Why?: How and why might you teach a lesson using only discussion as your method?

What?: There are a number of reasons you might choose discussion as the format for a Bible lesson. The personality of the class, as a whole, may favor discussion. You may want to have a community of believers rely on the Holy Spirit, who indwells them, to teach them more directly. You may want to exploit the learning preferences of every learner in the class using the principles on which The Effective Four questions are based. Those Effective Four are Why? What? So What? So What Now?.

If you’re using discussion, you need to plan a series of questions that will help your learners engage with the Bible in order to provide direction for the lesson. For example, when teaching 1 John chapter 1, verses 1-4, I draw them in by having them answer a question: “What problems can keep us from having joy as a church body?” After a couple of answers, I point them to the text that provides the answer. Here I share my teaching point: Real joy comes from real fellowship with the real Jesus. My affective aim is that The learner will desire real joy as a member of Christ’s body
As I transition from the Why? to the What?, I explain how differences in essential doctrines divide today just like doctrine divided the early church that wrestled over the truth that Jesus is 100% God and 100% man.
Then, I walk them through the text asking questions that show them how I came to my teaching point. I spend as much time as necessary for them to see the truth I saw in my study. But, I typically have a time marked on my notes so that we don’t run out of time before getting to the final questions—So What? and So What Now?. In asking these transformative questions, I allow them to provide the answers so that they’re more likely to commit to being transformed by the truth of the passage. I sometimes have some sort of accountability built in, but sometimes I allow them to suggest ways they would be accountable. Throughout the entire lesson, I am steering them towards the truth of the passage and the application of that truth for their lives.

So What?: In the classroom, discussion sometimes looks like the teacher didn’t have to do much to prepare the lesson. That is as far from the truth as you can get IF the lesson is intended to transform the learners. As the teacher preparing, you never know what answers you will get to the questions you ask so you have to be prepared for the most likely and be willing to say “I’m not sure about that but I’ll get back to you” for responses you didn’t anticipate. You can never be sure how the discussion will unfold. And, you have to keep their transformation in mind as you sometimes force them to move on so that the Effective Four questions—Why? What? So What? So What Now? are answered. Being able to control the discussion takes a lot more preparation than a lecture.

So What Now?: Knowing that the Holy Spirit is the primary teacher, will you commit to allowing Him to use you to teach using a discussion format for some of your teaching? It seems risky not knowing the rabbit trails you may discuss, but trusting Him, will you commit to leading discussions with excellence?

Why?: As a teacher, do you ever feel like you are alone?

What?: In many teaching ministries, it is easy to feel isolated, to feel alone. We may not meet regularly with other teachers as we plug away week-by-week. If you feel alone, there is good news. It is recorded at the end of Matthew’s Gospel. Immediately after giving the Great Commission to His first disciples, in the last words recorded by Matthew, Jesus assures His first disciples, “Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
The dilemma comes in reading at the end of Luke’s Gospel and at the beginning of Acts that Jesus was then taken into heaven. If He promised to be with us and then was taken away, maybe all believers, including teachers, have cause to feel alone.
Well, we’re not! Jesus promised to send His Holy Spirit to indwell us so that we have God present in us as believers. But, how is that Jesus being with us? Perhaps the answer is the church. Consider that the Spirit unites all believers as one church and that united church is called “the body of Christ” a visible body that we can see in local congregations of that one church.

So What?: We can legitimately say that Jesus is physically with us in the local congregation and spiritually with us in the Holy Spirit. We are not alone.

So What Now?: As a teacher, when you feel alone, remember that you’re not. You have Jesus’ promise that He is with all believers until the end of the age.

Why?: Why do you think your teaching is authoritative?

What?: Some teachers think their teaching is authoritative because of their position in the church. Others, because they know and communicate the Bible well. Some even think that if they speak in authoritative ways— whatever that is — that their teaching has authority.
The truth is that we speak authoritatively when we speak with Jesus’ authority. In Matthew chapter 28, verse 18, just before giving the Great Commission to make disciples, the resurrected Jesus said He had been given ALL authority in heaven and on earth. And in that authority, He was sending the church out to make disciples. In other words, Jesus has given us His authority to continue His work of making disciples.

So What?: It is Jesus’ ministry to make disciples who grow to look more and more like their Savior. He has redeemed them. Through His Spirit, He transforms them. The fact that we are operating on His authority rather than our own should keep us humble as we are used to carry out His work. Our teaching fails when we do it on our own authority. Our teaching succeeds when we rely on the authority of the One who commissioned us in the first place.

So What Now?: When you start getting a little full of yourself thinking you are really special as a teacher, will you repent and humbly submit to the One who has real authority and who has sent you to His church with that authority? Only then will your teaching be authoritative.