We get it. Life is busy. Kids need to be fed. Work projects need to be completed. A house has to be cleaned. Sometimes it’s just hard to finish what we started. Bible study is no exception.
We say, “I’ll make up for it before the next week.” Or even, “I’ll just answer the questions real quick before we meet.” Or maybe, “I will just have to do this Bible study on my own next year. Life is too busy right now.” We completely understand, but we hope you’ll persevere.
Here are three reasons not to give up on your Bible study.
1) So you don’t have to avoid your Bible study leader in church next week.
You see her coming down the hall, her tote bag filled with tomes by Beth Moore and Priscilla Shirer and highlighters, sticky notes, and study Bibles. You think, I bet she’s never quit a Bible study in her life. No way she’ll understand why I can’t get mine done. You turn down the kids ministry hallway and accidentally volunteer to stroll the bye-bye buggy during worship service to avoid making eye contact.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Maybe your leader hasn’t ever quit a Bible study (we doubt this), but we’re sure she understands that life gets crazy. Don’t think that you have to skip meeting with other believers, sharing in what God’s teaching you, and opening the Word of God together just because you haven’t finished a week of homework. People understand if you didn’t answer the fourth question on page 78 just yet.
Lauren Chandler talks often about the temptation to give up when you get behind. She acknowledges God’s timing, even in your Bible study. When she’s gotten behind in Bible study before, she has ended up working through the week of study right when she needed to the most—right when she needed that particular week’s message. (See, even Lauren Chandler has gotten behind in her Bible study.) Pick right back up where you left off, even if it’s a week or three later.
2) We put all the best stuff in the last two weeks of study.
Just kidding. Mostly. We believe you will finish the Bible study. Our authors believe you will persevere through to the end. They write and we edit like you will read to the very last word in the book. This means if you put the Bible study book back on the shelf incomplete, you’ll miss out.
Some of the most tender moments with Jesus happen in the last week of study. You’ve been working through a long passage of Scripture, getting to know people in the Bible and God Himself. You’ve struggled with verses that are difficult to understand. You’ve prayed through Scripture, asking God to help you apply it to your life. Then, in those last weeks, you often see how it all comes together. You read the last verses in the passage. You tell God how you plan to use what you’ve learned from now on. You close this Bible study book and go out and live it. The last pages are important.
3) It’s hard to share something you haven’t finished.
Have you ever recommended a movie without watching the whole thing? “The first thirty minutes are amazing! You should definitely watch.” Likely, your friends won’t take that recommendation to heart.
We want you to share what you’ve learned in Bible study. Even better, we want you to lead a Bible study! We want you to be so excited about what you’re learning in God’s Word that it’s contagious. We want others to want to learn what you’re learning. And we want you to feel empowered to lead them. You know what helps? Finishing the Bible study yourself. You will have already wrestled through some of the tough parts. You’ll understand when others struggle. You’ll be so excited to share with others how your life has changed through the study of God’s Word. You’ll know that this is the message your friends need to hear (or you’ll know it’s not the message they need in the moment and you’ll choose a different study). You’re ready to lead!
The Bible is full of passages asking us to persevere, to finish what we’ve started, to be patient. Philippians 2:12 says we are to “work out [our] own salvation with fear and trembling.” Bible study is not to be taken lightly. God’s Word is living, active, and like a double-edged sword (Heb. 4:12). We want you to persevere with Bible study—any kind of study of Scripture—because we know God’s Word changes lives. We want you to finish a Bible study because we know pursuing a relationship with Him is worth it. We want you to be in His Word, to be with Him, because of who He is.
We pray for you as we write and edit our Bible studies. We pray you will persevere. But more importantly, we pray that God will work through the words written on the page to bring you closer to Him.
