Why I Love Teaching, Writing and Participating in Women’s Bible Studies

This is a guest post by Sarah Ivill (B.A., University of Georgia; Th.M. Dallas Theological Seminary) who has been leading, teaching or writing women’s Bible Studies since she was eighteen.  She is the author of Hebrews: His Hope, An Anchor for our Souls; Revelation: Let the One Who is Thirsty Come; Judges & Ruth: There Is A Redeemer; and 1 Peter, 2 Peter and Jude: Steadfast in the Faith.  Presently a stay-at-home mom, she continues writing and teaching Reformed Bible Studies for women.  A member of Christ Covenant Church (PCA), Sarah lives with her husband and four children in a suburb of Charlotte, North Carolina. You can find more information about Sarah and her ministry by visiting www.sarahivill.com.

Besides Sunday, my favorite day of the week is Thursday morning. As hard as it is to get four children out the door to women’s Bible study, it is an effort that bears much fruit. I’ve been involved in women’s Bible studies for over twenty years, and over those years I’ve been richly blessed by how it’s anchored me to truth and anchored me to community.

This has been true for several reasons, but here are six:

(1) Scripture alone teaches us what we are to believe about God and how we are to live in relation to Him and others. There is no other book that is more worthy of our study, time or attention than the Bible. We need to challenge one another to spend more time reading Scripture, verse-by-verse, book-by-book. This guards us against empty words that threaten to tickle our ears and starve our hearts.

(2) The Scriptures bear witness about Jesus. We can’t know Jesus without studying the Bible. From Genesis to Revelation each passage of Scripture reveals who God’s Son is so that we might know Him more, love Him more and serve Him more. Such a Christ-centered study of Scripture keeps us from buying into a legalistic lesson (do this and you will live), a moralistic lesson (be a good person and you’ll be saved), a therapeutic lesson (I’m good, you’re good, God’s good, everything’s okay), or an allegorical lesson (I’m going to make this verse about Christ no matter what interpretive principles I have to ignore).

(3) Older women in the faith are to teach the younger women (Titus 2:3-5). The foundation of older women teaching younger women is sound doctrine. If we don’t have sound doctrine, then we can’t teach younger women in the faith what is good, we can’t train younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, to be pure, to be working at home, and to be submissive to their husbands in a way that will not discredit the word of God. The difference isn’t whether or not we will teach them or train them. The difference is whether or not we will teach them and train them in a Christ-centered way.

(4) Studying God’s Word in the context of community sharpens me. Not only do I learn from my sisters’ answers to the exegetical and theological questions, I learn from my sisters’ shared struggles with suffering, sin, and service.

(5) Praying with my sisters one day a week and praying for my sisters the rest of the week cultivates a love for them rooted in God’s grace.

(6) I am my sister’s keeper. Cain’s question to the Lord, “Am I my brother’s keeper” (Gen. 4:9) is answered in 1 John 3:11, the context of which is John’s exhortation to the church to love one another. We are to know who our sisters are and what they are doing so that we can encourage and exhort them in the ways of the Lord.

In a nutshell then, Women’s Bible studies help to drive out the individualism and isolationism that has plagued mankind all through the history of redemption, pointing us to Jesus Christ, who took the curse of our sin upon Himself, freeing us from self-reliance to God-reliance, and freeing us from isolation to interdependence in the community of grace.

1 Peter, 2 Peter and Jude: Steadfast in the Faith by Sarah Ivill (Published by Reformation Heritage Books).