Teaching the Bible Lesson 13

How to Teach the Bible - Part 13

2012

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Class Notes

Teaching the Bible Lesson 13

Preparing to Teach: Lesson 13 Class Notes

THE LESSON PLAN

GATHERING MATERIALS FOR THE LESSON

You have back your copy of what you filled out in the beginning. And I have given you, along with that, a new blank. And the reason for that is, and I'm not asking you to turn it back in, I'm just wondering if after the classes you would give little different answers or modify them or add to them. And that's simply for you and not something that I need to see at all. The handout this morning deals with the teacher's style and it has the number of suggestions that maybe you can just keep around and look at from time to time. Because I think it is a good summary of some of the things about which we have spoken. At the end of the class, I'm going to have a bonus handout, and you can take that with you and maybe can't eat it up somewhere.

Before we enter into our last lesson, let's bow together for prayer. Heavenly Father, You've been so good to us, especially, Father, in blessing us with the gift of your son. We can never express our gratitude sufficiently. We can never love you enough. But we pray, Father, that to the extent it is humanly possible, we will love you and bow before you, live according to your word and spread that word. And that we may begin, Father, by teaching others about the glorious message, the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ. We thank you that we can bow before you this morning, redeemed by his blood. We thank you in the name of Jesus our Savior.

We concluded last Sunday morning by talking about some of the tools. We talked about voice. We talked about gestures and it was in the discussion of gestures that our class came to a conclusion. I want to go back to that this morning and continue and we begin with the gesture of posture. It is a gesture because it involves the body and that's what gestures are. I'm not going to go back to the rules that we talked about earlier where you lean at an 18.5 degree angle because that is the right angle. But what I do want to emphasize is that when you are teaching a class, the thing you need to do is to face your hearers squarely. Hold your head up. Hold your chin up. But don't hold it too high. We have a very famous person in this country who, when he turns away from his teleprompter, very often goes, "You may remember the angle." And I always think when he does that how snooty he is. And that's what we associate with snootiness. It is a lifting up of the nose. And so if you do that, you are talking down your nose to your ears.

It's better if you lean slightly toward your ear. By that I don't mean leaning on the lectern. I do that sometimes, particularly in a class. But in the pulpit, I rarely will lean upon the lectern. Leaning on the lectern may indicate a desire for closeness, but leaning too long conveys weakness because it looks like you're using the lectern as a crutch. If you have the luxury of a walking microphone, occasionally, particularly if you're making a strong point, it's good to walk out from behind the lectern and come around closer to your audience. But that's not necessarily a thing that you ought to do and most people do not do it well if they do it all of the time. Movement in a lesson ought to occur in a transitional place, where you're between points, and you're fixing to move out, and you're fixing to make a point, and so you move a little bit. But you don't just move back and forth all of the time. You ought to avoid making strong points while you're moving backward, because that is an indication that things are getting maybe a little bit weaker and you're making a strong point so you don't want to walk backwards while you're doing that it contradicts the point that you are making. Too much movement swaying or bobbing appears more as a eccentricity than as a desire to get close to the ears. Furthermore, when you're walking, you're almost always walking away from somebody if you're not careful, and you've got your back to a part of your audience. It is never a good thing to turn your back toward your audience.

Now, we've talked about the voice, we've talked about gestures, we have talked about postures in particular, but never, ever let your concern about your voice or your gestures or your posture turn you into a statue where you're afraid to move because that's just as bad. We've emphasized that the thing you want to do is strive to be natural. And a little practice is going to help you feel comfortable. Another thing that will help you feel comfortable is proper preparation. We've emphasized that over and over and over and I emphasize it again. If you are properly prepared, you don't need to worry about where you're going because you know where you're going and you know how you are going to get there. The teacher's work, as we've said before, is not finished when you put the last period to your preparation. You've got to go and present that lesson. We've talked about presenting it with a pompous attitude. It never affects people affirmatively. One teacher was humorously described as being so pompous that he could strut sitting down. Now, that's pretty hard to do, but I've seen some folks that looked like they could probably do it. Humility is more becoming to teaching the message of Jesus Christ.

Another thing you need to watch is the length of the lesson. Well, does that really make sense when we're sitting here talking about Bible study class? I mean, after all, we're going to get two bells before long, and they're going to tell me it's time to shut up because the class is going to leave. We've got to get over for worship. So do we worry about the time of the class? Well, obviously you don't have to worry about getting out too late to beat other folks to the cafeteria. You don't really have to worry about getting out too late to get over to the worship. Well how then do you not waste time? And the answer again is preparation. Time is wasted when the teacher is poorly prepared and has to wing it and is taking the precious time that he does have and filling it up with filler instead of with good, usable, challenging, helpful information about the gospel of Jesus Christ and the story of the Lord. Most folks don't realize this, and I guess that accounts for filler in class and dare I say long sermons because I preach some of it. But gravity takes time. Winston Churchill was known as a great orator. And after one of his speeches, somebody complimented him on it being such a brief speech. And his response was, "It would have been shorter, but I didn't have time." It takes time to work through, winnow out, and be sure that what you've got is what you want to say.

Another distraction we need to be concerned about is grammar. We've suggested this earlier, but few things can be more distracting than really bad grammar. People listen to it and it's almost like scraping fingernails across a blackboard. Now, y'all are too young to remember that. Y'all have always had whiteboards. You do remember it. It's not pleasant. That's what little boys used to do to bother the girls in class. But, you know, that's what poor grammar can be. And people wonder, "Well, here, this fellow's trying to tell me what the Greek means and he doesn't know English, the native tongue." Now, that may be harsh, but good grammar can be learned. I may have told you before that my daddy did not have a college education. He went to a business school. And when I was just a youngster, probably three or four years old, he had been preaching part time on Sundays here and there. And he decided he wanted to dedicate his life to preaching. We moved ultimately to Austin, Texas, after a stay in Itasca. Y'all probably don't even know where Itasca is, south of Fort Worth close to Hillsboro. At the University of Texas there, was there, and my daddy went. I remember getting up early in the morning to go to class to learn English. And he learned it. And he always said, "Not how come that, but how came that?" Because that's the proper way to say it. Now, I'm not stressing correct English that far. But I'm saying that we need to know good grammar and we need to use it. And we've got plenty of opportunities to learn. The same thing is true of the voice. We've got opportunity to learn how to improve our voice. And for the sake of the hearer and the effectiveness of the teacher, I think it can truthfully be said, think on these things. Don't just discard these things that we've talked about. But think on and see if we can't improve in all of those areas. And while we're thinking on, see if we can eliminate them.

Any person who loves and believes the scripture knows that the message is more important than the message. It's more important than the method that the messenger uses. Well, why in the world then have we spent all of this time on method? There's a simple answer. It doesn't make much difference what the message is if nobody listens. And we've got to present our lesson in such a way that people are interested and that they listen. And that means not only the presentation, but it means the preparation of the material that will hold their interest. The teacher who refuses to attend to method, I think, cannot truthfully claim that he's interested in proclaiming the message or in the hearers who sit at his feet. The true teacher strives to avoid hindrances to communication and to avoid everything that distracts from it. Mannerisms, habits get in the way. Millie usually has the remote, so I don't get to change as often as I would like. But when somebody's being interviewed and they keep saying, "Well, you know, uh, uh, well, uh, uh, well, is like, like, like, uh, well, you know, you know." that people cannot just stand up and speak without all of that filler. Sentences begin with "a", they break in the middle with "a", and they're interrupted by "you know" and very often accompanied by distracting croak clearing. It may be the result of a habit, but it's a habit that needs to be broken. Most often it is a habit, and if it's not a habit, then it is filler while the teacher stops to think about what the teacher is going to say or trying to find his place in his notes. Whatever the cause, it does not communicate well to your hearing.

We've talked about looking people in the eye, and that's important. It's communication. We've talked about inappropriate gestures. We've talked about improper preparation. Lessons cannot be technical. They cannot be buzzy. They cannot be academic. One fellow described it by saying the homiletical ship, and a homily is the presentation of It is the lesson. And he said, "The homiletical ship cannot float in such waters." And that's a good statement. It will sink and the class will go down with it. Language needs to be simplified. Select words that appeal to the hearer. Unnecessary points and sentences should be eliminated. Unnecessary words need to go as well. Extra words in a lesson are like extra parts in a machine. They interfere with the operation of the machine. And extra words interfere with the message that is being presented. But what about cliches? Don't we all love cliches? There's nobody in this room and probably nobody who is old enough to really talk much, who can't fill in the last word of this, keep up with the Joneses. We all know that. He's at the end of his rope. Yeah, everybody, why use those things? You're not telling your hearers anything that they do not know. The use of worn out, overused, meaningless cliches results from short cutting preparation and it wears out the hearings. Let's just put it bluntly and say that old, old cliches hinder the presentation of the old, old story. And that's something we as teachers do not want to do.

As teachers, we need to be sensitive to our hearers. As a teacher, don't ever fail to ask yourself how your hearers think and how they feel. You know, teachers often assume that all of the hearers are just like me. That's probably not a valid assumption for any number of reasons. Suffice to say that people are like snowflakes. No two are alike. They may look alike. You may say this one looks like that one. But when you get down to what really matters, there are no people who are exactly alike. Well, how in the world then can a teacher who does not consider his hearers' circumstances expect to communicate with them? He's apt to wind up like the fellow who went to speak at the prison and started his speech by saying, "I'm so glad that you all are here this morning." He didn't think about his hearers. didn't think about their circumstances or situations. When he talks to a group of teenagers, he talks about Bach and Beethoven instead of Garth Brooks. And I think maybe Garth is out of style now, I don't know, but you know, I don't keep up with that, so I'd have to do some homework if I were going to teach the teenagers. A teacher with an adversarial spirit is adverse to his hearers. Adversarial presentation gets adversarial response. The teachers, I mean, the hearers are not adversarial. For the teacher of the gospel, they are opportunities and ought to be treated as such.

Avoid repetition. Now, repetition is one means of emphasizing something, and we all understand that. But some folks seem to think that everything in the lesson needs to be emphasized, so they repeat everything two or three times. And you want to stand up and scream, I've got it, I've got it, go on. You do not need to emphasize the obvious. You do not need to clarify the symbol. You do not need to illustrate the apparent. You repeat it when you've got something that is worth emphasizing and you want to try and make it stick in the minds of the hearing. There is an old statement about speakers that tells us there are three parts to a speech. Tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, and tell them what you told them. That's commonly referred to, or technically referred to, as the introduction, the body, and the conclusion. If there ever, ever was an oversimplification, it is that. You do not need to tell people three times, unless they're really dense. You've wasted a lot of time when you do that. It is a gross oversimplification, and if literally applied, it is a lesson killer. Now I agree that lessons need an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. An introduction should be brief. It shouldn't take 10 or 15 minutes to tell people what you're fixing to teach them. It needs to be brief. All an introduction is, is an attempt to grab the attention of your hearers. And when it has grabbed the attention of your hearers, it is time to go to the body of the lesson that you have prepared and that you want them to hear. An introduction that is longer than three or four minutes has overstayed its welcome and is a waste of time. Technically they say the body of the lesson ought to have three points. Well, I've never agreed with that. Some ought to have maybe just one, but and they ought to have just one purpose. But organize it. You may have three to five points, but if you've got that many you need to be careful because you've got so many dishes on the table nobody knows what to eat in essence. So try not to go over three and if you've got over three let it be of necessity because it's just absolutely essential to your purpose that you're trying to accomplish, but they ought to be more brief so that again you don't stretch your audience's patience. A conclusion is simply an opportunity to take what you have discussed and encourage action by your hearings. Every lesson has an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. And what do they call it? Rolling organization is a good way to do it. You may have a couple of Roman numeral one, Roman numeral two. And the old rule is every one gets a two, every A gets a B. And if you don't have that, then maybe you better look at your organization, but that's just more technical than we need to get. The main thing in preparing a lesson is to be sure that it's well organized, that everything that is not essential to your purpose has been cast out. "Oh, but that's good material. Wonderful. It may make a great second lesson." But don't ruin your first one by trying to cram things into it that are not related to your purpose. That way you may ruin two lessons instead of just one.

Now, all of these hindrances to communication are just illustrative and not exhaustive. There are many ways that teachers can alienate their class. And I may be the king of it, I don't know. I try not to be, but as my mama used to say, try and get it done. But these, I think, should enable us as teachers to examine ourselves, both as to These hindrances we've discussed and others that we may be aware of and that I or our teachers may not be aware of. Eliminating hindrances to communication will enable the teacher to be what the teacher wants to be. That is an effective communicator of the gospel of Jesus Christ and a greater servant of the master. That brings me to one of the things of which I just spoke, the words in conclusion. In conclusion, it is often the lesson's most welcome phrase. But it's time now to use it in this series of lessons. Preparing these lessons for me has been an opportunity and a privilege, all rolled into one. I think all of you probably know by now that at one time I was a full-time preacher. And I moved from the pulpit to the pew. From preaching all of the time to preaching some of the time to preaching once in a while, to maybe now once in the blue moon. From teaching every Sunday to teaching once in a while, I have learned that it's much different to be in the pew than it is to be in the pulpit or at the lectern in class. And I will tell you that I'm much more sensitive now to the hearer's position and the hearer's needs as they're called upon to participate in class or in worship. I certainly have learned that hearers are not insensitive. As a general rule, and a rule for which I am most thankful, most hearers are very generous and overlooking the faults of the teacher, and forgiving the mistakes of those who must teach week after week, and class after class, and who in that process must generate materials that make people want to be more like Jesus. In fact, it has been said, and I think said well, that patience may be their greatest virtue. But, they have a right, a word that is bannered about greatly these days. Our hearers have a right to expect the teacher to do his very best. And if they ever come to a belief that the teacher is not doing his best, that teacher should seek a new beginning and resolve to do better. And that's the purpose of these lessons, prepare and enable us as teachers to more effectively convey the greatest story ever told. Whether we want to admit it or not, the teacher is part of the lesson. Several times I've quoted Philip Brooks, but we need to remember it, is the communication of the gospel by man to man. Man cannot change the gospel. He dare not claim anything other than the gospel. What the teacher can and must do is to be He's certain that nothing that he does detracts from the story of the cross. These lessons have been prepared with the assumption that that is the desire of every person who is engaged in preaching or in teaching. And I will tell you that in my life I've learned But for the most part, this is a valid assumption. But I regret that there are still too many who believe they do not need improvement because they cannot be improved. It will not heed any suggestions for improvement and who present any suggestion that improvement is needed. Such teachers do themselves, their hearers their Lord for this service. They would do better if they would just concentrate on their day job. But as long as a teacher is trying to improve, there is hope. It's only when he quits trying and caring that he is not deserving of his hearer's patience and understanding. My prayer in relationship to these classes is that these lessons have provided blueprints tools and materials to assist those who are giving themselves to God in teaching and to their classes, in making every effort to become the best teachers that they can be. And with that said in our teaching and in all things to God be glory.

Our class is over. If you have questions or comments, please feel free to do so. That tough skin and I'm still trying to improve. What are your thoughts on handing notes? I know that you went into the extreme and you don't want to be wed to them and just reading from them, but the other end of the extreme, you know, you show up with just the yellow post-it note. Sometimes the lesson is just a disorganized mess. So, what is your view on notes when you're teaching? Well, I'm not like the fellow who was asked if he preached from notes. He said, "Well, once I used to preach from notes, but people didn't pay them, so I now have to take cash." When I get in the pulpit, and I'm just speaking for me, I always have full notes. several reasons for it. One, I have worked hard on preparing that lesson and I believe that if it's worth preaching once, it's probably worth preaching twice. And if I want to preach it twice, I better have the notes that I used when I preached it first. So I have them, I say I've got notes that go back years and years and years. On the other hand, and by the way, those notes and their organization keep me on track. Now that's not to say that I don't think of something that I didn't think of in the lesson preparation and I understand that it's going to help me make this point or illustrate this point, I will interject something. But it is an absolute mistake to be wed to those notes, so that you stand there and you're just doing like this and you look up just to go back down again. Note-bound is not good preaching. Not because the message is not good, but because it is not good communication. And communication has to be involved in preaching the word of Jesus Christ. If all you have is two or three or four points written down on a sheet of paper, you cannot help but travel from place to place and say a lot of things you didn't intend to say because you're trying to fill up the time. Over the years, I have discovered that my longest sermons were my poorest prepared sermons because I was thinking, "Oh, they expect me to go 30 minutes. I've arrived 30 minutes. We're there. So, I better, you know, start putting stuff in." And most of the time, as you suggest, it is disorganized and it doesn't get us where he really wants us to go. So, notes are not bad. Notes can be good. be bound to them. Don't feel like you have to give up and preach without notes. Most of the folks I hear preach without notes are preaching without organization. And that leads to the disorganized stuff.

What about the use of humor in a class or sermon? But for humor's sake, in my view, it's no good. I've come here not to laugh, but to worship. Some believe that it gets the audience's attention. Probably does. But I would answer upon the wrong things. I've come here not to hear a routine, but to hear the gospel of my Savior. On the other hand, a little humor along is not bad. I've been known to use it, but I've never used humor for humor's sake. I think this is the wrong place, the wrong time. Any other questions? Then I will give you The last handout, it says class 11 on it, but that was from the last time we presented it. I forget exactly how I have it on there. Preparation and presentation are like horse and carriage, they go together. You can get along without one. But it's not good. It's... Use neither of them, and you're in trouble. It's nothing. Use one of them, and it's next to nothing. Preparation and presentation make the difference. Without them, your folks are going to sleep. And that's the reason for the little picture there. of a person asleep. Thank you all for coming to the class. I hate to see it come to a close because I still think we can improve our Sunday school. You all have evidenced an interest in that and I'm more grateful for it than I can say. I think our Sunday school here at Katie could be drastically improved. But this class comes to an end. I told the elders I would teach them They wanted me to teach it. But apparently two quarters was sufficient, and I think everybody's ready to go. So, so be it. Thank y'all for coming.