The central theme of this podcast episode revolves around the challenges faced by contemporary Bible teachers and how the Bible 805 system can effectively address these issues. The speaker, Yvon Prehn, reflects on her extensive experience teaching the Bible and emphasizes the significant shifts in societal understanding of Scripture over the years. She highlights the stark contrast between the audiences of the apostles Peter and Paul, illustrating how the latter's approach is more relevant in today's context, where many lack foundational biblical knowledge. Through a series of observations, she outlines the pressing need for a teaching method that resonates with a biblically illiterate audience, advocating for content-heavy resources that foster genuine understanding and discipleship. Ultimately, she encourages educators to adapt their strategies to align with the current cultural landscape, asserting that successful outreach requires a return to foundational biblical teachings that can genuinely engage and transform lives.

Takeaways:

• Teaching the Bible effectively today requires understanding the contemporary audience, which often lacks foundational biblical knowledge, as illustrated by the differing methods of Peter and Paul.
• The decline in biblical literacy necessitates a shift from traditional teaching methods to more informative and engaging approaches that cater to a post-Christian society.
• Church leaders must recognize that many individuals today are biblically illiterate, which calls for a more foundational approach in teaching Gospel truths and promoting discipleship.
• Incorporating resources like Bible 805 can provide structured content that helps individuals build a solid understanding of Scripture and the Christian faith.
• The audience of today resembles that of the Apostle Paul's, emphasizing the need for patience and thorough instruction rather than assuming prior biblical knowledge.
• Effective evangelism requires an adaptation of strategies to meet the needs of a biblically uninformed audience, focusing on building understanding over time rather than relying on emotional appeals.

Links referenced in this episode:

• bible805.com

Note--this transcript is generated automatically by the company that hosts the podcast and it often has odd breaks and things it does I can't change. For a script of the podcast, go to https://bible805.com/category/practical-ministry/ and scroll down to this specific podcast.

________________________________________

Welcome to the Ministry Miscellaney Podcast A collection of tools, strategy and challenges for Bible Teachers from me, Yvon Prehn, someone who's been teaching the Bible ever since As a third grader, I started to teach the kindergarteners at my church about Jesus. I've never quit doing that, and along the way I've picked up some practices, strategies and resources that might be useful to you.

Our topic for today is --

Why You Might have a tough time teaching the Bible today and how by Bible 805 can help

I'm full of disclaimers and caveats, and I know that there are exceptions to everything that I say that follows.

I want to acknowledge up front that there are many ways to teach and disciple, but the Bible 805 Content Intensive System of teaching is what's worked for me for many years and it has resulted in significant spiritual growth in the people that have taken my Bible classes.

To explain how I've come up with the methods I use in Bible 805 to help, you know, trust, apply and teach the Bible, I want to look at two apostles, Peter and Paul, the radically different audiences they faced, and how they used different methods to reach them.

We'll then look at similar situations in our world today and I'll share how I put together the Bible805 foundation for Bible Teaching, which I've summarized into seven observations that enabled me to put this whole system together. Observation Number one Peter's Audience versus Paul's.

Audience this is the heart of the issue.

Let's look at these two founders of the faith who many churches model their approaches to Bible teaching and outreach. After then, I'm going to look at some critical differences between them that are seldom discussed as we look at the nature of their audiences.

First, Peter's audience in Acts 2, which is often taken as a model for outreach and is prayed for in many settings. This, by the way, is when he preached at Pentecost. He didn't give a very lengthy sermon, but he had just this huge response.

We need to remember that Peter preached to Jews and God fearing Gentiles. Now these were people who knew the Scriptures, understood sin and sacrifice, and expected a Messiah.

Peter's sermon got the immediate, overwhelming response it did because the audience already had the entire framework, the entire foundation for it. The only thing they needed to decide was is Jesus the Messiah or not? Peter declared convincingly that he was and thousands responded immediately.

Now second, though, in contrast, let's look at the Apostle Paul's audience. Paul, on the other hand, primarily preached to Gentiles who knew nothing about the Bible. So what did he do?

He reasoned, he explained, he proved, he taught daily. He stayed for months or years to get his message across.

Acts tells us that he spent, for example, three Sabbaths in Thessalonica, daily discussions in Berea, a year and a half in Corinth, two years in Ephesus. For Paul, one sermon usually didn't accomplish much. If he was fortunate, he didn't get kicked out or stoned.

He was tolerated and asked for more information. He built understanding, conviction and life change over time. Now here's the point. Today's world is Paul's world, not Peter's.

Now here's how this has come about. Observation number two. The world has changed drastically in its understanding of the Bible.

Fifty years ago, most people in America at least had a basic understanding of the Bible even if they didn't attend church because of the reality that the Bible permeated society. There was prayer in schools, it was part of any respected education. We had an agreed upon public morality.

People knew who Jesus was, they knew the general storyline. They respected the Bible as a source of authority. But today that world is gone. We live in what many call a post Christian society.

Others have called it a post Bible society, which I think is a very accurate description, particularly for us in the church. To keep in mind, people under 30 often have no idea what's in the Bible.

They don't know what sin means, they don't understand why Jesus matters, and they don't assume the Bible has any authority at all.

It's not rebellion, it's simply ignorance. They don't know and they don't care.

Because the culture never taught them any biblical reason why they should think otherwise. That's the outside world.

But here's the problem. Observation number three.

If you're younger, Gen X, others younger than that, whatever, and didn't grow up in that world. But if you're really involved in the church, if you're a leader in the church, chances are maybe your outside world was different.

But you grew up in churches where this was the worldview of the leaders. Many of us are still around and so that's what you picked up.

Now because of that, most church leaders, teachers, small group facilitators today, regardless of their age, if they were pretty much raised in the church, assume people outside the church today have the same biblical background. They don't even think about it. They just kind of assume that the church may have worked hard, really hard to change outwardly with the times.

They add screens and praise bands and social media. But the content, the approach of their communications is often the same. They preach as if people already know the basics of what the Bible is about.

They give salvation invitations as if people already understand the Gospel.

They assume biblical literacy that simply isn't there. They ask people to discuss then things,.

Things they know nothing about.

That's the foundation of why there seems.

To be so few true disciples or.

Spiritually mature people in many churches today.

Now I don't want to just be pointing out problems.

I want to look at what's going.

On in more detail. And then of course I'm going to give you some ideas on how Bible 805 can solve these things.

But I want to give you a little bit more information and background on.

Why we have the problems we do now.

Observation number four. Old methods no longer work in evangelism. We may not go back to Peter as an example, but many churches still have the memory of the great revivals.

Of recent times and the methods that.

Were used in them.

The most well known of course are.

The Crusades of Billy Graham. The Billy Graham Crusades worked in the past because the audience already knew the story. Now just watch some of the old ones on tv.

It's really interesting.

A lot of the audience brings their Bibles with them and stuff like that.

It seems like though that he just makes this one time plea in a similar way that Peter did and people respond. But you need to really consider closely.

What was going on.

This was a different world again. This was a time when Bible knowledge.

Was the foundation of society and the.

Content of the Bible was known even in maybe a superficial, uncaring way. The people who attended knew what it was about. Again, it was an audience much like Peter had.

People came into the stadiums already believing foundational Bible truths. So when Graham stands up and shouts the Bible says this, people take it seriously. They knew might have known all about.

Jesus and what he did.

Most of them in the audience simply did not realize that they needed to make a personal decision to follow Jesus to repent of their sins and trust him as Savior. That's what the whole going forward thing was all about. They knew the basic history, the facts.

About what they were believing and buying into.

But that wasn't the end of it. Every person that went forward was met by a counselor.

Now I know this for a fact because I was one of them. I worked as one of them that as counselors we would question those coming.

Forward as to why they were making the decision.

They wanted to make sure they understood, understood the implications of it, prayed with them and enrolled them in follow up Bible study that would teach them the.

Basics of the Christian life. It's a completely different world today. Today's audience doesn't know the story, they don't know the Bible, they don't know who Jesus is.

And sadly many can make decisions, quote unquote and they don't even get the sort of checking out you might say.

That a counselor gave someone at a Graham Crusade.

Decision based evangelism where the good news.

Of Jesus is presented in a one.

Time short emotional plea is going on today. I recently observed this at a public baptism where people were challenged to follow the great experience they'd witnessed by immediately,.

You know, they saw these people get baptized and it was a big celebration. There was lots of music and you.

Know, cheering and all that. And then people were challenged to also immediately trust Jesus as Savior and follow him in baptism. I didn't feel good about that.

I think that can really be spiritually dangerous because people don't understand what they're deciding to do. Do they even have any idea who is the Jesus that they're responding to? The person making the plea though I'm sure was very well intentioned.

He thought he was talking to Peter's audience. People who already knew about Jes, knew what accepting him as savior meant.

But that's often not the case today because today's audience is quite often, I might say almost always spiritually confused and really biblically illiterate. People have ideas about Jesus that are wildly inaccurate.

They might think he's an avatar, a divine spark, a genie, you know, one of the best that ever lived, all that. They don't understand who he really is. They don't understand the Bible's authority or even have basic knowledge of its content.

They often think following Jesus is going to make life easier. They have no idea that becoming his disciple means taking up a cross.

They don't even know what a cross refers to in the Bible or that Jesus made carrying your cross a non negotiable criteria.

Following him.

This lack of knowledge about the basics of salvation is why the next observation takes place. And that is observation number five. The Socratic method or what might more.

Commonly be called the. What do you think of this way of conducting classes?

Often falls short in making disciples. Now I know I'm going to fall step on some toes here and there are Certainly times when this method can be useful.

The key is knowing your audience when you're talking to Peter's audience. People who already know the Bible well, who have a resource to draw from, the modern, you know, what do you think of it?

The Socratic approach, whatever, that can work out very well. But here is the key.

When this approach is used on a lot of people in the churches, you can't assume that they have something inside of themselves for you to draw out something that might be useful or valid or true. If their worldview is shaped by TikTok,.

Instagram, doom scrolling, constant news feeds and.

The secular culture, what are you drawing out of them? As a repeated saying often puts it, garbage in, garbage out.

Now, I'm not trying to just be cynical and negative as I say this, and I realize some of my personal observations come from where I live.

I live in Southern California and arguably.

It is a more secular culture than many. But I want to share some results from a study that the American Bible Society did just last year on the extent of biblical literacy in America today.

Now, I've done a longer podcast that goes into all of this study, but here are their resources. I'm quoting them across multiple sources. The data is clear. Biblical literacy is collapsing across all age groups.

Young people, including church kids, know less about the Bible than any previous generations. Cultural references to Scripture no longer make sense to most Americans.

Even basic Bible facts, the Gospels, Moses, David and Goliath are no longer known. Churches cannot assume any background knowledge whatsoever.

End of the quote.

Obviously, we're living in the Apostle Paul's world and we need to structure our outreach and discipleship strategies to respond to it. So finally My observation number six. Here's the response of Bible 805, why I do what I do and what's available for you.

If we want to fulfill the Great Commission, not just make converts, but make disciples, we must communicate like Paul.

That means giving people lessons that give them content, that tell them this is what this portion of Scripture, this topic, this book of the Bible teaches. People need to build their faith journeys by simply knowing the content of the Bible, knowing what the book says.

And I can help you do that through these three Bible 805 resources. Bible 805 resource number one content heavy studies.

Again, actually I should have put it this way. I do 30 minutes of Bible content that presented both as a podcast and as a PowerPoint presentation that I put online.

I use the PowerPoint to teach people just step by step, people follow along with notes that are basically a transcript of the lesson.

They also have discussion questions that are used when after the 30 minutes of Bible content where I break people, then if I'm doing a live class or you can do it however you want online. If you listen online, then you can do it however you want where you can break people into smaller groups where they can discuss the topics.

I also have application ideas and prayer suggestions.

All of this is available in a printed handout that goes with the podcast and video of each lesson and is available the same week that I do it on Bible805.com now, it doesn't stop with just studies for you to listen to and download as an individual. All of the materials that I use to put together the lessons are freely available for you to use to teach them.

I make the original PowerPoints, the text notes, well the PowerPoints in both image and text version notes, discussion guides, ad free videos and audio files of all the lessons in their original editable form. And I put them on the Bible 805 Academy.

Now, I created the Bible 805 Academy because I know many teachers, pastors, other leaders in small groups under resourced churches. Churches in other countries are often overwhelmed.

It's just the practical work of doing ministries and they don't have the extensive time that I spent to prepare the in depth teaching materials, nor can they afford expensive curriculum.

Everything to do that is free and editable through the Bible 805 Academy as you can take all my teaching resources, modify them, use them to meet your needs. The second resource that I have is a continuous emphasis on the website in particular WW Bible805. Excuse me, let me say that again.

Www.bible805.com that all of the resources you need to get to know the Bible, to just read the Bible, to get to know it, to get to know it in a way that makes sense.

Now, I have two types of helps for this.

First of all, I have the Start a plan for curious people to begin reading the Bible. This is an 8 1/2 by 11 paperback where I have a reading plan of selected books from the New Testament.

And I based it on the idea of this is what people in the New Testament need to know about Jesus. So I put together this reading plan. I have tips. Using Bible translations helps, a reading schedule and journal pages.

Then I have many, many resources to encourage and enable you to read your Bible in chronological order. This is so important.

The books in our Bibles are not printed, are placed in chronological order and because of that books like the prophets really make a little sense. When people go through the Bible in chronological order, they understand it in a way that they haven't before and it is life changing.

I've seen that happen again and again. Bible Resource Number three I have a variety of ways for you to take in the content. Again.

The resources just mentioned are available in print, audio, video, both long and short form, in podcasts, infographics, blogs, books, whatever you need. Except for my books that are for sale, everything else is free. The ministry is donor supported.

However you and your people want to take in the content, it's there for you.

Finally, the Audience the world we want.

To win for Jesus is challenging and in many ways it's very similar to the one at the birth of the Christian Church.

We don't any longer have the comfort.

Of a Bible believing, Bible friendly world that understands our message easily, as some of our very recent predecessors did.

And so we live in a world.

Similar to the one the Apostle Paul preached in. And because of that I want to close with the words that he gave to Timothy where he said, I solemnly.

Urge you in the presence of God in Christ Jesus who will someday judge.

The living and the dead when he comes to set up his kingdom, preach the Word of God.

Be prepared whether the time is favorable.

Or not, patiently correct, rebuke and encourage your people with good teaching. Bible 805 is there to give you the basic resources to do that good teaching.

I trust you found the content in this episode of Ministry Ms. Elania useful.

For links to any resources mentioned and lots of free material to help you know, trust, apply and teach the Bible, go to www.bible805.com Let me close now.

With a reminder from the book of.

Daniel 12:3 where it says those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness like the stars, forever and ever. That's you, someone who leads many to righteousness and in doing that may you be ever growing in your reliance on.

The power of the Holy Spirit, in.

The deepening of your friendship with Jesus, and in your trust in the goodness of God the Father. Never forgetting in all the hard work.

You do that you have a glorious.

Heritage where you will shine like the stars forever and ever. Amen.