Bible Teaching That Communicates God’s Words

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Bible Teaching That Communicates the Authoritative Word of God
Do you truly realize what happens when we teach Scripture?

In Bible teaching, we’re handling and sharing with others, the words of an Almighty God, the Creator of the universe, the Sustainer of life, the all-knowing, all-powerful, always wise and sovereign King of kings and Lord of lords.

Scripture describes itself as penned by human writers, but “men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet. 1:21). We also read that “all Scripture is God breathed” which makes it so useful to thoroughly equip us for every good deed (2 Tim. 3:16-17).

No other book has the same authoritative base because of its Author … an absolute standard to live by. No other book has as much power to change lives because of its Author … a relevant standard to live by. — What an awesome privilege and responsibility we have in teaching God’s Word to others.

Implications for Teachers and Leaders for Bible Teaching

Bible teachers, the first question to ask is if you truly believe this to be true. If so, you will then treat God’s Word as unique and more important than any other book. You will take great care to “rightly divide” it (2 Tim. 2:15) and then you will confidently and enthusiastically present a Lesson Worth Teaching.

Church leaders, you also need to ask if you truly believe in the Bible’s authoritative base. If so, you will see the importance of making Bible teachers training a priority to equip teachers to effectively teach the Word of God. (The TrainBibleTeachers.com site can help you think through this process.) Also, if you truly believe in the Bible’s authoritative base, you will seek to align what you say and do with Scripture. (The TrainChurchLeaders.com Practicum seeks to look at various leadership tasks and responsibilities through the grid of God’s Word.)

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Motivation for Healthy Living

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The beginning of a new year tends to be a time when people resolve to eat better and exercise more in the upcoming year. Often these plans begin well but dwindle in the months ahead. We lose our motivation for healthy living. Perhaps what’s missing is the scriptural foundation for wanting to be healthy. When our goal is to align with God’s desires for us, we’ll tend to maintain a more consistent motivation for healthy living. And, we’ll also tend to be more prone to pull on His power to get there rather than rely on a self-help plan based on a weight goal or number of steps on a tracker.

Scriptural Principles that Should Motivate Us Toward Healthy Living

These principles can guide us as individuals and help with motivation toward healthy living. They can also provide some insight into how we as a Church can help others pursue healthier living.

  1. God wants us to be good stewards of our bodies, treating them as “temples of the Holy Spirit” remembering that the whole of who we are belongs to Him, not just our spirits. Even the way we treat our bodies is a means of bringing glory to God. — Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies. (1 Cor. 6:19-20)

As His Church, let’s encourage one another and provide training on how to be good stewards in all areas of our lives. We’ll tend to occasionally teach and/or preach on financial stewardship, maybe even time management, but what about taking care of our physical fitness?

For more: Biblical Stewardship Resources

Love Provides Motivation for Healthy Living

  1. God looks for a holistic response toward Him in accordance with how He made us with a body, mind, soul, and spirit. The greatest command is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mk. 12:30).

And so, as His Church, let’s minister to the whole person, integrating physical, spiritual, emotional, mental, and social health and wellness. Let’s be understanding and sensitive to the needs of one another, not just the spiritual, knowing that when one aspect of our lives is hurting or unhealthy, it can affect other areas.

  1. Jesus came to this earth and died in our place so we can “have life, and have it to the full” (Jn. 10:10). Certainly that includes the whole of our lives here and now, not merely in our spirit or future heavenly abode. In the beginning of that verse, Jesus also said, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy;”. When we don’t take care of ourselves, we can become our own enemy, robbing ourselves of the energy and drive to fully enjoy all He has for us.

As His Church, we can disciple people in how to experience that abundant life spiritually but also physically as is possible on this side of eternity. Let’s help people learn to prevent problems that could affect the rest of their being. Let’s mean it when we say we want people to become “fully” devoted followers of Jesus.

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Winter Season Reminders of God

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Using winter scene displays or decor is one way to remind people of our Creator God. We can also use activities or take home handouts with a winter theme to serve as reminders of God’s truth. God Himself uses word pictures in Scripture that sometimes pull in a seasonal reference like Isaiah 1:18. — “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.” That image reminds us that we have a merciful and gracious God.

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Crafts & Other Activities that Tie into the Winter Season

Children especially learn through repetition so the more we depict a lesson’s truth in different ways, the more we will reinforce what they’re learning. A winter themed craft or activity might use a verse unrelated to the season to reinforce that day’s lesson but it can serve a dual purpose of pointing them to the Creator of all things.

Religious Snowman Bookmarks    Jesus Warms My Heart Sweater Ornament Craft Kit    Snowman Paddle Ball

Handouts or Take Homes with a Winter Theme to Serve as Reminders of God

Church Bulletins

Other Handouts

Interested in Ministry Resources for Other Seasons?

Go to: Seasonal Ministry Resources

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Winter Scenes Display the Wonders of Our God

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We serve a God who created the world to be divided into seasons, winter being one of them.

It was you who set all the boundaries of the earth; you made both summer and winter. (Ps. 74:17)

As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease (Gen. 8:22)

Our creative God has provided us with a backdrop that displays His wonders which we can visualize in our classrooms, homes, and other locations as a means of pointing people to the Creator.

Ministry Ideas for Seasonal Displays Using Winter Scenes

Not every place in the world experiences snow during the winter. For some it may be just a more barren time of the year with the promise of spring on its heels. Whatever our environment, we can see the hand of God.

Links to other sites will open in a new page to keep the list available to look at additional ministry resources. Where possible, we link to merchants with whom we have an affiliate relationship, such as being an Amazon Associate from whom we earn from qualifying purchases. These sites may use cookies to track your activity to ensure that Ministry Tools Resource Center gets commissions from any sales.

Bulletin Boards for Winter:
Bulletin Board for Winter Season Ministry

Wintery Decorations & Classroom Decor:

Interested in Ministry Resources for Other Seasons?

Go to: Seasonal Ministry Resources

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Leaving Church Changed?

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When We Follow the Light We Leave Changed
We have good, life-changing news. The Gospel touches every need. We move from death to life and from out of darkness into His glorious light. God intends for us to not only have eternal life but that we live in His abundant life and light right now, every day. Each encounter with God and His Word has the potential of changing us from the inside out. Here’s the question for us: Are people leaving our churches changed? — How sad when it’s like they were never there!

The Need for Change

Perhaps people come with burdens that seem too heavy to bear. Maybe they come with a bad habit or sin they just can’t overcome. People may come empty spiritually. Or, perhaps they come never having put their trust in the Lord to save them.

  • How sad when they leave unchanged!
  • How sad when it’s like they were never there!

Even those who may seem to have it together still have room for growth. None of us have obtained all there is to life in Christ and what He wants to do in and through us. We each, with the Apostle Paul, must say, “I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me” (Phil. 3:12).

  • How sad when we think we don’t need to change!
  • How sad when any of us leave like as though we were never there!

The Goal of People Leaving Church Changed

You’ve probably heard it said, “Aim at nothing and you’ll hit it every time.” If we want to see changed lives, we must prayerfully and purposefully head in that direction. What will it take to experience the presence and power of the Lord in our midst? What will it take to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Pet. 3:18)?

  1. We must purposefully point people to a God who is great enough and caring enough to make a difference in their lives. (Ps. 145:3; Prov. 14:27; Rom. 8:28)
  2. We must purposefully work at connecting with the whole person and show people how the unconditional and all-encompassing love and power of the Lord reaches into every aspect of their lives. (2 Cor. 1:3-4; 1 Thess. 5:23; Heb. 4:12)
  3. We must purposefully help people get beyond head knowledge about God and His Word by presenting it as the life-changing, powerful Book it is that affects everything we do. (Ps. 19:7-11; 2 Tim. 3:16-17)
  4. We must purposefully encourage people to engage with God and His truth right there in our gatherings rather than remain passive bystanders. (Col. 3:16-17; Eph. 4:16)
  5. We must be the kind of leaders and teachers who authentically and purposefully model seeking after God and allowing His power to work in and through us. (Acts 20:28; 1 Pet. 5:2-3; Titus 2:7-8)

Pray to this end, trusting God to work in people’s lives, including your own.

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Who God Is Reflected in What God Does

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To gain a glimpse into who God is, take a look at what God does. We could go book by book through the Bible and examine many wondrous works of the Lord to learn about the kind of God we have. Here, however, we’ll examine just three of His wonders and discover numerous attributes that make Him a God worthy of our praise and devotion.

Who God is as the God of Creation

Who God is, His greatness, Reflected in What He Does Like CreationThe Bible provides many accounts of God’s activity beginning with creation. What kind of God would be able to speak the heavens and earth into existence (Gen. 1-2; Ps. 33:6, 9) as described in Scripture?

Such a majestic, strategically designed masterpiece shows us we have an all-powerful, creative, wise, purposeful, and sovereign God of order. This is the God we love, serve, and worship. — “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.” (Rev. 4:11)

For an alphabetical listing of traits it would take to be the kind of God who could create the heavens and earth, check out the Our Great God from A to Z Discipleship Tool Download. It includes that plus four other alphabet renderings about who God is and what He does.

How Scripture Reflects the Kind of God We Have

The writing, compilation, and preservation of the Bible is a testament to the kind of God we have. The Bible describes itself as inerrant, sufficient, dynamic, and powerful truth that is able to make us wise for salvation and thoroughly equip us for every good deed (2 Tim. 3:15-17; Heb. 4:12).

Only an eternal God of absolute truth, knowledge, wisdom, and perfection could produce such a comprehensive and cohesive manuscript though written over the course of time using many human writers. He not only sets the standard but is the Standard. These are the words of a God we should long to meditate on and follow in all we do. — “They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the honeycomb.” (Ps. 19:10)

What God Does in Salvation Reflects His Character, His Essence

We don’t have to look around us but just peer into our own hearts and we have to admit that we all miss the mark. We keep messing up, if not in our words and actions, in our attitudes. Scripture puts it this way: “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23) — “For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing.” (Rom. 7:18-19) — Here’s the real problem: “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23)

Because He is holy, righteous, and just, God can’t ignore sin. Yet, He is also a God of love who doesn’t want anyone to perish in their sin (Matt. 18:14). So, in His mercy and grace, He bridged the gap for us in Christ Jesus who, though perfect, died in our place, taking the punishment our sin deserved. Hence, if we receive Him and believe in His name (Jn. 1:12-13), our sin is forgiven and we’re made right in the eyes of God — by grace through faith (Eph. 2:8-9). This is a God we can trust to deliver us eternally from the penalty of sin and also from the power of sin in our lives here and now.

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