The answer can’t always be “Jesus”
I recently taught a lesson about Jacob blessing Joseph’s two son. It was a simple lesson but it connected pieces needed for later. At the end of the lesson, I asked, “Who blessed Joseph’s two sons?”
We had spent the last several minutes talking about it. We read the passage. But when it came time to answer, a student confidently said, “Jesus!”
And while Jesus is the answer to many things in life, he was not the answer for any question in this lesson.
I haven’t met a Bible teacher who hasn’t run into a similar situation.
The Bible teacher delivers great lesson, students seem to be engaged, and then the checks begin. The teacher begins to check for understanding but the students are answering: Jesus, God, the Bible, Church. The students might eventually get the right answer by tossing out these words but, often times, they are wrong.
Bible teachers can internalize this, thinking they taught poorly. Or they fault the students, thinking that the students simply don’t want to learn. While either one may be correct sometimes, usually it’s neither. Most often, the problem isn’t a bad teacher or unwilling students, it’s that the path from knowledge to understanding was never clearly paved.
Not the Same
For the LORD gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. Proverbs 2: 6
As Bible teachers, we love when the students get the right answer. In my case, the student would have answered “Jacob.” I might have smiled and congratulated the right answer but I would have made a grave mistake. Because of that wrong answer I was able to learn more than if she had said the right answer. I learned that understanding never happened.
Modern educational theories like Bloom’s Taxonomy demonstrate what the Bible taught us long ago, Knowledge and Understanding are not the same.
In the book of Proverbs, Knowledge (Strong’s 1847) is skill and knowing. It’s the what.
For myself, I “know” about the Great Molasses Flood of 1919. I can give you some facts and even convince you that I know what I'm talking about. But I don’t completely understand it.
Proverbs tells us that Knowledge and Understanding come from the mouth of God so it has to be different than Knowledge.
Understanding (Strong’s 8394) is about reasoning. Skill is still part of the definition but it’s framed as skillfully. Understanding is about discerning.
I can share knowledge about the Great Molasses Flood and even tell you about the overfilled truck that burst to cause the flood but I don’t possess the skill to demonstrate true understanding. I can’t explain what level the truck should have been at and the other factors involved in the catastrophe. Honestly, I’m not even sure I can describe molasses accurately to you except by saying, “it’s a sticky, slow moving sugary substance.”
Consider a skill like swimming, you can read books and understand the process. You know the what and even the mechanics of it. But it’s very different once you’re in water. The knowledge is there but the understanding isn’t yet. How does one float but still breathe? How does one move smoothly when the waves are pushing against the movement?
Traditional education checked understanding with tests and quizzes. We won't do that in Bible class but we do need to check.
How do you Check?
If we’re not going to ask people to pull out their pencil, how do we check for understanding? It’s simpler than you think.
Frequent Questions
Don’t wait until the end of class to check for understanding. Pause frequently during the lesson and ask questions. Asking student questions like:
What other Bible story does this remind you of?
How would you summarize this in your own words?
Based on only the paragraph we just read, how would you explain today’s class to someone who missed?
These frequent checks will help you to ensure that students are still on the learning path with you. You can see when students start to lose focus and you can make corrections while teaching rather than feeling frustrated at the end.
If you’d like to know more about asking better questions, check out this workshop.
Peer Work
This is one of the most under-utilized, verifiably beneficial, God-given ways of learning. And I get why it’s underutilized. We’ve all been participants of “group projects” where only one person did the work. But the benefits are tremendous when all the participants actually participate, even partially.
Without giving you all the science, know that when people have to talk together, they are learning on a higher level than when they just sit quietly and listen to you. Someday, I want to do the research and investigate when we became convinced that learning must be quiet.
Here are a few ways to engage your students:
Have students work with a partner to compare two Bible stories.
Have one student explain how the lesson concepts apply to modern life. Or, have students work in small groups to discuss this.
Have students write down three questions they have about the lesson and then have them form small group. In the small groups, encourage them to answer each other’s questions.
Modern Why and How
We don’t ever want to wrongly apply Scripture so we need to be cautious with simply overlaying Scripture onto modern life. However, we are told in 2 Timothy 3: 16 that “all Scripture is… profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness…”
Even the story of Jacob blessing Joseph’s sons can teach us modern lessons like “God doesn’t see things the way we do and that’s why discernment is important.”
When we encourage our students to interpret the concept and ask how it might apply to modern life, we’re asking them to distill the lesson, view the concept in simplicity, and reword it and rethink it with modern applications. It might look like:
What is the Big Idea of this lesson? Where might you need this Big Idea in your life?
If Joseph were to be translated into today, how might his life have looked different? How would the challenges have changed?
Understanding finishes the Foundation
Before we ask students to apply Scripture, we need to be sure that they Know it and that they Understand it. Knowing comes first. Students can’t Understand what they don’t Know. But they also can’t Apply what they don’t Understand.
Bible teachers are often frustrated when students’ lives don’t show the spiritual growth that should be happening after years in church. This is especially frustrating when a student can answer the questions correctly and quote the Bible accurately.
But the question is, do they truly Understand what they are saying?
When we check for understanding, we’re finishing the foundation our students need for learning. We’re setting them up for success in the steps of learning that are still to come.
This is no small feat and it requires deliberate effort. But effort here pays off later so invest the time and energy - you and your students will thank you later.
Next time we'll look at five specific ways to check for understanding in your Bible class.
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If you need a little help building the Knowledge part of the foundation first, check out this post.
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