In the years I’ve spent in the church listening to sermons and teaching, I can think of few times I’ve heard direct applications from the text made to the sin of racism or the sin of apathy toward injustice. Maybe I just didn’t have the ears to hear it. In my own teaching, I may have mentioned racism in a list of sins, or mentioned it as one of the things that will be “no more” in the new heaven and new earth, but I don’t think I’ve ever used an opportunity while teaching a passage to challenge these sins. I want to do better, and I imagine there are a lot of others who do too.
That is why I asked two excellent Bible teachers who bring a great deal of experience and credibility to this topic to have a conversation with me about how to rightly and helpfully apply the Bible to the sin of racism. is a pastor at Grace DC Presbyterian Church and director of the Grace DC Institute for Cross-Cultural Mission. He has contributed to the books Heal Us Emmanuel and All Are Welcome: Toward a Multi-Everything Church and is author of the new book The Beautiful Community: Unity, Diversity, and the Church at Its Best. Sean Michael Lucas—senior minister of Independent Presbyterian Church in Memphis—is the author of numerous books on persons and institutions with a history tainted by racism, including Robert Lewis Dabney: A Southern Presbyterian Life, The Legacy of Jonathan Edwards: American Religion and the Evangelical Tradition, Blessed Zion: First Presbyterian Church, Jackson, Mississippi, 1837–2012, and For a Continuing Church: The Roots of the Presbyterian Church in America.
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Help Me Teach the Bible is sponsored by Crossway. Crossway is a not-for-profit Christian ministry that publishes the ESV Bible and many gospel-centered books. Learn more at Crossway.org
Irwyn Ince and Sean Michael Lucas on Applying Scripture to Racism
August 6, 2020 • Nancy Guthrie, Irwyn Ince, Sean Michael Lucas
Live at TGCW22: Putting Personality and Passion Into Your Teaching
September 1, 2022 • Nancy Guthrie
In this workshop, recorded live at The Gospel Coalition's 2022 Women’s Conference, Nancy Guthrie works through twelve ways to put personality and passion into your teaching without making it all about you.
Putting Together a Christ-Centered Bible Talk
August 5, 2021 • Nancy Guthrie
You’ve been asked to give a Bible talk. Where do you begin? And how do you make sure you’re understanding and applying the passage rightly? How will you get to the gospel? In this workshop session, recorded live at TGC’s 2021 National Conference, Nancy Guthrie takes listeners through the process of preparing to teach the Bible—including prayer, looking at the context, determining the structure of the passage, composing an aim, creating an outline, getting to the gospel, developing applications, and coming up with an introduction and conclusion. She then applies each of these tasks to putting together a talk on Numbers 6:22–27. Putting Together a Bible Talk worksheet (referred to in this podcast)
It’s Not About You: How Biblical Theology Transforms Bible Study
June 24, 2021 • Nancy Guthrie
Even in churches in which men and women are getting a regular diet of biblical theology and redemptive history from the pulpit, what is being offered in small-group Bible study is often driven by felt needs, has little biblical or theological rigor, or is oriented around self-improvement. But when biblical theology infiltrates Bible study, it puts the emphasis on what Christ has done rather than on what we must do. It helps participants put the various parts of the Bible together so they begin to make sense. And it makes being united to Christ by faith urgent and necessary. In this workshop, recorded live at The Gospel Coalition 2021 National Conference, Nancy Guthrie works through seven ways biblical theology transforms Bible study, as well as ways teachers can develop a deeper grasp of biblical theology.