Biblical Studies in High School: Devotion vs. Academics

This article was written by Dr. Ashley Hibbard. She will be tutoring for Biblical Hebrew and Biblical Studies.

Why Biblical Studies for Teens?

You’re a homeschooling family. You might have done that for lots of reasons: learning differences or challenges in your family, a concern about the pluralistic and even atheistic philosophy of most modern Western education, a desire for more time spent learning with your child, an ability to make all learning Christ-centered and bible-saturated—and I’m sure the list goes on. So if God and his word, if Jesus and the gospel are part of your day-in and day-out of home education, what are we doing offering a course on Biblical Studies?

I think if we apply the principle to any other area of our lives, we see the benefit. Playing familiar pieces of music on a piano for enjoyment and consistent upkeep of skill is valuable. But so are piano lessons. You’ll get different things from each type of engagement, and each will complement the other. There’s little benefit in lessons without practice, for certain. But let’s think for a moment about the other option.

Someone with an ear for music might never really need lessons. Some such people may be able to eventually self-teach sufficiently to play perhaps for a church or for family gatherings. But even for someone self-taught to a reasonable level of competence, lessons will stretch them, force them into new styles of music or more challenging pieces than they might pick on their own. Lessons will teach helpful techniques that a self-taught student may never happen across without guidance. Lessons will teach music theory, which some people begin to discern on their own, but which usually takes formal lessons to truly comprehend.

“Devotion keeps study a passionate and spiritual exercise. But study will keep devotion honest, tethered to scripture…”
~Dr. Ashley Hibbard

Listen to the Podcast version here.

Biblical Studies For Every Age

There are two texts in scripture that I would like us to think about briefly. The first is almost certainly familiar to you, and beloved of many families and especially home educators. “These words that I am giving you today are to be in your heart. Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” (Deut 6:6-7).

This is a great text that reflects a surprising democratization of religious instruction in the ancient world. The requirements of Israel’s God were not a secret. They weren’t difficult and obscure, and understandable only to a priestly caste. They were for everyone. Israel’s legal tradition reflects some of the simplest Hebrew in the Old Testament: intended for everyone, understandable by everyone, teachable by non-specialist parents to their children in the everyday of life.

Biblical Studies: Ancient History in Context

The next text is a little less familiar: Nehemiah 8:1-8. This text immediately follows the story of Nehemiah’s rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem, and now Ezra and Nehemiah lead the people in a re-focusing on spiritual matters. These people haven’t had opportunity to learn much about God or to worship him rightly. Most of them have lived their entire lives in Babylon. For the first time, God’s people are at a somewhat significant distance from the words that God spoke to Moses.

For many of them, their first language is no longer Hebrew and their experience in worship is not what God described in the Law. So all the people gather together, and while Ezra reads the law, the priests and Levites interpret and explain the Law to the people so that they will understand. This is one of the first recorded instances of biblical interpretation in scripture. In this text, we see something of ourselves, and our purpose in offering this course: a people who are not always clear on the meaning and the purposes of the text, and who need guidance to understand what it means to the their obedience to God and right worship.

If we park our minds in what we’ve learned in Sunday school, we’ll never learn the real depth that scripture has to offer.

Daily Devotion and Academic Rigor

There is a need to marry intensive and rigorous Bible study with daily practices of faithfulness in one’s community, family, and private life. Each will enrich the other. Devotion keeps study a passionate and spiritual exercise. But study will keep devotion honest, tethered to scripture, and concerned for the original purposes of the message and conditions of the first audience.

Perhaps one of the places that this is most evident, and will bear the most fruit, is in how, or even whether, believers are taught to engage with the troubling and violent texts in scripture. I think we have a rather common problem among Christians, what I sometimes think of as the “Sunday schoolification” of difficult texts—which is to say, that we receive rather sanitized versions of these texts in Sunday school and kids church, and never stop to take off those glasses and really read what the text says.

Now, let me stop here and affirm Sunday school and Sunday school teachers. Sunday school is great, because it’s a huge part of teaching our kids that this faith is for them, too. And Sunday school teachers have one of the most difficult jobs, teaching squirmy littles the big truths of the faith, very often operating entirely on a volunteer basis, out of love, with low budgets and little guidance, and I have nothing but praise and admiration for them. But if we stop there, if we park our minds in what we’ve learned in Sunday school, we’ll never learn the real depth that scripture has to offer. Consider:

Joseph was sexually harassed by Potiphar’s wife.
Babies and children were murdered in Jericho
Daniel was a hostage.
Esther was abducted.
Paul was tortured.

Help! God’s good word seems ugly, disturbing, and even offensive.

What do we do when God’s good word is ugly, disturbing, and even offensive? Our answer to this matters, perhaps more than we sometimes know. As Christians, we know it’s wrong to stand in judgment of God and his word, wrong to tear the pages out. But I would argue that it’s almost as bad to say, “God is always good, so it’s all OK.” For the same God who gave us a good word also gave us good consciences that are troubled by bad things. Perhaps God wants our disturbance, our discontent, our discomfort. Perhaps he wants us to see the terrible depths of sin, and in fact that any human fix to sin will typically be sinful itself.

And, perhaps he wants us to read the Old Testament with a holy discontent and longing that it will not always be this way. And as we see a world still full of sin, as we as the church serve as salt and light in a world that is constantly changing, but beset by the same old sin, we can turn to the scriptures and know that the ugliness of a world apart from God is not a new problem. We’re all longing for something better, and in scripture, we find a record of faithful yet frail friends, who share that longing with us, who shared our struggle with sin, and who knew to throw themselves on the mercy of the God who, we trust, will judge and judge rightly.

God’s love and hope and justice can speak into the worst of human circumstances.

When we avoid these stories, and avoid teaching them, we lose the light that God has given us to navigate in the dark. But when we teach even the most difficult texts—yes, in careful and age-appropriate ways—we show our children that ‘there is nothing new under the sun’ (Ecc 1:9), and that God’s love and hope and justice can speak into the worst of human circumstances.

Biblical Studies for Younger Gen Zs and Rising Gen Alphas

Younger Gen Zs and the rising Gen Alphas typically are concerned about social issues: the immigrant and refugee, the poor, and those who are treated unjustly. They have a strong sense of fairness and concern for critical issues that, at least to those of us in older cultural cohorts, at times seem to outstrip their age. I think this inclination provides a particularly strong on-ramp to the concerns of scripture.

The call in the Law repeatedly is to love the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner—those who today we would see as the marginalized. Jesus’ words and ministry seem to regularly reach to and meet people in the margins. There are some church leaders that have begun to have people accuse them of teaching ‘wokeism’, when they’re simply teaching the Sermon on the Mount. These younger generations may be experiencing a recovery of God’s heart for justice and the emphasis of much of Jesus’ earthly ministry, in which he regularly leveraged his own power and influence to care for others, and to call his followers to do the same. And if Gen Z and Gen Alpha’s belief in the corruption of worldly power structures may at times be a touch extreme, perhaps it also reflects a healthy skepticism of the pursuit of power through and for worldly means.

Catch The Vision of The Big Story of Scripture

Online programs and biblical studies classes will help students to catch the vision of the big story of scripture. Whether or not God calls your child into vocational ministry, engaging in theological studies, and understanding our book, the sacred text that contains God’s words to us and the record of his relationship with humanity through the covenants, will make for better believers, better wives and husbands, better dads and moms, better servants of Christ and his church. It is key to the spiritual formation for each of us. And that is something we all want to be, and a legacy that we want to give to those who will come after us.

Some tips for parents whose teens desire to deepen their Christian faith or pursue biblical scholarship in this class:

Don’t insist on a very strict distinction between ‘academic study’ and ‘devotional time’.
Do encourage your child to engage devotionally with their studies.
Don’t worry if your child has more questions about their faith or the bible. More questions are often a sign of growth, and a deep commitment to learning and spiritual development.
Do encourage your child to share with you what they’re wrestling with, and affirm that wrestling as good and God-honouring.
Where appropriate, invite and encourage your child to share some of what they’re learning with others in the family or at church, especially the implications that they see for their lives.

“Sometimes we hear it said that ten minutes on your knees will give you a truer, deeper, more operative knowledge of God than ten hours over your books. “What!” is the appropriate response, “than ten hours over your books, on your knees?” Why should you turn from God when you turn to your books, or feel that you must from your books in order to turn to God?” — B. B. Warfield

Incorporating Biblical Languages Into Your Teen’s Biblical Studies Academics

Another way of exploring biblical theology is studying the original languages of the bible. Studying biblical texts in the original Hebrew gives historical context to the Word of God. It broadens a teen’s thinking to include a biblical worldview at a foundational level of their theological education. This brings a deep passion and joy to learning about the things of God.

Now, your teen may not go on to a biblical studies degree program, but studying the ancient texts is a natural step to produce a strong foundation in how to enjoy the study of scripture as they continue to explore the entire bible, and gain a new perspective into holy scripture and Christian theology. Ultimately creating an understanding of God and God’s kingdom that reflects the truth found in God’s word.