Bible Studies

Some Bible studies appropriate for individual, family and small groups:

Bible Detectives Series

These lessons explore issues in the Bible, using a detective motif. These are particularly well-suited for families. The detective motif is designed to be engaging for younger students while still discussing serious topics.

  • Case 1: “The Case of the Jewish Rabbi”
  • Case 2: “What Would Jesus Eat?”
  • Case 3: “Looking for the Right Man”
  • Case 4: “The Fitness Mystery”
  • Case 5: “The Case of the Missing Resolutions”

Introduction to Christianity, the Gospel of Mark

The Gospel of Mark is a fast-paced narrative and provides an ideal introduction to the life and teaching of Jesus. This study guide is provided in a worksheet format, guiding you through your own study. It is not a commentary, and answers are not always provided. Instead, you will research and discover the answers on your own.

Acts of the Apostles

The book of Acts is a historical book; that is, it reveals the who, what, when, where and so forth of the start of the Christian church. We want to learn more then mere facts, however. As the historical material is studied, be alert for how what you learn can impact you today.

The Ten Commandments

These lessons on each of the Ten Commandments are designed to stimulate discussion.

The Romans Road

The Romans Road is a set of verses from the book of Romans that can be used to explain God’s plan of salvation through Jesus Christ. This publication expands upon these traditional verses by including a question and answer discussion guide. For each verse in the Romans Road, some suggested questions (and answers) are provided to help you study these topics yourself, or guide a discussion with another. This is not a fill-in-the-blank study. It is a discussion guide.

This is also available in a tract format. I sometimes keep a copy in my wallet. With some careful two-sided printing, a stapler and scissors, you can make four tracts using the cover and contents here:

If you have a Pocket PC handheld computer, this guide is available as a free eTract. Visit Laridian for details.

Biblical Timeline

One thing that we’ve noted about children’s Sunday School materials is that they often bounce around from one biblical story to another. Moses one week, Saul the next, John the Baptist, then Joshua. As a result, many adults (even those that faithfully attended Sunday School as children) have missed the “big picture” of God’s chronology. This material is a simple summary of that chronology, putting people and events into chronological order.

The Purpose Driven Life

Our church began an emphasis titled 40 Days of Purpose based upon Rick Warren’s book The Purpose Driven Life in April 2004. The Purpose Driven Life contains extensive Scripture quotations from a variety of English Bible translations and paraphrases. Each verse quotation is footnoted; to determine the actual verse reference and translation used, the footnote number and chapter must be looked up in Appendix 3. That appendix identifies the verse reference and translation.

While in general I agree with the premise that using different translations can help us gain new perspectives on the Scripture, I also prefer to study from a specific translation. Therefore, in order to check the quoted verse in The Purpose Driven Life — often quoted from a more interpretive translation or paraphrase — with a more literal translation such as the NASB or ESV, it became necessary to read the quote, turn to the appendix, find the Scripture reference, and then look it up in my Bible. That was a very tedious and time-consuming process.

I searched the Internet for a document containing these references in a more useable format, but didn’t find anything. So, as an alternative, I decided to use my old QuickVerse 4 program to create an index file containing all of the referenced Scriptures. I then exported the verses from the index file in my choice of translations (I chose the NASB) and created a document in Microsoft Word that contained the footnoted verses.

The Lockman Foundation graciously provided written permission for me to publish the resulting document containing text from the New American Standard Bible. You can do something similar with QuickVerse 4, your licensed QuickVerse 4 Bible translation, the purpose.inx index file below, and your word processor. However, if you’d like the results from the NASB, I’ve done the work for you.

Testimonials

“I started to use your studies for small groups on Mark about six weeks ago. I find it to be a very useful tool in my classes. We have a scant forty five minutes to cover each lesson but it has worked out very well as far as being able use it to foster discussion and keep interest.”
— Leonard J.

“The timeline is very helpful to me in creating my children’s Bible studies. I also enjoyed the two detective studies that you have created. They are very innovative and give the kids a chance to find answers for themselves.”
— Mariann

“You have some wonderful content and I was especially impressed with how you questioned the
reader about the road to salvation in The Romans Road and your Bible studies.”
— Carla

“This is great. It is very hard to find Bible studies that can be used for family study.:
— Katherine

I have been using your study guide for the gospel of Mark for my family Bible study. We are learning and growing; thanks.”
— Leslie

Copyright and Usage Guidelines

I’ve published these items here in the hope that you will find them interesting and helpful. However, the studies and publications printed here are copyrighted material. The purpose of claiming our copyright on these original publications is to protect our authorship and rights of
publication.

You may print and duplicate this material for your non-commercial use. You may:

  1. Print and reproduce the studies and publications for your personal use.
  2. Print and reproduce the studies and publications to use as teaching material, such as to use
    in small group Bible studies.
  3. Print and give away copies of the Romans Road tract without limit.

You may not make commercial use of this material. You may not:

  1. Sell this material in any format.
  2. Republish this material in any format, such as including it in a book or on another Web
    site.
  3. Sell the material to your students, though you may recoup reasonable costs of printing and
    duplication.

You may provide a link from your web site to this material without requesting permission.

Adobe Acrobat and Printing

These Bible studies and materials are all provided in “pdf” format. You’ll need the Adobe® Acrobat Reader. If you don’t already have it, you can download and install it for free! Just click here.

If you’d like to print a single lesson, you can select the page range to print within the Acrobat Reader. If you’d like to duplicate the whole contents for your use or class: many print shops will accept the .pdf and print the contents for you, or you can print one copy and take it to the print shop. You should be able to duplicate the lessons (2-sided) and bind with a spiral binding for $5-$10 per copy.

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