. 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 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 28 observations.

*Cornelius was a man	*Cornelius was in Caesarea	*Cornelius was a centurion
*Cornelius was part of the Italian Regiment	*Cornelius is identified as "a certain man"	*Cornelius was devout
*Cornelius fared God	*Cornelius had a household	*Cornelius' household feared God
*Cornelius gave alms	*Cornelius was generous	*Cornelius gave to people
*Cornelius prayed to God not a lesser idol	*The story takes place during the ninth hour	*Cornelius saw clearly
*Cornelius had a vision	*Cornelius interacts with an angel	*The angel was from God
*The angel had to come, he wasn't already there	*The angel spoke to Cornelius	*The angel knew Cornelius' name

As you can see, these approximately 60 words of txt 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?

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

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

Acts 10:4-6	Acts 10:9-13	Acts 10:14
Acts 10:15-16	Acts 10:17-18	Acts 10:19-20
Acts 10:21	Acts 10:22-23	Acts 10:24-29
Acts 10:30-33	Acts 10:34-43	Acts 44-48

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)