Help Me Teach The Bible

In this episode of Help Me Teach the Bible, I talked with Mark Futato, the Robert L. Maclellan professor of Old Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida, where he teaches core classes on Hebrew and Old Testament books. Futato has written a number of books on Psalms that flow out not only from his study but also his love for and his living with the Psalms. Topics in the discus...

Recommended Audio Resources Hans Bayer on  context, outline, and thought flow in Philippians Dick Lucas  sermons  on Philippians John Piper  sermons  on Philippians Recommended Print Resources: Philippians: A 12-Week Study  by Ryan Kelly Philippians: The Fellowship of the Gospel  by R. Kent Hughes Let's Study Philippians  by Sinclair B. Ferguson Basics for Believers: An Exposition of Philippians  ...

In this inaugural episode of Help Me Teach the Bible , I talked with John Piper, founder and teacher of  Desiring God  and chancellor of  Bethlehem College & Seminary , where he taught through the book of Philippians. He called this teaching a “dream come true.” Topics in this interview include: allowing those you teach to discover what the book is about; Paul's love expressed in this personal let...

When I began recording interviews for Help Me Teach the Bible in the fall of 2014, I didn’t have a grand plan. At that point I wouldn't have said that I had the goal of recording an episode on every book of the Bible because that would have seemed like an overwhelming task and too much of a commitment. But I just kept doing interviews, and people kept finding the podcast and listening. I kept bein...

It’s the shortest book in the Old Testament—only twenty-one verses—and I don’t think I’ve heard it preached or taught. According to my guest, Jonathan Gibson, associate professor of Old Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary, the message of this short book is “the realization of the Lord’s sovereignty and the role reversal of Edom and Judah on the day of the Lord.” Essential to understandin...

Leviticus is the place where the best of intentions to read through the Bible often stall out. But it is a book that Jay Sklar, professor of Old Testament and vice president of academics at Covenant Seminary in St. Louis, MO, has studied and written about prolifically. Sklar's doctoral studies focused on the theology of sin, impurity, sacrifice, and atonement in the Old Testament sacrificial syste...

In the years I’ve spent in the church listening to sermons and teaching, I can think of very few times that I have heard direct applications from the text made to the sin of racism or the sin of apathy toward injustice. Maybe I just didn’t have the ears to hear it. In my own teaching, I may have mentioned racism in a list of sins, or mentioned it as one of the things that will be “no more” in the...

Few teachers are rushing to teach the book of 1 Chronicles. Perhaps that's because they have already taught through 1–2 Samuel and 1–2 Kings and so much from these earlier books is repeated in 1–2 Chronicles. But according to Richard Pratt, president and co-founder of Third Millennium Ministries and author of the volume on 1–2 Chronicles in the Mentor Commentary series, to not study these books be...

What are the essentials to good Bible study materials? And what makes a small group Bible study work well? Are we going to take prayer requests? Will there be homework or no homework? What makes the difference between good questions in curriculum and questions that frustrate the group? These are the kinds of questions I talked through with  Lydia Brownback  who has just embarked on creating a new...

All of us who dare to stand up and teach the Bible are teachers in progress. We all have ways we can get better. Recently I got to sit down with Mark Meynell who, in his role as director of Europe and the Caribbean for Langham Preaching , spends most of his time traveling to different parts of the world to help teachers and preachers get better at handing the Bible. According to Meynell, Bible tea...

The book of Ecclesiastes raises so many questions. Who is Qoheleth? Who wrote the book? Is life really meaningless? Are we supposed to just eat, drink and be merry? After putting it off for forty years as many fine preachers and teachers have done before him, Harry Reeder, senior pastor of Briarwood Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, Alabama, finally preached through Ecclesiastes. In our conversat...

In these days of COVID-19, plenty of people are asking if the virus is a judgment from God, if he is sending a message to us. I recorded this conversation on the book of Joel with Paul House, professor of Old Testament at Beeson Divinity School , prior to the spread of the virus, but his points about God’s message in disaster to call out to the Lord has proved to be timely. Disasters, he says, sho...

I spoke to Brian Tabb, academic dean and associate professor of biblical studies at Bethlehem College and Seminary, general editor for Themelios , and author of 1-2 Timothy and Titus: A 12 Week Study in the Knowing the Bible study guide series from Crossway. In our conversation, Tabb answers the question, “What is the book of Titus about?” in several ways including, “Titus is about the gospel at w...

Colin Smith is senior pastor of The Orchard Evangelical Free Church, a thriving, multi-campus church located in the northwest suburbs of Chicago, and a TGC Council member. He's also president of Unlocking the Bible , a ministry that seeks to root people in the Word of God through their website, publishing, podcast and radio program. When Smith asked me to read his newest book,  For All Who Grieve:...

We have four gospels. Each of the gospels tell the story of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus in different ways, targeting different audiences, and with different purposes. In this conversation, I asked Benjamin Gladd, associate professor of New Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi, and author of the new book, The Story Retold: A Biblical-Theological Introduc...

If you’ve heard a sermon on Zephaniah that you can remember, likely it was on Zephaniah 3, where we are told that the Lord will “rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.” We like that part. But we don’t get to this kind of hopeful assurance in the book of Zephaniah until chapter 3. So what do we do with all of the judgment in Zephania...

Oftentimes Nehemiah is the book that gets preached through when a church building campaign comes around. Or Nehemiah is used as an example of a prayerful, strategic, and effective leader for a series on leadership. But is seeing and teaching the book of Nehemiah through the lens of wall-builder or inspiring leader the best way to approach the book? Aaron Messner, senior pastor of Westminster Presb...

Habakkuk had some significant questions for God. And God’s answers were hard to hear. But God told Habakkuk to write down what God was showing him because future generations would need to hear it. We need to hear it. Those we teach need to hear it. In this episode of Help Me Teach the Bible, David Helm, lead pastor of the Hyde Park congregation of Holy Trinity Church  in Chicago and chairman of th...

The book of 2 Kings begins with the prophet Elijah being taken up into heaven in a chariot of fire, and it ends with Jerusalem being destroyed by fire with plenty of action and intrigue in between. So how do we make the most of teaching this book, clearly presenting its message and getting to the greater Elisha and the greater king it points toward? Andrew Sach, pastor of Grace Church Greenwich in...

Hosea is a book that tells a heart-breaking story—for some a perplexing story—about a prophet told to marry a prostitute. It’s a book that is filled with cycle after cycle of promises of judgment. But, according to David Murray, professor of Old Testament and practical theology at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary , Hosea is a book that gives teachers the opportunity to present people with viv...

Nancy Guthrie interviews Nicholas Reid Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Nancy Guthrie interviews Greg Lanier on the second half of 1 Corinthians Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Nancy Guthrie interviews Greg Lanier about 1 Corinthians Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Nancy Guthrie interviews David Helm Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Nancy Guthrie interviews Christopher Ash Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.