Our Small Group on Hermeneutics
We have finished the small group I created on hermeneutics, so I thought it would be useful to post some philosophical feedback. The practicalities can be found here on my small group site.
1. There is no small-group curriculum on hermeneutics.
There are lots of Church small group curricula out there – everything from money to marriage to “bad girls of the Bible.” But nothing higher up on the theological scale. So I had to invent my own. There are other churches doing this sort of theology classes, like Vintage Faith Church in Santa Cruz. It would be nice to have material to work with.
2. Book clubs on theology topics allow a leader to learn along with the class.
The book club format worked really well. I’m good at keeping people who care on track, and we were all able to teach each other. We also had a pretty high level of trust in the book, which is used in freshman classes at Biola University. So the book was the teacher, I was facilitator and host, and we all were students.
3. When you advertise a class called “How to Read the Bible,” people sign up who want to learn how to read the Bible.
Okay, that was obvious. But I intended the class to be on hermeneutics, and the book was CALLED “How to Read the Bible for all Its Worth." It turned out that several people signed up who had never really been able to read the Bible, and wanted to learn. Which leads to…
4. You can’t teach hermeneutics at the same time as teaching how to read the Bible.
Maybe YOU can. But I couldn’t. I tried. So several people rather politely stayed in our book club, learning random things about exegesis and eschatology instead of about what they really wanted to know. Which leads to…
5. I want to find a way to teach people who are not big readers how to read the Bible.
Any ideas? I read several books on different techniques, and would love to do some more in-depth study of texts… but I LIKE to read. How can we make the Bible more accessible to people who aren’t able to read well? Audio Bibles? Easier translations?
This class was a great learning experience. We are starting a new one on biblical theology in a week with the same basic format… stay tuned.
>>5. I want to find a way to teach people who are not big readers how to read the Bible.<<
What do you mean by "read"? You pick it up and open to anywhere and read. Do you mean understand why there are 66 books? Or maybe understand the content? Or do people have questions like "can I just pickup the book and read from anywhere? Really?"
Or maybe people want a "reason" and "path" to reading. Read a chapter a day, or go through the whole thing in a year (pressure, pressure!). Or only pick up the thing when feeling "Holy"…or what about when feeling sad.
Now…reviewing the above questions, I think such concerns could be dealt with and dispatched in one session. Then those people need to go read.
And here’s a great thing: "someone" could run this kind of session approximately semi-annually on "How to read the Bible" and the responders don’t have to commit to a whole big series of classes! It would be just a one shot 101 or a 103 class.
Okay that could be all off, since the real world desires of people had been heard and fleshed out, I suppose.