Last year one of my awesome volunteers made a suggestion that really caused me to think. It was a Tuesday evening, after youth, the leaders and I were having a debrief like we do most Tuesdays. We were discussing the night and how it went when this leader said: “Devon, I have noticed that the students don’t really know their Bibles”. What she meant was that students didn’t bring their Bibles and if you asked them to find a verse in the Bible they would not be able to do it without the help of google. She then suggested we do sword drills or something like that. I remember doing sword drills when I was little and started going to church. I was only into it because I wanted the candy that the Sunday School teacher gave me and that was not the culture that I wanted for our students.
As we talked about it more we realized a sad reality. That most student’s and now even adults don’t know their Bibles at all. Yes, there are exceptions to this but in asking students to find a book in the Bible the first question asked by them is if it is in the old or new testament. To help battle this we decided to start doing a Verse of the Week with our students.
There are two hopes we have when working through our verse of the week.
The first hope is that the students will start becoming familiar with their Bibles. Weekly opening their apps or physical Bibles going to the index and finding the book then chapter and verse is something we take for granted. I didn’t realize how crucial this was until I was in my first year at Heritage and I couldn’t find the verses at all. My professors would ask us to open our Bibles and I would take 5 minutes sometimes to get there. I am much faster now but it takes practice.
Our second hope is that this will help the students see the Bible as more than a confusing book. The second part of our verse of the week is that we have the students tell us what that verse means. Unravelling the mystery of the Bible is truly a beautiful thing. I don’t want the students to think the Bible is something that only a Pastor can interpret. All Christians have the Holy Spirit in them helping them read and interpret God’s word. We are supposed to be in our Bibles regularly it will help us in our journey to become Christlike.
When was the last time you read your Bible? I know that can be a loaded question but it is one that we need to be asking ourselves. Whether you have students in your home or not, we all need to be digging into the scriptures more than on Sundays. If you are already doing this great job and keep going, If you don’t then start small, listen to the Bible while you get ready in the morning, or commit to a chapter a day, or do one of the many devotionals on the You Version app. Let’s be hungry for God’s word again!
Blessings,
Devon
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