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A Bible Study for Christmas Sunday

Dr. Parrott December 16, 2015 No Comments

A Bible Study For Christmas Sunday copy

 

MEMO:  

TO:  Sunday School and Bible Class Teachers

RE: An Interactive Bible Study for Christmas Sunday

Here is an idea for an interactive Bible Study you can use for Christmas Sunday.  It is a Biblical Biography of Mary, the Mother of Jesus.  

OPENING:  The Scripture tells us:

But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman.

(Galatians 3:4)

QUESTION:  There is a long and distinguished line of significant women in the Bible.  Let’s see how many women from the Bible we can name in the next three minutes. (You may choose to write them or have someone keep track)

NOTE:  A good resource is found on line at http://www.womeninthebible.net/.  You may want to familiarize yourself with a few names.  Also, if the class gets stuck, toss out a name.  You will help them remember more names.

QUESTION:  Mary is unique in the list of women in the Bible.  She is remembered for her devotion, her loneliness, and her self-sacrifice.  She is unique because she is the mother of our Lord, Jesus Christ.  What do we know about Mary?  (Again, you might want to just here the answers or you may write them down in a list.)

INTERACTIVE BIBLE CHALLENGE:

Mary is mentioned in all four of the Gospels and the book of Acts.  I have selected six (6) passages about Mary that best display her personality and actions.

  • Divide your class into teams.  
  • Assign one of the six (6) BIBLE CHALLENGES to each team.
  • Give the following instructions to each team.

QUESTION:  Your team is assigned a Scripture passage; you are to discover what you can learn about Mary from this passage.  Be ready to answer the following four questions:  

  1. What happened according to the Scriptures?
  2. What do you think caused it to happen that way?  
  3. What lesson(s) can we learn from what happened?  
  4. What can we apply the lesson our lives this Christmas?

Here are the six (6) passages that most directly focus on the personality and actions of Mary.

  1.  Luke 1:26-38, Mary Receives Her Calling To Be The Mother of Jesus.
  2.  Matthew 1:16-24, Mary Is Protected By Joseph.
  3.  Luke 2:22-40, Mary Takes Infant Jesus to the Temple.
  4.  John 2:1-12, Mary Influences Jesus’ First Miracle.
  5.  Mark 13:31-35, Mary Is Uncertainty Concerning Jesus.
  6.  John 19:25-27, Mary Takes Her Place At The Foot Of The Cross.

Instructions for following up on the Bible Challenge:

1-Give the teams 7-10 minutes to complete the challenge.  Manage your class by “walking around,” listening in on conversations, expressing encouragement, etc.    

2-Allow each team an opportunity to report out by answering the four questions.  Note especially the answers to questions 3 and 4; lessons learned and application to our lives.  You may want to list them.  

3-Between the reports from teams 2 and 3, you may want to read the Christmas Story as found in Luke 2:1-7.

CLOSING THE CHALLENGE:  You can complete the “report out” time by telling the class that Mary and her family were among those in the upper room awaiting Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit.  Imagine the questions people asked Mary as they waited 40 days for the Spirit to come.  Imagine her being filled with the Holy Spirit and joining the other disciples as they poured out of the Upper Room and into the streets of Jerusalem to share the gospel message of her son, Jesus.  Here is the scripture from the book of Acts. 

“They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers” (Acts 1:14).

 

Copyright (c) Richard Leslie Parrott. Ph.D.

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