we call Bible study participatory when everybody in a group participates. This distinguishes it from those groups in which one person speaks and the rest simply absorb.
In the participatory study method we take that a step further. Not only do you need to personally participate in Bible study, but you need to become part of the Bible story. This may seem like a tall order. Just how can you do that?
If you have become a Christian, you are now part of the Bible story. Participatory Bible study invites you to find your place in the story and live positively according to God’s will, doing your part to carry the great drama forward. Are you going to be aware of your role in the greatest drama in history, or will you be passive and just let things happen to you?
Many Bible students get very little from their study. When they do study seriously, they are very dependent on commentators, and they’re not sure just how the interpretations are produced. Some get involved in the technical details of Bible study, but then either give up, or become bogged down in hunting down minor points, and miss much of the blessing that is available.
Our conviction is that Bible study should be about experiencing God. It is not just learning about God or learning doctrines taught by others. It is about getting a first hand experience of what God has to say to you and then living as one of God’s children.
1 The first key is to get the Bible out from between you and God. Let God speak to you. Let the Bible help. Don’t let the Bible be a barrier. The Bible is not the only way you access God. It is not necessarily God’s primary way of communicating with you personally. Rather, it provides a light on your own relationship with God. The question is this: How can I improve my relationship with God through understanding how these other writers related to God?1
2 The second key is to approach the Bible with a desire to learn, not to find support for what you already know. This seems simple, but in the church we are often so tied up with our doctrinal statements, or more likely weak memories of them, and also so afraid that our own ideas might be wrong or that someone will call them (gasp!) heresy, that we really can’t listen openly to what the Bible says. We’re not saying that the Bible is going to overturn all your traditional doctrines. We are saying that you should not worry about being wrong as you try to understand what the Bible says, and particularly what God is saying to you as you study the Bible.
3 The third key is to make a serious and active effort to understand just what it was that the people in Biblical times experienced, and how they responded to it. Get to know them as they were. It’s impossible to do this perfectly, but it is worth your effort to do your best. This means accurate and empathetic reading. It also means some humility – not assuming that you are more intelligent, wiser, more ethical, and have a better imagination than the people you’re reading about.
4 The fourth key is to look at yourself and your spiritual community carefully and honestly, and try to bring your experiences together with those of others. This is how the participation is brought forward to the present and your Bible study starts to impact who you are as a person. This is where you begin not just to learn scripture, but to live it.
5 The fifth key is to share your experiences with others, and to try to translate your understanding so that they can also understand and participate. Don’t be afraid to talk about ethical issues without reference to the Bible. If you really understand what you have learned in your Bible study and your communion with God, you should be able to support it on another basis. We believe that if God is the creator of the universe, and we have understood what God wants, it should also be rational to some degree.
Principles Behind the Method
The Spirit will teach you everything. – John 14:26 (CEV)
The people of Berea were much nicer than those in Thessalonica, and they gladly accepted the message. Day after day they studied the Scriptures to see if these things were true. – Acts 17:11 (CEV)
A new Bible student quoted John 14:26 to me when she was about to quit my class in basic Bible study. “I don’t have any problem with what you are teaching,” she said, “but I think the Holy Spirit can teach me all that.” Perhaps she needed to follow up by reading about the Bereans in Acts 17!
While I believe that the Holy Spirit is the best teacher, I still believe that this girl needed some of the material in my class. The Holy Spirit tends to teach us through many means; teachers, preachers, prophets, speaking to us directly, taking us through some difficult times of study, and the use of our God-given minds.
The participatory method of Bible study is designed to bring all these different factors together. It asks you to get yourself involved in the experience that the Bible represents, to look for the ways in which the material can apply to you. You don’t have to accept everything to use this method, but you do have to be willing to be as empathetic as possible with the characters of the Bible story, and the writers of the Bible books. You have to be willing to try to understand things from their perspective.
If you believe further, as we do, that God is speaking through these experiences and writings, then you will want to go further. After you have understood the principles on which they were basing their lives, you will want to find out what principles God was trying to teach, and then how you can apply those principles directly in your own life, and in the life of your community. If you do that, you can be involved in building the body of Christ in a new and ever growing way.
The Bible presents these principles in ways that may seem strange to you. Sometimes they are contained in rituals. Sometimes they are contained in stories. At other times they may be hidden in allegories or in symbolic visions. Each of these methods communicated some part of God’s message to someone. The hidden pearls of God’s truths are within a matrix of another person’s times, problems, and assumptions – you could say in their entire culture. What we try to do is get at the principles and find a way to apply them in our time and culture.
In order to do this, there are some key questions. These questions will be repeated in the chapters on interpreting particular types of literature, because while the interpretive method changes, the final result will often remain the same.
What is the experience behind this passage?
How might the experience reflected in this passage relate to my own experience?
What principle(s) lies behind the specific statements?
How might the principles relate to my life?
In order to answer these questions, we have to come to understand the Bible writers, their time and culture as much as possible. Fortunately, we have a great deal of material available right in the Bible to help us do that. We can then find out why they did particular things, and learn how to use those principles constructively. It is quite possible for a Bible student to make decisions based on the mistakes of some Bible characters or writers. The Bible records their mistakes, often in some detail. But when you understand the passage, why it is there, and what principles it conveys, then you can make use of it in a practical and helpful way.
There is no shortcut in Bible study. If you want to find what God has for you in scripture, you will have to dig. There are some things you can do to make your study time more profitable. The participatory method is not going to be easier than other methods of inductive Bible study. It is our aim, however, that it be more practical, with the focus always on learning how we
