Bible Question: I will be leading my first Bible study at the prison in a couple of weeks. Since this is my first Bible study, do you have any suggestions that would help me make it a success. I am planning on a study of the Sermon on the Mount. Any suggestions would be helpful,   Bible Answer: This is a great question. I am glad to help. Let me provide two important guidelines. But first, lets talk about four very important principles we must remember. If you are wrong here, it will not matter what you teach - God will be displeased with your service to Him.     Principle #1: The first principle for a teacher of God's Word is to be a FAITHFUL MAN before God in all that you teach and in personal holiness,     And the things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, these entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also. Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier. (NASB) 2 Timothy 2:2-4   Paul wrote these words to Timothy. The phrase "faithful men" always pulls at my "heart strings." That is what I want to be - a faithful man. That is what God wants us to desire to become.     A faithful man is someone who not only shows up every time to teach; but according to 2 Tim. 2:4, he is one who works hard in his preparation to teach. There are teachers and preachers who wait until the last minute to prepare for a sermon or a lesson. They depend on things they have already learned. They are dry water fountains with little or no living water to give to others and their people are hungry. With so little time set aside to prepare, they cannot give quality time to researching background information or for checking the Greek or Hebrew for shades of word meaning that help us understand what God is really saying. They need time to investigate problems of understanding that occur in the passage they will be teaching. Teachers and preachers need to be faithful men who really study hard. They should spend hours preparing. A faithful teacher is one who seeks only to teach what is true - not what he wants the Word of God to say. When he comes to the Word of God to study, he comes to learn - to seek God (Ex 33:12-13; Jer. 29:13) - to discover Him. The teacher must always come to the Word of God as a student and never as one who has learned it all. He MUST always be ready and willing to change his mind about what he thought was the truth, should the Word show him he has been wrong in his understanding.     A faithful man is one who flees sin (2 Tim. 2;16-19). He does not flirt with sin. He flees sin. That is why we see high standards for leaders given in 1 Timothy 3:1-12 and in Titus 1:5-9. God is more interested in the character of a man than in his service. We forget that God removed Moses from leading the Jewish people into Palestine. God removed him because he sinned. Ultimately, God does not need us! He can always find a Joshua to take our place. The ministry may continue, but God has moved on to someone else.       < Back   Next >
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