A Valuable Scripture When Teaching
I’m teaching a Wednesday night Bible class right now to some of my favorite students. I have 10th through 12th grade girls in a class on “The Roles of Women in the Home and the Church.” The class is designed to teach them leadership as God would have it.
Whenever I am privileged to teach teen girls’ classes, I usually have a theme song and a prayer before we get into the actual study. The girls do a great job of leading in both of these areas. However, I changed things up a little bit this quarter. We still have our opening prayer, but this time I put a “theme” verse up on my whiteboard to serve as a reminder concerning this topic we are studying.
The verse is 2 Timothy 3:16-17. “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent [complete], equipped for every good work” (emphasis added).
We say this verse together or one of the girls recites it at the beginning of every class for a very special reason. I spent the first few minutes of the very first class we had talking about this scripture. I wanted them to understand that everything we read in the Bible was breathed out by God and is of great value for so many reasons. It helps us know how to handle different situations we may be faced with in life. I placed special emphasis on talking about God’s word being valuable for training in righteousness because that is really what our class is all about – training ourselves to be servants of God as women.
I also took time to talk about the “why” of that passage – so that we can be competent, equipped for every good work as God would have us to be. I know the passage says “man of God,” but I believe this also refers to the women of God being equipped in their areas of service of God.
Let me share with you why I spent so much time talking about that particular passage. We needed a foundation upon which to base what we were going to be studying. Roles for women in the church and the home are being attacked from outside the church as well as inside the church. I wanted the girls to agree that what they thought about the topics or what they may have been taught about the topics, or what they might be living with concerning the topics would not be our foundation. Our foundation would be God’s word – the Bible. Period. And I’m happy to report that all of them agreed that would be the right thing to do.
As we have studied through several lessons on where women can and cannot lead in the church and the home, I’m happy to say that we have found our answers in the Bible. There have been questions. We have discussed options, but what God breathed out for us to follow has been the answer for our questions.
We have talked about male spiritual leadership in the home and the church. However, we have also talked about the importance of women to the work of God. We’ve studied the usual passages concerning roles for women, but we have also studied women of the Bible who set great examples of obeying God and his word. These women are remembered in the Scriptures as great servants of God.
God’s word should be our guide for life no matter what topic is being discussed. Let’s help one another by always agreeing to use that firm foundation.
“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
I have sworn an oath and confirmed it, to keep your righteous rules.” (Ps. 119:105-106)
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AUTHOR: Donna Faughn