Small Group Bible Study
DIFFERENCES & DISPUTES
Small Group Bible Study
DIFFERENCES & DISPUTES
With so many demands on available time, few Bible teachers can make a thorough study of all possible perplexing questions and views. Yet, because teachers are likely to be confronted with various views and puzzling questions, it is necessary to hold some working attitude regarding them.
Thus Sayeth the Lord
1. While all views and questions are not founded on a “Thus sayeth the Lord,” still the teacher must be receptive and open-minded to all truth from every source. The bee sucks honey from every flower, even the poisonous ones.
2. Recognize the fact that the battle for truth is still going on. The growing number of religious organizations is evidence that many of us have ended the search for truth; concluded our discussions together; accepted, perhaps for personal reasons, religious creeds and doctrines which in and of themselves demonstrate division and closed minds. We should expect reactions from extremes. Hopefully, obedient believers can unite on this: God’s Holy Word, the Bible, is the final truth. “If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God” (1 Pet. 4:11). So, perhaps we can agree that if the Bible speaks clearly on a subject, then we ought to listen, accepting and teaching that as God’s revealed truth. However, would not the opposite also be true? If the Bible is silent on a subject should we not be silent, too? For reasons known only to God, His Holy Word, the Bible, is silent on a few things, not giving us complete and clear explanations. So, based on personal experiences, education, family, friends, study, etc., many have developed differing personal opinions. But unity is possible if we are willing to grant liberty in matters of opinion; matters not clearly specified by God’s Holy Word; remembering that in all things, God requires love. It would be well to keep in mind that the whole field of the past is strewn with dead theories, systems, and philosophies, scientific, educational, and religious, which once flourished like green bay trees.
Common Ground
1. There is a resting-place of peace, in what is termed, “the common ground,” where one can see the battle progressing and hear the noise in the distance, and await the results in faith and hope, unhindered in daily duties, undisturbed in faith in the divine revelation, while letting the rays of spiritual light shine through the windows of the soul.
2. Live, move, and have being in the atmosphere of the character-forming truths of the Bible, while visiting and exploring all as thoroughly as possible. Always seek to clarify, invigorate, and make personal living conditions more meaningful and life-giving.
3. Remember that discussion is education. “Agitation is not a disease nor a medicine; it is the normal state. Agitation is not the cure, but the diet of a free people” (Wendel Phillips).
4. Freedom of discussion is the atmosphere wherein truth thrives with vigor and gains its victories. Hindering a safety-valve invites an explosion.
5. Truth is resultant. History teaches us that God’s resultant truth has always come through the conflicts and rages of battle purer and clearer, and so shall it be eternally.
Handling Potential Disputes
1. Plainly speaking, no one sbrhould teach anything not personally believed, or what is not true.
2. Equally, no Bible teacher should teach as true what is yet unsettled in his/her own mind after faithful study.
3. When heated, argumentative disputes arise, the teacher can help avoid possible group disruption by expressing reasoning both for and against, but always in such a way as to retain faith in the Bible as true and inspired of God.
4. The situation is different regarding those in the group who have been puzzled by discussions and problems facing them outside the study group. It’s a wise and truthful saying: “Don’t teach as true that which must be unlearned in ten years.” And frankly this could refer to both radical and conservative teachings. Changes will probably come to both sides within that time, as evidenced in the last ten years. It seems wiser to encourage them to wait a while in prayer and study before being too sure, showing them the “common ground,” pointing them to the way of obedient faith in God’s Holy Word, whatever should prove to be the final outcome, through a serious, in-depth, personal, and prayerful study of the Bible.
5. The main teaching in a Small Group Bible Study should be focused on the Savior, Jesus Christ; His grace, love, and mercy; His redemptive work; His character-forming truths which guide the daily life, training the soul to virtue, inspiring to a noble life. It is far more important to teach Shakespeare’s works than to decide whether he wrote a particular play; and to teach Homer than discuss whether there are two or more Homers, or only one, and point out which portions are assigned to each, except very briefly in their bearing on the meaning of poems.
Let your students freely busy themselves with such questions as they will. But you have little time for such things, attending instead to your main business of teaching God’s Holy Word, seeking to inspire the group to become earnest, intelligent, obedient believers, victorious over evil, growing like their Lord, and abounding in every good word and work.
