A Dozen Ways to Read the Bible

Written by Karen Dockrey

Try these ideas to keep Scripture from going in one eye and out the other. Get students physically involved with Scripture to help is actually hit the brain and shape daily actions.

Reaching Your Kids

Play pencil charades. Students can draw a phrase from the passage while the class reads the passage to guess the phrase (ALWAYS stay with a single passage to digest it thoroughly).
Act out the passage, using the Bible as your script and have all students in the drama. Students read both the actions and words of their characters.
Challenge students to draw the entire passage in comic-strip or political-cartoon form.
Give each student two index cards and a verse from the passage. Direct them to write on one card the Bible person and on the other what that Bible person said or did. Then scramble and challenge the class to choose the matching cards.
Assign a portion of the passage to each student to change each word to a picture (rebus). Then exchange and solve each other’s rebuses.
Distribute pencils and ask students to draw a face next to each verse: smiley for “I like this,” frowny for “This confuses me,” surprise for “I’ve never noticed this before,” and so on. Let students teach each other by explaining the faces they chose.
For familiar passages, assign a role, “Mary, Joseph, Baby Jesus, the innkeeper, and so forth) to each student and direct them to write the passage from the viewpoint of that character, quoting word for word at least three phrases.
With passages teaching a complex theological theme such as sanctification, direct students to shape clay to illustrate sanctification, and quote from the passage as they explain their creations.
Type the passage, and then change key words. Print the passage with the changes and challenge students to change them back to Scripture.
Give students a question for which they must search the passage for the answer. Example: “Find the fears Moses had about becoming a leader. Search Exodus 3-4.”
Let each student read the passage with his or her name inserted. Example: “For God so loved Sharon that He gave His one and only Son…”
Print the passage with no spaces. Students must correctly divide the words and check their Bibles to verify their accuracy.

Karen Dockrey is a student ministry veteran and the author of 30 books including Reaching Your Kids - a ready-to-use parent ministry resource that comes complete with meeting ideas, newsletters, emails, student survey questions, and much more.

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