Writing Material So Others Can Use It – 10 Suggestions

I am always in pursuit of new Bible curriculum to post in the Small Group Lessons and Bible Class Archive here on the blog. I have approached quite a few people trying to get them to submit something. Most people don’t write lessons so that they can be used by others. Some of you guys probably even just scratch everything down on a notepad and go and do an excellent job that way. Others write it in a way that it only makes sense to them. No one else can just pick it up and go. That is natural. It is important to write your lessons (if you do that sort of thing) in a way that you can teach it to the best of your ability.

It is important to consider the good that can come from formatting your lessons and their flow in a way that others can pick it up and use it as well. I no longer write a lesson for it to get taught once. I write them with other teachers in mind because I don’t want it to get used one time. One reason I do that is because I have to. Some of the lessons I write are for our small groups so I am forced to write it in a way they can all teach it with ease. In addition to that though, it is important to me that if I am going to spend all that time studying that my class is not the only one to benefit from it. It is like multiplication…you write it once and it gets used hundreds or in some cases even thousands of times. That is good stewardship. I don’t say that in any judgment of those who do otherwise whatsoever.

Here are some thing to consider when writing lessons so others can use them:

1. Give suggested answers on tough questions. Nothing worse than teaching a lesson and get silence and not know the answer yourself because you are teaching someone else’s material. Give them a few suggestions under the tough questions in bullet points.
2. Likewise, give definitions for words that are more difficult so that people aren’t missing the point because they don’t understand what is being said. What is more someone may ask what the word means and the teacher is equipped to answer.
3. Use bold headings when you start a new topic/subtopic in your lesson. If the lesson makes a turn, make it obvious to the teacher.
4. Bold all scriptures so they stand out. If I want something to be read out loud I will put Read John 3:16-19
5. Italicize discussion questions. This makes them stand out so that the teacher easily recognizes they are reading a question. Your intonation is different with a question and it gets kind of weird if the teacher starts of reading it as a statement rather than a question.
6. End with application questions. I will typically put the heading Application at the end followed by a few questions for the group to discuss. It is vitally important that every lesson have clear application.
7. If there is an exercise you want them to do I either use that instead of an application section or in addition to it.
8. Put relevant prayer needs that are specific to the lesson at the end if needed or if it fits well
9. If you are writing it for people you know, encourage them to see it as a guide, not a concrete outline. They know their class best and can make the lesson fit better than anyone else. Give them freedom to adjust the lesson as they see fit.
10. Send the lessons to me so I can share them with the world here on this blog

For Everyone Series Goes OT

Just noticed on Amazon that the For Everyone Series made popular by N.T. Wright’s series on the New Testament is starting on the Old Testament. I have no idea how I missed this as it looks like Genesis came out in 2010. John Goldingay is authoring this series. Here is what they have out so far:

Genesis 1-16

Exodus & Leviticus

Joshua, Judges, Ruth

1 & 2 Samuel

1 & 2 Kings

1 & 2 Chronicles

If these are anything like their New Testament counterparts they will be inexpensive and very helpful. Has anyone read any of these?

Psalm 23 from the Jewish Publication Societies Translation of the Psalms

The Lord is my shepherd;
I lack nothing.

He makes me lie down in green pastures;
He leads me to water in places of repose;
He renews my life;
He guides me in right paths
as befits His name.

Though I walk through a valley of deepest darkness,
I fear no harm, for You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff–they comfort me.

You spread a table for me in full view of my enemies;
You anoint my head with oil;
my drink is abundant.

Only goodness and steadfast love shall pursue me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
for many long years.

Sermons on Worship and the Water of Life

Just posted two sermons from December.

Living Water – A sermon based on Ezekiel 47 where Ezekiel witnesses water flowing out of the temple, down to the Dead Sea. Life grows out of the low places around the Dead Sea as the water nourishes places that had long been dead. Application – we also have to get out the doors of the building and go to the down and out and struggling to bring them life. The water can’t just stay in the temple…God won’t allow that.

Worship – Based on Romans 12:1-2. Joel, who is our youth minister, and I split the sermon a few Sunday’s ago into two very short sermons. We spent the rest of the service singing and taking the Lord’s Supper. It was a powerful service!

 

Gaining Godly Perspective from Job 29-30

At the end of The Never Ending Story the Empress tells Atreyu that Bastien (the kid reading the book) has already chosen her name. He just has to say it. The Nothing, begins tearing down the ivory tower that she lives in and she pleads with Bastien to say the name he has chosen. Bastien puts down the book, runs to a window, opens it and shouts something unintelligible that turns out to be the name “Moonchild.” Remember all that?

The reason I remind you of something you might have rather forgotten about is that sometimes when I am reading the Bible I just want to shout things at the people I am reading about. The reader has many advantages over the people in the story. When men and women in the Bible were in the middle of the story, they didn’t have the advantage of seeing the big picture, knowing how it was all going to end, or getting let in on some significant pieces of information that the reader is often let in on. In the book of Job the reader is let in on the fact that God is the one who pointed out Job and that the reality of it all is that even though Job doesn’t understand it, God is still faithful to Job through it all. God is the one pushing forward the events of the story. God is the one who is still present, still faithful, and who knows how it will all turn out.

Having said all of that, I find Job 29-30 a very helpful read in gaining godly perspective. I say that because Job doesn’t know what is going on. He doesn’t know where God is. He didn’t hear the conversation between Satan and God. To be fair, if Job had heard that conversation it would have made Job as a test case pointless because he would have been tainted with knowing the very reason he was being put through the trials and come out on the other side not having his faith really tested because it wouldn’t have been faith. Anyway, he doesn’t know how the story ends or what blessings are in store. All he knows is that he has lost it all and has no idea if any of it will ever be restored or, more importantly, if he will ever be connected with God as he was in the past. The reality of it all is that Job has no idea that he is actually more connected with God, in God’s silence toward Job, than he had ever been in his life.

Let’s listen in,

¹Job continued his discourse:

² “How I long for the months gone by,
for the days when God watched over me,
³ when his lamp shone upon my head
and by his light I walked through darkness!
⁴ Oh, for the days when I was in my prime,
when God’s intimate friendship blessed my house,
⁵ when the Almighty was still with me
and my children were around me,
⁶ when my path was drenched with cream
and the rock poured out for me streams of olive oil.

⁷ “When I went to the gate of the city
and took my seat in the public square,
⁸ the young men saw me and stepped aside
and the old men rose to their feet;
⁹ the chief men refrained from speaking
and covered their mouths with their hands;
¹⁰ the voices of the nobles were hushed,
and their tongues stuck to the roof of their mouths.
¹¹ Whoever heard me spoke well of me,
and those who saw me commended me,
¹² because I rescued the poor who cried for help,
and the fatherless who had none to assist him.
¹³ The man who was dying blessed me;
I made the widow’s heart sing.
¹⁴ I put on righteousness as my clothing;
justice was my robe and my turban.
¹⁵ I was eyes to the blind
and feet to the lame.
¹⁶ I was a father to the needy;
I took up the case of the stranger.
¹⁷ I broke the fangs of the wicked
and snatched the victims from their teeth.

¹⁸ “I thought, ‘I will die in my own house,
my days as numerous as the grains of sand.
¹⁹ My roots will reach to the water,
and the dew will lie all night on my branches.
²⁰ My glory will remain fresh in me,
the bow ever new in my hand.’

²¹ “Men listened to me expectantly,
waiting in silence for my counsel.
²² After I had spoken, they spoke no more;
my words fell gently on their ears.
²³ They waited for me as for showers
and drank in my words as the spring rain.
²⁴ When I smiled at them, they scarcely believed it;
the light of my face was precious to them.^[a]
25 I chose the way for them and sat as their chief;
I dwelt as a king among his troops;
I was like one who comforts mourners.

Job 30

¹ “But now they mock me,
men younger than I,
whose fathers I would have disdained
to put with my sheep dogs.
² Of what use was the strength of their hands to me,
since their vigor had gone from them?
³ Haggard from want and hunger,
they roamed^[a] the parched land
in desolate wastelands at night.
⁴ In the brush they gathered salt herbs,
and their food^[b] was the root of the broom tree.
⁵ They were banished from their fellow men,
shouted at as if they were thieves.
⁶ They were forced to live in the dry stream beds,
among the rocks and in holes in the ground.
⁷ They brayed among the bushes
and huddled in the undergrowth.
⁸ A base and nameless brood,
they were driven out of the land.

⁹ “And now their sons mock me in song;
I have become a byword among them.
¹⁰ They detest me and keep their distance;
they do not hesitate to spit in my face.
¹¹ Now that God has unstrung my bow and afflicted me,
they throw off restraint in my presence.
¹² On my right the tribe^[c] attacks;
they lay snares for my feet,
they build their siege ramps against me.
¹³ They break up my road;
they succeed in destroying me—
without anyone’s helping them.^[d]
14 They advance as through a gaping breach;
amid the ruins they come rolling in.
¹⁵ Terrors overwhelm me;
my dignity is driven away as by the wind,
my safety vanishes like a cloud.

¹⁶ “And now my life ebbs away;
days of suffering grip me.
¹⁷ Night pierces my bones;
my gnawing pains never rest.
¹⁸ In his great power God becomes like clothing to me^[e];
he binds me like the neck of my garment.
¹⁹ He throws me into the mud,
and I am reduced to dust and ashes.

²⁰ “I cry out to you, O God, but you do not answer;
I stand up, but you merely look at me.
²¹ You turn on me ruthlessly;
with the might of your hand you attack me.
²² You snatch me up and drive me before the wind;
you toss me about in the storm.
²³ I know you will bring me down to death,
to the place appointed for all the living.

²⁴ “Surely no one lays a hand on a broken man
when he cries for help in his distress.
²⁵ Have I not wept for those in trouble?
Has not my soul grieved for the poor?
²⁶ Yet when I hoped for good, evil came;
when I looked for light, then came darkness.
²⁷ The churning inside me never stops;
days of suffering confront me.
²⁸ I go about blackened, but not by the sun;
I stand up in the assembly and cry for help.
²⁹ I have become a brother of jackals,
a companion of owls.
³⁰ My skin grows black and peels;
my body burns with fever.
³¹ My harp is tuned to mourning,
and my flute to the sound of wailing.”

This is so helpful to my faith because there are times I don’t know how things are going to turn out and times when things seem very hopeless. In times like those it is easy to sound like Job in these verses. However, the same God watches over us in present silence who watched over Job. He is just as involved, just as faithful, just as powerful, and will provide everything we need for life and godliness. It is easier to see it in someone else’s story than it is in our own. So, while it may feel God is far off or that God is no longer watching over us, he still is. We, like Job, are not let in on the rest of the story but walk through the story by faith, knowing that God is present and powerful even while silent. Faith is not always easy but it is verses like this that help me understand the big picture. Maybe when we find ourselves in the Job 29-30 moments there is a great cloud of witnesses watching us run this race shouting things at us like, “Don’t give up…this is all going work out for the good!” or “Don’t lose heart…God is fighting for you!”

Sodom and Gomorrah Excavated?

A very interesting read over at The Sacred Page about a recent presentation at the Society of Biblical Literature. The archaeologists believe they have discovered the biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and hint at what they believe the archaeological evidence their shows happened to those cities.

Sodom and Gomorrah excavated

How Do You Flood a Mountain? – Ezekiel 47

The temple in Jerusalem sat up pretty high. One of the last things they had to worry about was a flood in the temple. The only thing that came close was the pouring of water during the Feast of Tabernacles but even that was just one cup of water poured out over the altar. You could be certain that the temple was not in danger of flooding any time soon. What is more, the Dead Sea is not too far from Jerusalem and is the lowest point on earth. Before the temple in Jerusalem floods, the Dead Sea is going to have to fill up…that is a tall order!

It is against that background that the words of Ezekiel 47 were penned,

¹ The man brought me back to the entrance to the temple, and I saw water coming out from under the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east). The water was coming down from under the south side of the temple, south of the altar. ²He then brought me out through the north gate and led me around the outside to the outer gate facing east, and the water was trickling from the south side.

³ As the man went eastward with a measuring line in his hand, he measured off a thousand cubits^[a] and then led me through water that was ankle-deep. ⁴ He measured off another thousand cubits and led me through water that was knee-deep. He measured off another thousand and led me through water that was up to the waist. ⁵ He measured off another thousand, but now it was a river that I could not cross, because the water had risen and was deep enough to swim in—a river that no one could cross. ⁶ He asked me, “Son of man, do you see this?”

Then he led me back to the bank of the river. ⁷ When I arrived there, I saw a great number of trees on each side of the river. ⁸ He said to me, “This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah, where it enters the Dead Sea. When it empties into the sea, the salty water there becomes fresh. ⁹ Swarms of living creatures will live wherever the river flows. There will be large numbers of fish, because this water flows there and makes the salt water fresh; so where the river flows everything will live. ¹⁰ Fishermen will stand along the shore; from En Gedi to En Eglaim there will be places for spreading nets. The fish will be of many kinds—like the fish of the Mediterranean Sea. ¹¹ But the swamps and marshes will not become fresh; they will be left for salt. ¹² Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail. Every month they will bear fruit, because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing.”

Now that is impressive! When God gets to work you better watch out. The impossible becomes possible. Things are happening in the temple that no one would have guessed let alone condoned. The water goes out from the temple. It starts a trickle and grows into an unpredictable, uncontrollable torrent of rushing waters. No one can cross it…no one can contain it…no one can make enough sand bags to hold it in. No earthly authority can give orders for it to stop. No sect of God’s people can convince the waters to change course. The waters are going to do what they are going to do and go where they are going to go.

The water goes where water goes, into the low places…the Dead Sea. The waters do what waters do…bring life. Fish swim where they could not before. Trees grow where they had not been able. Life springs forth! This is a God thing. No one would have called it. No one could have arranged it and yet that is exactly what God is doing.

Too often we try to bottle this up and pass it around. Too often we try to act like we can control it, levy it, dam it up and open the spill ways only in small, measurable and controllable amounts. But God will prove to us as many times as we need that he cannot be contained. He cannot be logicized into a tight box. God will be God and we will submit to what God decides to do. I am glad we don’t serve a man sized God but a God who is able to do more than we ask or imagine! So how do you flood a mountain? You don’t. Only God can do that and when He does it is best to get out of the way!

(image from freedigitalphotos.net by exsodus)

Worship as Visceral, Whole Body Experience – Psalm 63

A psalm of David. When he was in the Desert of Judah.

¹ O God, you are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you,
my body longs for you,
in a dry and weary land
where there is no water.

² I have seen you in the sanctuary
and beheld your power and your glory.
³ Because your love is better than life,
my lips will glorify you.
⁴ I will praise you as long as I live,
and in your name I will lift up my hands.
⁵ My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods;
with singing lips my mouth will praise you.

⁶ On my bed I remember you;
I think of you through the watches of the night.
⁷ Because you are my help,
I sing in the shadow of your wings.
⁸ My soul clings to you;
your right hand upholds me.

⁹ They who seek my life will be destroyed;
they will go down to the depths of the earth.
¹⁰ They will be given over to the sword
and become food for jackals.

¹¹ But the king will rejoice in God;
all who swear by God’s name will praise him,
while the mouths of liars will be silenced.

When did David actually see God in the sanctuary? How did David’s soul cling to God? How is a soul able to thirst? For David worship was visceral. It was real and powerful and profound. It wasn’t a mental exercise. It came out of real circumstances (in this instance time in the desert). It was an outpouring of everything. Worship was a complete unity of worshiper to the worshiped. It captured all the senses and involved all of David’s attention. It wasn’t singing through a song because it happened to be the one projected on the screen. It wasn’t going through motions, checking boxes, or a mental exercise. For David, worship was an exercise of the soul. It was a response to the reality of the presence of God. Worship was so real and powerful to David that it was in that moment that the unseen became so real, so present, so heavy, that he was able to say he had seen the Lord and beheld him. That is real, powerful and profound.

How do we make Sunday seem like anything but ordinary? How do we take the routine out of Sunday worship and reconnect it with the heart and soul of worshiper and the worshiped? When was the last time worship felt like that for you?

New Lessons Posted on Deuteronomy, Daniel, And Missional Church By Mark Hamilton & David Wray

Thanks to Mark Hamilton for allowing me to post his lessons on Deuteronomy & Daniel. Mark is a professor of Old Testament and Associate Dean of their graduate Bible department at ACU. The material looks great.

Deuteronomy – Now Choose Life

Daniel – Keeping Faith in a Distant Land

Thanks also to David Wray for allowing me to upload his series on Missional Church (12 lessons, 61 pages) to the Bible Class Archive. The archive is now over 700 free lessons and over 2500 pages! Thanks to all who keep submitting lessons. It is much appreciated.

You can find more free Bible lessons on ACU’s website at this link.

Free Genesis Bible Study Posted to the Bible Class Archive

Our Men’s class finished up Genesis last Wednesday night. I have posted the notes in the Bible class archive. This pdf covers all 50 chapters of Genesis in 17 lessons, 61 pages. Hopefully someone will benefit from these. Thanks also to Regan S who wrote two of the lessons in my absence.

Genesis Bible Class

Here is the updated summary of the Bible Class Archive’s free material:

• 680 lessons
• 2337 pages of material
• 57 different series/topics

If you or anyone you know has material they would like to submit that people can download and use free of charge please point them my way. They can email me at – mattthewdabbs@hotmail.com Also, if you know any missionaries overseas that are in need of free material please point them to the Archive. Thanks.