How to Write a Bible Study Lesson

By Gabe Tribbett, Professor at Grace Theological Seminary

Whenever I prepare a Bible study lesson, I start in prayer. If I’m not asking for God’s help, I’m working in my own strength. I need spiritual eyes to actually see what’s in the text and hear the Spirit speaking through my study of the Bible. I ask for insight, understanding, conviction, and wisdom as I apply it to life.

My prayers don’t stop after I’ve prepped my lesson, however. They flow into the time when I’m leading the study. I pray for clarity to present the material and frame questions well. In everything, I try to model a dependence on the Holy Spirit because he is the only one who can make lasting change in our lives.

Learning how to write a Bible study lesson requires preparation and wisdom from those around you. Here are some basic guidelines, tips, and encouragement for preparing you in how to write a Bible study lesson.

How to Study the Bible

Exegete the Text:

Before creating your Bible study lesson, it is important to exegete Scripture, meaning carefully studying the passage to pull out the exact meaning intended by the author. I want to understand God’s Word as clearly, faithfully, and insightfully as I can. Honoring the original context helps us determine what the Lord wants us to take away from the passage.

As said in How to Study the Bible, there are three layers of understanding the context of a passage:

1. Historical context: What was actually happening, socially, politically, and economically, when a passage was written.
2. Literary context: Genre matters! “How you read a poem is different from a newspaper article, and a love letter has a different feel than a product manual.”
3. Redemptive context: Where a passage fits in Scripture’s larger story. I love pointing to a six-part framework from Dr. Harmon’s writing: Creation, Crisis, Covenants, Christ, Church, and Consummation.

Exegete the Audience:

Just as important, I will also exegete my audience. This means that I study and analyze the culture, background, beliefs, and mindset of the people listening to me. I want my lesson to be relevant, appropriate, and applicable to their lives.

I ask myself: Who am I trying to communicate God’s truth to? What foundational biblical knowledge do they already have? What’s their cultural context and stage of life? Depending on the audience, I may pull different applications from the passage.

How to Discover the Main Point

I believe every biblical text has one main meaning or big idea that God is trying to convey. From that singular meaning, there can be countless applications. When I’m preparing for a Bible study, therefore, my first task is figuring out the main point. 

This breaks down into three parts:

• What is the author’s big idea (ABI)? This is the Divine Author’s main point as conveyed through the human author
• What is the timeless theological big idea (TBI) that can be extracted based on the ABI?
• How can that TBI, drawn from the ABI, be communicated to my present-day audience via a brief message big idea (MBI)?

Here is a brief, unpolished example of this process from Genesis 22:

• ABI: God kept His promise to Abraham by providing a substitute for his son, Isaac, and because Abraham trusted God, his faith was counted as righteousness.
• TBI: God keeps His promises and provides deliverance to those who trust in Him.
• MBI: God sent Jesus to die in our place, and by trusting in Him we receive deliverance (from sin and death).

Once I know the message big idea (MBI), the next question is how can I communicate it in a way that lands with my specific audience. If I’m teaching kids Genesis 22, I have to pitch that at a level that they can process developmentally. Though the main point doesn’t change, the way I present it does.

I also try to make connections across Scripture. If I’m in the Old Testament, I’ll see how it connects to the New Testament, and if I’m in the New Testament, I’ll see how it connects to the Old Testament. This could be through direct quotation, foreshadowing, prophecies fulfilled, or allusion.

For example, 2 Samual 9 tells the story of Mephibosheth, a descendant of Jonathan, and how David brings him into his household instead of eliminating him, as would’ve been expected at the time.

The main theme I pull from that passage is incredible generosity and hospitality. From there, I might land in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, where Paul describes Jesus as a rich King who became poor for our sake, so that we might become rich also. Because this theme shows up clearly again, we can make a clear connection.

How to Write a Bible Study Lesson

When learning how to write a Bible study lesson, this is the framework I typically use:

1. Introduction: A key question, story, or illustration that grabs attention and ties to the main theme. Many times, this ends up being the last part I write, even though it comes first in the lesson.
2. Background: especially important for Old Testament passages where the culture and time period are more removed from where we live now under the New Covenant.
3. The main point: The big idea I’ve identified.
4. Section-by-section unpacking: I work through the passage piece by piece, often with just my Bible and my computer open, taking bullet-pointed notes and observations. These observations should reinforce the “main point.”
5. Connections to Christ: I try to always include some kind of Gospel connection. It’s not always obvious, and sometimes it takes real work to discern, but I believe it’s always there.
6. Application and illustration: This is where I have to slow myself down, because my mind wants to jump to application the moment I start reading. I have to ask myself whether the application actually grows out of the text or if I’m just reaching for an application I think is relevant.

As I’m going through the process, I make sure to pay attention to the genre of the passage. A narrative needs to be handled differently than a psalm, and a psalm should be handled differently than the book of Acts.

How to Write Good Discussion Questions

Nothing kills a Bible study faster than a question met with silence. When learning how to write a Bible study lesson, a few things can help avoid that.

I avoid questions that are so obvious no one has to think, but I also avoid questions so intimidating that everyone’s afraid to answer. Finding the middle ground matters!

What works best is asking questions that draw from your audience’s own life experiences. You need to think about what is relevant to your audience and relates back to the passage being studied.

One way I begin to think of some questions is by asking what theologians sometimes call the fallen condition a passage is addressing. What brokenness or need is God speaking into here?

If I’m teaching on anxiety, for example, I won’t just ask, do you ever worry? Instead, I’ll ask something like, what’s a time you experienced anxiety in a way you’d never faced before or in a way that felt like you were the only person in the world dealing with it? Questions like this help you tap into something more personal that sparks conversation and fellowship among believers.

How Seminary Teaches You How to Write a Bible Study Lesson

If I’m honest, I didn’t know how to study the Bible or how to write a Bible study lesson well until I came to seminary. I had years of ministry experience already, but it was in seminary, learning under professors who modeled this process for me, that it clicked.

Seminary gave me more than tools for understanding the text. I now have the tools to understand people and to draft real strategies for how to structure a lesson, study, or sermon.

At the same time, I have to say this: the best seminary training doesn’t stay in the classroom. It works in real collaboration with the local church. There are things you can only really learn by doing them in front of real people with feedback.

If you keep getting asked to teach or lead a small group or congregation, it’s a sign worth paying attention to! You have a gift worth exploring.

One of the most useful things I did early on to learn how to write a Bible study lesson was finding teachers I genuinely respected. I wrote notes on how they taught, occasionally asking them for a copy of their notes or manuscript afterward.

A great place to be equipped, learn how to write a Bible study lesson, practice your skills, and get feedback from theological leaders is Grace Theological Seminary. Grace Seminary exists to teach, train, and transform for Christ and His Church.

Check out our programs or learn how to study the Bible yourself!