Bible Study Group
From First Friends Church of Second Life
A group of friends has been meeting at 9AM SLT on Saturdays, an hour before meeting, to stu
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Dates, progress, and co-ordination
- 2nd June 2007: Turtle Boogiewoogie suggested we read Philippians, and led the first session on 1.1-11
- 9th June 2007: Coene Soyuz provided translations for the next passage, 1.12-18
- 16th June 2007: OPEN to volunteers to organise - if you want to have a session at this time, simply announce it to the group.
- 23rd June 2007: OPEN
- 30th June 2007: OPEN
Please do consider running one of these sessions. You can continue with the current text, or examine another passage, if you have a particular desire to study it. Passages should be short - no more than 20 verses - else we risk being unfocussed.
Background
As we have many people new to Quakerism it would be prudent to briefly explain the Quaker approach to the bible. Though Friends of course hold a range of opinions on the subject, the most distinctively Quakerly view is that while the bible was inspired, and contains many useful truths, it is not infalliable, and that such inspiration can and does arise in other books and indeed in all of us.
Resources
For facilitating
Sample announcements
Sending something along these lines a few days in advance to the group as an announcement will ensure people are online at the right time.
- This is just a reminder that there will be a friendly Bible Study session at 9AM SLT/PDT (an hour before meeting) today, Saturday 9th. Last week we covered Philippians 1-11, this week, we'll look at 12-18, and 19-26 if we have time. Notecards will be provided, but feel free to bring your own preferred translatation and share your thoughts. Reading the text beforehand can be useful, but do come even if you haven't as there will be some time to do so in the session.
Sending something like this as an IM to the group just before starting will give any Friends online a message so that they may come if they're interested or not busy.
- Quick reminder - Bible Study group in 5 mins in the meeting house. Come if you can! (NB: beware that replying to this message sends an IM to all Quakers)
Notecard to explain the process
You don't have to follow this exactly, but it suggests a structure if you're unsure. If you want to use this, you might want to hand out notecards at the beginning of the session and to all latecomers as they arrive so they can follow what's going on. Obviously, this one is for the second meeting, and you should change the details of the passage.
- Welcome to the second of our bible study meetings. This time round, we'll be looking at Philippians 12-18, and maybe some more if we have time.
- The procedure we'll be using is based on http://www.read-the-bible.org/FriendlyBibleStudy.htm .
- We'll begin in silence: read the passage and ask yourself some of these questions about it.
- What is the author's main point in this passage?
- - think about why Paul's writing, who he's writing to, and the sorts of things the words might mean to the church at Philippi.
- What new light do I find in this particular reading of this passage of the text?
- - what ideas and themes are prevalent in the passage, and are there any you can see by 'reading between the lines'?
- Is this passage true to my experience?
- - identify some experiences you can compare with different elements of the passage, and test if they are reasonable.
- What are the implications of this passage for my life?
- - Have you done things that are not in keeping with what you've learnt? How does this passage inspire you to act?
- What problems do I have with this passage?
- - is Paul's message an entirely good one? Is the sense unclear? Is what it asks of us impractical?
- Then we'll go round, sharing what occurred to us.
- Then we'll discuss some of what's been said.
- Then we'll finish with another brief period of silence.
Texts and Translations
- Bible Gateway has a wide selection of translations, English and other languages.
- Greek Wikisource has the text in polytonic greek (Bible Gateway does not include accents or breathing marks).
