How Not to Do Bible Study<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\" Peter Gommes has many good things to say in his bestseller 'The Good Book', not least is what he says on p. 12 about how not and how to do Bible\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How Not to Do Bible Study\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\" Peter Gommes has many good things to say in his bestseller 'The Good Book', not least is what he says on p. 12 about how not and how to do Bible\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/bibleandculture\/2020\/12\/06\/how-not-to-do-bible-study\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Bible and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-12-06T06:40:32+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" 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{"id":37660,"date":"2020-12-06T01:40:32","date_gmt":"2020-12-06T06:40:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/bibleandculture\/?p=37660"},"modified":"2020-10-21T09:53:17","modified_gmt":"2020-10-21T13:53:17","slug":"how-not-to-do-bible-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/bibleandculture\/2020\/12\/06\/how-not-to-do-bible-study\/","title":{"rendered":"How Not to Do Bible Study"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Peter Gommes has many good things to say in his bestseller \u2018The Good Book\u2019,<\/em> not least is what he says on p. 12 about how not and how to do Bible study.<\/p>\n

\u201cBible studies tend to follow this route. The Bible is simply the entry into a discussion about more interesting things , usually about oneself. The text is a mere pretext to other matters and usually the routine works like this: A verse or passage is given out, and the group or class is asked \u2018What does it mean to you?\u2019 The answers come thick and fast, and we are off into the life stories or personal situations of the group and the session very quickly takes the form of Alcoholics Anonymous, Twelve Step meetings or other exercises in healing and therapy. I do not wish to disparage the very good and necessary work these groups perform\u2026I simply wish to say that this is not Bible study, and to call it such is to perpetuate a fiction.<\/p>\n

\u201cBible study actually involves the study of the Bible. That involves a certain amount of work, a certain exchange of informed intelligence, a certain amount of discipline. Bible study is certainly not just the response of the uninformed reader to the uninterpreted text, but Bible study in most of the churches has become just that\u2014 the blind leading the blind, or as some caustic critics of liberal Protestantism would put it, the bland leading the bland. The notion that texts have meaning and integrity, intention, contexts, and subtexts, and that they are part of an enormous history of interpretation that has long involved some of the greatest thinkers in the history of the world, is a notion often lost on those for whom the text is just one more of the many means the church provides to massage the egos of its members.\u201d\u2014-\u00a0 p. 12.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"