Developing a Study — Part 2 — Scripture

“You must teach what is in accord with sound doc­trine” (Titus 2:1)

We’re tak­ing a look at how to develop a study for your GROWTH Group, based around the acronym SOAR.

Today, we’re look­ing at the first part of this — S for Scripture.

SCRIPTURE
Once you have determ­ined the goal of your teach­ing, select a scrip­ture pas­sage that addresses the issue at hand. Where pos­sible select a pas­sage rather than an isol­ated verse which can eas­ily be taken out of con­text and/or applied incor­rectly. When select­ing a pas­sage, be aware of the types of pas­sages within scrip­ture, as well as the types of applications.

Types of Pas­sages: Within the Bible there are vari­ous cat­egor­ies of texts, vary­ing from: Apo­ca­lyptic, proph­etic, alleg­or­ical, lit­eral, doc­trinal, his­tor­ical, poetic and so on. Some pas­sages con­tain expli­cit com­mands, oth­ers do not, yet reveal inform­a­tion about the heart of God and His deal­ings with humanity.

Types of Applic­a­tions: Bible texts were writ­ten to achieve dif­fer­ent aims at dif­fer­ing stages of his­tory. For our pur­poses, some have one or both of the fol­low­ing uses:

• Belief Applic­a­tions: These dir­ectly or indir­ectly address theo­logy and doc­trine, help­ing us to form belief and cor­rect error.
• Beha­viour Applic­a­tions: These help us to address atti­tudes, val­ues and practices.
• Spir­itual Applic­a­tions: These are texts that, if applied under the Spirit’s guid­ance, might form God’s spe­cific will or word in a situ­ation or con­di­tion. Spe­cial care is needed here not use a text in a way that coun­ters its ori­ginal meaning.

Per­haps the most import­ant skill to develop when apply­ing scrip­ture is exegesis. This prac­tice exam­ines the con­text of the scrip­ture; notes who it was writ­ten to and why; determ­ines what it meant to the recip­i­ents; and then finds applic­a­tion in the cur­rent con­text whilst remain­ing true to the ori­ginal intent of the pas­sage. The type of back­ground inform­a­tion required can be often found in mod­ern Study Bibles, Com­ment­ar­ies or Bible Dic­tion­ar­ies. For sug­ges­tion on fur­ther resources, con­tact your minister.

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Writ­ten by Pat Hegarty, from STEP 4 — Passing It On.
STEP 4 Resources — ©2009 Ken­more Baptist Church. For more inform­a­tion on STEP 4, and the Path­ways Spir­itual Devel­op­ment pro­gram, visit us here