Sharing God's Word: the notes for John Allan's sessions

One to one Bible reading: expanded and modified

(These notes are from the full evening presentation at St Thomas Baptist Church, Exeter, on May 27th 2018)

Imagine if all Christians, as a normal part of their discipleship, were caught up in a web of regular Bible reading—not only digging into the Word privately, but reading it with their children before bed, with their spouse over breakfast, with a non-Christian colleague at work once a week over lunch, with a new Christian for follow-up once a fortnight for mutual encouragement, with a mature Christian friend once a month for mutual encouragement.

    It would be a chaotic web of personal relationships, prayer, and Bible reading—more of a movement than a program—but at another level it would be profoundly simple and within reach of all.

It’s an exciting thought!

Colin Marshall and Tony Payne, The Trellis and the Vine

Do you spend most of your time on “trellis” or “vine” activities?

Can you do one-to-one reading with somebody else?

Do you love God?

Do you love people?

Do you love the Bible?

Three “yes” answers and you’re qualified.

The four great results of one-to-one Bible reading…

salvation – it leads unbelievers to faith

sanctification – it encourages Christians to grow

training – it develops people to the point where they can take on new challenges

relationship – it draws people together.

How to begin

First, pray.    (Ask God: who should I do it with? What should we be reading? How long for?)

Second, invite.  Approach the person you want to do this with

• Less scarey than inviting to a meeting
• Make  sure the expectations are clear. (How often will you meet? How long for? How can your friend bail out? What are your objectives?)

Third, meet.  (But first block out the time slot for a considerable way ahead! You don’t want to have to chop and change unexpectedly – that destroys continuity!)

Pros and cons of preparation

If you don’t:

You make discoveries together

You avoid being a lecturer

You rely on the Word, not your clever ideas

You save time

If you do:

You know where you're going

You can gauge how much to take on, each time you meet

You gain confidence

You can prepare for difficulties

Preparation from scratch: three steps…

1. READ the passage carefully several times. Try different versions. Get a good feel for the shape of the passage, and try to spot any likely difficult bits.

1. CHECK the context. Who wrote this? What were their intentions? What’s happening in the background? What might need explanation because it isn’t obvious at first reading? Find answers from good Internet resources (see the last part of these notes).

1. WRAP UP the “gifts” you want to give – the discoveries you want your friend to make – in good questions which they can unwrap to find the answers themselves. Avoid “closed”, yes-or-no questions; make them do some thinking!

How to study any passage: observe, interpret, apply

Your study should help to answer three questions:          

What does it say? (observation)

What does it mean? (interpretation)

What does it mean to me? (application)

Don’t worry if it takes a few meetings before you settle into an easy, confident reading relationship with one another. Focus on becoming friends too. Share what’s going on in your own life, and build a relationship in which the other person feels it’s possible to ask any question, however stupid it may be, because you won’t laugh or judge or be impatient.

And just trust God’s Holy Spirit from there, to take it where he wants it to go!

Materials you could use

One approach which gives you lots of help is “You, Me and the Bible” (https://www.thegoodbook.co.uk/you-me-and-the-bible ): six one-to-one Bible studies introducing people to the key ideas of Scripture, with notes for leaders and helpful video clips which you can play (even on your phone!) to summarize each session. Materials are cheap but if you have no money everything can be downloaded for free. See also http://www.matthiasmedia.com/ymb/ where you’ll also find some fun video clips you can download to show your friend in advance, so that they can see what you’re talking about before they agree to do it!

One approach which gives you less help, but lots of freedom, is the one described in David Helm’s online training course at http://www.reading121.org/ , which includes videos, FAQs, group activities, and downloadable sheets. Helm gives you questions you can use to prepare any passage of the Bible for one-to-one study, and an eight-session way of going through Mark’s Gospel, in a document at http://www.reading121.org/media/One-to-One-Reading-Sheets.pdf .

One approach which gives you everything in one is “The Word one-to-one”, a tried and tested guide to the Gospel of John evolved by St Helen’s Bishopsgate. You’ll find it on an excellent website at https://www.theword121.com/ .  It consists of (up to) 38 sessions taking 25-40 minutes each, and there are no questions supplied so that you can unpack the meaning then discuss it together in any way which is appropriate to your friend. It’s described on video at https://tinyurl.com/word121vids . You can buy materials for as little as £7.99 – although if you don’t have the money you can also download the full-colour materials free, then print them out yourself.

More resources

We’ve listed a few other web-based resources at https://tinyurl.com/121reading . If you need another copy of these notes, they are also available at: https://tinyurl.com/sharinggodsword . For the PowerPoint presentation which accompanied the evening, go to https://www.slideshare.net and search via any term such as “john allan”, “st thomas Baptist”, or “one to one bible reading”.

For a quick list of some of the best online Bible study resources, at your fingertips for any preparation you need to do, look at http://www.pageorama.com/?p=deepertoolbox .

Getting the most out of your Bible - click here

(These notes are from a day conference at St Thomas Baptist Church, Exeter, on January 27th 2018)

One to one Bible reading - click here

(These notes are from a day conference at St Thomas Baptist Church, Exeter, on January 27th 2018)