We’ve all been there, right? You’ve prepared your small group lesson, and you feel like the world’s greatest small group leader. You are going to inspire your group to awe and wonder about God. And then… someone asks the hard question. “Why did God command the Israelites to do that?” If God loves everyone, why did he let ____ happen in the Bible?”

The questions can startle us and, at first, there may be a temptation to gloss over the question, to give a simple answer about faith and trust, and move on. But let me challenge us. What that student needs is not our simple answer, but a complex wrestling with the God of the Bible, as Jacob did so long ago.

Especially with teenagers today, there is a growing need for us to be on our A-game when it comes to teaching the Bible. Your students may have already spent hours on TikTok wrestling with biblical ideas and stories from both Christians as well as atheists. Students have more questions than ever and their desire to make sense of the Bible is at an all-time high.

As youth workers our desire is for students to begin to love the Bible as a dynamic story that they learn to live within. This means we need to approach our teaching and interpreting of the Bible in a dynamic way. Today’s students are not convinced by the old “the Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it” mantra. They want to know how to reconcile Jesus’ command to ‘love your enemy’, with Joshua’s conquest of Canaan. They want to know how to intellectually hold together the creation stories of Genesis with what they are learning in science class. To disciple the next generation, our own relationship with the Bible must become a dynamic, robust one. This starts with how we approach biblical hermeneutics or biblical interpretation.

Growing our relationship with the Bible:

Explore Methods of interpretation.
- The Bible is full of different types of writings. The Bible is an ancient and eclectic library comprised of various genres each with its own interpretive rules. Interpreting the Bible requires us to read and understand each text according to the genre it was written in. When we read the Bible with a flat lens and interpret everything the same, we miss much of the meaning and richness of the Bible.
  Take for instance the poetic symbolism of the Psalms, which cannot all be read as commands, but rather evocative prayers. But when Jesus tells us to love our enemies, he does mean for us to literally love our enemies and pray for them. When you prepare your small group lesson, ask the question “What type of literature is this, and how is it best interpreted?”
Embrace Discomfort
- The story of the Bible is complex. Students LOVE wrestling with the complex questions in Scripture. They are hungry to understand. But often as adults, we get uncomfortable and quickly try to soothe over complicated passages or stories we don’t understand. The Bible is meant to be challenging at times. It forces us to wrestle with complexities. When that one student asks that question that you hoped no one would, rather than gloss over it, lean in! You don’t have to have the answer, just talking through the unknown breathes life into the discussion. And then, after group time, go seek out well-formed answers and bring them back next time.
Let Christ be your lens
- Let’s be honest, some parts of Scripture make us scratch our heads in confusion. The best tool we can give students for understanding the dynamic story of God and his people is to teach them to read the Bible through the lens of Christ’s character. Jesus is the clearest revelation we have of who God is. And when we come across stories where our interpretation seems at odds with the character of God we see in Jesus, we should pause and ask probing questions. Asking questions about the historical setting, the cultural beliefs, and the author’s intent can help us find clarity. But central to all our interpretation should be, ‘Does this align with who we know Jesus to be?’

Jesus is our clearest picture of who God is, and God is the same God from Genesis to Revelation (Mal 3:6, Heb 13:8). Therefore, as you seek to interpret the Bible according to its writing style, as you embrace the messy parts of scripture, and as you allow Jesus to guide every part of your understanding you are primed to model for the next generation what a robust relationship with Scripture looks like. This is a hermeneutic that will make you the hero of small group time.

Hermeneutics for Small Group Heroes

Youth Discipleship

Additional Resources