Studying the Bible can be fun-but it can also be stuffy. (The choice is yours!)
The campus visit (and Prince of Egypt scene) that inspired everything you see here
Two years before I actually attended as a student, I stopped by Duke Divinity School for a campus visit. That day, I just so happened to sit in on an Old Testament Survey class where the professor was talking about Moses.
He began the class by playing a short clip from the movie The Prince of Egypt. About halfway through the scene, Moses sees a taskmaster whipping an old Hebrew slave. Overcome with rage, Moses takes action and leaps onto the taskmaster’s back. When Moses makes contact with the Egyptian taskmaster, the taskmaster slips and falls off of the platform to his untimely death. As the taskmaster is falling, Moses seems to make a small attempt to reach out and catch him so that he doesn’t, in fact, fall.
When the clip concluded, the professor stood silent at the front of the classroom for what felt like 20 minutes. I looked around the room at everyone else and it seemed like we were all thinking the same thing: “Why did he play this cartoon clip to a bunch of adults who are seeking advanced degrees? This is kiddie stuff. Is this guy going to tell us what’s going on?”
After this long, awkward pause, the professor read Exodus 2:11-12, emphasizing the underlined part below.
11 One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. 12 Looking this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.
Before visiting this class, I was well aware that Moses killed an Egyptian for abusing a Hebrew man. But it wasn’t until watching this clip and hearing him read the biblical text immediately following that I realized just how premeditated Moses’s act was.
I was absolutely floored by how much insight I gained from listening to Scripture being read after watching an animated movie clip. That little exercise stuck with me, and I still remember it some 10 years later.
Yet, as impactful as it was it was DEFINITELY not my first Bible study rodeo.
The Bible study legacy I inherited
My first Bible teacher was my dad.
While he definitely encouraged me to study the Bible myself, he did WAAAAY more teaching by example.
So many of the memories I have of my dad involve him studying his Bible. Whether it was him sitting at the kitchen table reading his morning Proverb over a bowl of oatmeal with brown sugar… or it was him sitting on the green loveseat in front of his bed preparing a Bible study lesson, legal pad in hand, with his tattered Thomas Nelson King James Bible sitting on the seat next to him. Most of my memories of him have to do with the Bible.
He was a devoted student of the Bible, and he surrounded himself with other devoted students of the Bible.
When he unexpectedly passed away just before I graduated high school, these other devoted students became my mentors. They cultivated the love for studying the Bible that I inherited from my pops.
It wasn’t long before they “threw me in the pool” so to speak and had me leading the Bible studies he used to lead. They taught me A TON about different Bible study strategies and tools. The impact and influence they had on me was the main reason I ultimately decided to go to Divinity School, where I learned even more Bible study techniques.
I am grateful for their influence, but this journey didn’t start with them. It started with me, as a kid, snickering whenever my dad would say things like “He that getteth wisdom loveth his own soul: he that keepeth understanding shall find good” with a straight face. It took me a while to figure out why he would all of sudden start talking funny, but I eventually figured out why.
Crazy for crawfish, mad for mudbugs
Look. I’m a proud Louisiana boy. Crawfish is my love language.
I know all of the “hole in the wall spots” to go to. I’m talking places where there are more deer than people.
One of my close friends has never understood why “my people” enjoy eating crawfish so much. “They taste fine and all, but it’s way too much work for such little reward. When I eat I don’t want to have to work for it.” (Sometimes I want to hit him with 2 Thessalonians 3:10: “If anyone is not willing to work, neither should he eat.” But I’m pretty sure that’s not what that verse is really about. . .)
As far as I’m concerned those are fighting words.
But there are a few Bible study lessons you can learn from eating crawfish. For starters, like eating crawfish, studying the Bible is ALWAYS better when you do it with other people. Also, the Bible study process can be quite messy, but extremely delicious. And the last lesson on my mind is actually related to the #1 Core Principle of fun, effective Bible study, which I teach in my workshop.
I know, I know. It’s cruel to leave you hanging like that, but I do hope you consider joining the next workshop. I believe you’ll get a lot out of it. But of course, I’m biased.
Peace,
John
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