At my church, I have been teaching Sunday school for the middle schoolers (ages 10-13) so far this academic year. Now I am not the world’s most creative teacher, and there are many others in our church who do a better job with activities, puzzles, and other creative ways to keep the kids engaged. But I have really enjoyed simply doing Bible study with these young people.
We don’t use a snazzy curriculum. I just ask everyone to bring their Bibles so we can teach them how to use them. We have been studying the book of Job together. While we haven’t covered every chapter, we have made sure to cover every major section and phase of the book’s argument.
A few weeks in chapters 1 and 2 set the stage. Then we dwelt on Job’s private lament in chapter 3 before launching into the arguments with his three friends. That’s where we didn’t cover every passage, but I made sure to select certain chapters to study instead of giving them a generalized, disembodied summary of what I thought was taking place. As we read select speeches of Eliphaz, Zophar, and Job, the kids had to wrestle through a number of issues: What is the primary conclusion of this speech? How does the speaker support his argument? What is he saying that is more specific than “you are are suffering because you have sinned,” or “No, I haven’t”? Is this speaker right or wrong? Partially right and partially wrong? How so?
The goal has always been to wrestle with the text itself, giving them the skills they need to read the Bible’s poetry.
My favorite class so far had to be the one on chapter 28, which is probably the most important chapter in the book. I told them of its importance, and they knew we had already reached the end of the first set of debates with friends. But I didn’t give them any hints about the message of chapter 28. So we read it out loud, one stanza at a time, and I just asked them “What is he saying here?” I would not allow them to stare at the sky and tell me how they felt. I required them to stare at the text and show me specific lines and phrases that captured the text’s meaning or argument.
And they did it. They really did it!
With only a few questions from me, they were able to nail down the train of thought: Humanity can dig out of the earth treasures (Job 28:1-6) of which the animals are oblivious (Job 28:7-11). But the treasure of wisdom (Job 28:12) cannot be dug up from the earth (Job 28:13), dived for in the ocean (Job 28:14), bought with money (Job 28:15-16), or traded for jewels (Job 28:17-19). You can’t find it among the living (Job 28:20-21), nor will you find it in the realm of the dead (Job 28:22). God alone knows the way to it (Job 28:23-27) and grants it to those who fear him and turn away from evil (Job 28:28). The kids came up with all of these ideas; I just helped them to put them in words they could remember.
We then discussed what this poem has to do with the rest of the book to this point, drawing connections to the description of Job in chapter 1 as one who feared God and turned away from evil. We spoke of how Jesus shows us such wisdom, and we discussed applications for our own search for wisdom, especially when life falls apart on us.
In short, we had a fabulous study. Believe it or not, 10-to-13-year-old kids can learn how to do really great Bible study, even in strange parts of the Old Testament.
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