01-The Story Behind the Study

The Story Behind the Study

    At the end of 2008 our house church group was looking for a new topic of Bible study for the teaching portion of our Saturday evening gathering. We had done studies of individual Bible books, topical studies, and also freeform group discussions, but we were looking for something new. My wife suggested that I should consider the ambitious goal of teaching an overview of the entire Bible. The more I thought about it I realized that our group consisted of the whole range of seasoned to new Christian believers who may or may not have actually read through the Book that describes their faith. There are many guides and schedules that show what to cover to systematically read the Bible in a year. I selected one of those lists and married it up to a study class that covered the scheduled readings from the week prior to the Saturday evening class. This enabled the participants to read the material and come prepared with any questions they might have had. I brought the idea up before the group and was encouraged to give it an attempt. Instead of using pre-prepared material I decided to write a condensed version of the weekly material and read and talk about it during the class. The first week proved to be successful as did the entire year. This work is the collected handouts from our yearlong study through the Bible. Even though the pace was fast we were blessed as a group to complete the study. We all gained a basic understanding of the Word of God that has led each of us on to further study and a deeper relationship with our Savior.