Contact: josh@joshhhunt.com

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The Great Books

I am pleased to introduce the release of a new curriculum outline. For years I have written four lessons a week, based on the suggested texts of someone else’s outlines. With this new outline, I will invite groups to join me in reading The Great Books and discussing the Bible verses in those books.

What are The Great Books? Here is a partial list. (I’d be open to your suggestions. Email me at josh@joshhunt.com )

• Knowing God, J.I. Packer (available now)
• Spiritual Disciplines for the Spiritual Life, Donald Whitney (projected release: Fall, 2015)
• Holiness of God, R.C. Sproul (projected release, late 2015)
• Pursuit of Holiness, Jerry Bridges (projected release, early 2016)
• Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster
• Desiring God, John Piper
• Trusting God, Jerry Bridges
• Being a Contagious Christian, Bill Hybels
• Basic Christianity, John Stott
• Ultimate Priority, John Macarthur
• Your Spiritual Gifts Can Help Your Church Grow, Peter Wagner
• Prayer, Richard Foster
• Experiencing God,  Henry Blackaby

I plan to write these first four and then evaluate from there. If I get positive feedback, the plan would be to write about 6 a year. This way, you will always have choices. I will be writing more than you have time to complete. These studies will be suitable for Sunday morning as well as mid-week groups.

Participants will be encouraged to buy and read the corresponding book. I will be writing a study guide in the form of Good Questions Have Groups Talking. These will be available on Amazon, in both print and Kindle versions. In addition, they will be available by subscription as part of www.mybiblestudylessons.com . On this site, churches can have access to hundreds of lessons for about $10 per teacher per year. Churches would be encouraged to subsidize the cost of the books. I do not encourage churches buy the books outright, as they typically do with Sunday School curriculum. If people will not pay for the book, they are likely not going to read it. I would not pass them out for free.

Nothing has influenced my life—except for reading the Bible itself in Christian Quiet Time—like the reading of The Great Books. My dream is that this plan will encourage thousands of Christians to benefit from these books in the same way that I have.

Nearly every church I am in is struggling with the question: how do we make true disciples. Encouraging people to read The Great Books is part of the answer.

If reading the Bible can be compared to cruising the width of a clear, sparkling lake in a motorboat, studying the Bible is like slowly crossing that same lake in a glass-bottomed boat.

The motorboat crossing provides an overview of the lake and a swift, passing view of its depths. The glass-bottomed boat of study, however, takes you beneath the surface of Scripture for an unhurried look of clarity and detail that’s normally missed by those who simply read the text. As author Jerry Bridges put it, “Reading gives us breadth, but study gives us depth.”

Let’s look at three examples of a heart to study the Word of God. The first is the Old Testament figure Ezra: “For Ezra had devoted himself to the study and observance of the Law of the LORD, and to teaching its decrees and laws in Israel” (Ezra 7:10). There’s an instructive significance to the sequence in this verse. Ezra (1) “devoted himself,” (2) “to the study,” (3) “and observance of the Law of the Lord,” (4) “and to teaching its decrees and laws in Israel.” Before he taught the Word of God to the people of God, he practiced what he learned. But Ezra’s learning came from a study of the Scriptures. Before he studied, however, he first “devoted himself” to study. In other words, Ezra disciplined himself to study God’s Word.

A second example is from Acts 17:11. Missionaries Paul and Silas had barely escaped with their lives from Thessalonica after their successful evangelistic work had provoked the Jews there to jealousy. When they repeated the same course of action in Berea, the Jews there responded differently: “Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” According to the next verse, the result was, “Many of the Jews believed.” The willingness to examine the Scriptures is commended here as noble character.

My favorite example of a heart to study the truth of God is in 2 Timothy 4:13. The Apostle Paul is in prison and writing the last chapter of his last New Testament letter. Anticipating the coming of his younger friend Timothy, he writes, “When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, and my scrolls, especially the parchments.” The scrolls and parchments Paul requested almost certainly included copies of the Scriptures. In his cold and miserable confinement, the godly apostle asked for two things: a cloak to wear so his body could be warmed and God’s Word to study so his mind and heart could be warmed. Paul had seen Heaven (2 Corinthians 12:1–6) and the resurrected Christ (Acts 9:5), he had experienced the Holy Spirit’s power for miracles (Acts 14:10) and even for writing Holy Scripture (2 Peter 3:16); nevertheless, he continued to study God’s Word until he died. If Paul needed it, surely you and I need it and should discipline ourselves to do it.

Then why don’t we? Why do so many Christians neglect the study of God’s Word? R. C. Sproul said it painfully well: “Here then, is the real problem of our negligence. We fail in our duty to study God’s Word not so much because it is difficult to understand, not so much because it is dull and boring, but because it is work. Our problem is not a lack of intelligence or a lack of passion. Our problem is that we are lazy.”

Donald S. Whitney, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 1991), 35–36.