There is much troubling the Primitive Baptists of our day. Many are being accused of trying to "change" the Church. I was raised in the Primitive Baptist Church. My father is an elder and has pastored several Churches in Eastern Kentucky and Eastern Tennessee. My mother is also a member of the Church. I joined the Church when I was 19 years old in May of 1986 and began making my first attempts to preach the Gospel of my Lord within a few months. I was ordained to the full work of the ministry in April of 1988. I say all this to say that I have been around the Church of our Lord for some time, and have no desire to "change” the Church. That does not mean that I don’t think some things need to be changed, but I believe that change should only be warranted if it is a change back to a Biblical pattern.

Approximately 1 year ago, I began holding weekly Bible Studies at the Church that I pastor. I did so at the behest of some members and also out of a longing to teach the Word of God at every turn. We have received much criticism from some of our brethren for this practice, and we are not alone. We have been told that we have departed from the faith, that we are not seeking the old paths, that our church is not at peace, etc., etc. Our Bible Study has even been called a modern Sunday School. I do not feel that I am adequate to address the issues in such a way as to convince the detractors on this point, but find it needful to express, for the benefit of my congregation (and possibly others), my views on the subject.

I have no desire to raise the levels of tension among the Primitive Baptist Churches of our day, but I do feel a need to speak plainly and boldly on my convictions. I pray that the Lord will bless me to make my thoughts and convictions clear, and that God's people can reason together in the manner that the Word instructs. I feel unworthy to undertake this task, but will do so as an obedient servant of the cross. All I ask is that you read this document carefully and with much charity. It is submitted in the love of our Lord Jesus Christ.

This document will serve two main purposes:

I would first like to lay down a pattern for a Biblical, organized, group Bible Study. One of the major problems of our time is the general condemnation of things without defining what we are condemning. One cannot condemn Bible Study without defining what one means by Bible Study, because a typical worship service, where the pews are filled with people that have pen, paper, and a Bible while listening to a God called, Church recognized preacher, could well be called a Bible Study. In this section, I will try to lay down a pattern for what I consider to be a Biblical Bible Study and then will give the scriptural and historical precedence for such. First, I will present the requirements that I formulated for conducting a Bible Study at the Church that I pastor. These requirements were forumulated through much prayer, study, and meditation upon the Word of God.

I realized, after laying out these requirements, that I was essentially describing a standard public worship service as they are conducted today in most Primitive Baptist Churches with one exception; at the close of the preaching/teaching we would allow for questions from the congregation and allow for discussion to occur in an orderly fashion. This exception bothered me. I was raised in the Primitive Baptist Church and had never seen this before. Out of this discomfort, I have searched on two fronts for answers to whether it would be Biblical to have an ongoing dialog in a worship service. Those two fronts are historical and biblical precedent.

First, I will address the historical side. There is little mentioned in Primitive Baptist history concerning Bible Study. There is much about Sunday Schools, but little about Bible Study. I will deal with the difference between Bible Study (as I define it) and Sunday Schools (as defined in the Black Rock Address of 1832) later. I have found one historical reference of note. This reference is from 1801 and is from the Autobiography of Elder Wilson Thompson. Elder Wilson Thompson is a well known and widely read man that was considered to be a prototypical Primitive Baptist preacher before the name "Primitive Baptist" hardly existed.

This excerpt comes from Chapter Four: Impressions to Preach and First Public Exercising.

It should be noted that Elder Thompson points out that, in a congregational setting, they read scriptures, commentaries, and other approved authors and discussed them. If this is not a Bible Study, I do not know what else to call it. This is precisely what we do in the Bible Studies at our church. Actually, we are more conservative than Elder Thompson, as we do not include commentaries and other authors in our studies. Elder Thompson seems to speak of this as a long-standing practice among the Baptists that in his later years, when he penned his Autobiography, seemed to have become a somewhat neglected exercise. I gather from the account that Elder Thompson would have been delighted to see this practice sustained among the Baptists. I find it difficult to believe, with the respect shown for Elder Thompson, that he was out of order on this point, and I have never heard anyone forward the accusation that Elder Thompson was out of order.

Next, I will deal with the scriptural precedent. I have established that my pattern for a Biblical Bible Study is one in which all the basic elements of a worship service is practiced with the addition of opening the floor for dialog about the teaching/preaching of that service. Given that my pattern for Biblical Bible study only differs from a standard worship service by allowing open dialog, it would behoove use to examine scripture to see that this is acceptable under our rule of faith and practice, the New Testament.

Also, in Acts 17, we see that the Bereans studied the scriptures to see if what Paul was saying was true. I would contend that they did so as a group. One must consider this scripture in the context of the time in which it occurred. In that day, there was no printing press, therefore all manuscripts of the Old Testament were hand written, and were thus very expensive to obtain. Outside of the wealthy, there was generally only one copy of the Old Testament scrolls in a city and that copy was kept in the synagogue. In order for the Bereans to have studied the scriptures daily, they would have, by necessity, have gone to the synagogue and studied together as a goup. It is likely that there was much dialog in these studies.

Now let us consider the Bible Studies with which I have been involved at the church that I pastor. For all intents and purposes, our Bible Studies are worship services. They contain all the elements of a standard worship service. We have singing, prayer, and instruction in the word by me (the pastor) or other qualified teacher/preacher. It differs from our Sunday morning service only in that we allow for dialog or discussion. One could argue that the passages that I have mentioned from the book of Acts do not apply to the local church as they were not done in a local church setting but were done as part of an evangelical outreach, however I would ask you to consider the following scripture before drawing that conclusion:

This passage is instruction to the Church at Corynth about their form and practices in worship. If question and answer sessions were to be generally banned in public worship, why would Paul have only said that if a woman has a question, let her ask it at home? Why would he not have condemned open dialog for both genders entirely? Obviously, Paul actually allows that there might be dialog in public worship and is not condemning it, but simply declaring that it should be done in an orderly manner by limiting the number that speak at a time. It seems that Paul is only condemning unorganized Bible discussions (i.e. studies) not organized ones. As I grew up in the church, I saw many occasions where at the conclusion of a worship service in which a preacher preached a particularly convicting or heart-stirring sermon that a deacon or other brother would ask to speak. Upon being given liberty to speak, he would then offer additional exhortation concerning the subject of the preaching, often expounding on related scriptures and subjects. This has never been condemned in any church of which I am aware. I do not see how this differs from what I have described as a Bible Study.

Though Acts 17 (the account of the Bereans) may not be an account of Bible Study within the church, it seems that Acts 17 coupled with 1 Cor 14, which was in a Church worship setting, are ample scripture to allow for dialog within the standard pattern of worship. Essentially, this is what I define as Bible Study, nothing more.

Using both historical precedent and scriptural evidence, I will now present my definition of a Bible Study. A Biblical Bible Study is a gathering of the entire church congregation, young and old, for a public worship service where the meeting is conducted in such a way that includes all the elements of a standard public worship service, with the addition of dialog. Its primary focus is on teaching, which is meant to educate, rather preaching, which is meant to convict.

In order to treat this topic in an adequate manner, we must first define each term. I have already defined what I mean by Bible Study, but will reiterate it here. Bible Study is a worship service that contains all the elements of a worship service along with the opportunity for open dialog concerning the message that was presented. For a definition of Sunday Schools, I will turn to the most recognizable document among our people that presents one, the Black Rock Address of 1832. The section on Sunday Schools reads as follows:

According to the Black Rock address, a Sunday School was an institution primarily devoted to the instruction of children. It had, as one of its primary characteristics, the practice of separating children for instruction in the Word so that they might be converted or regenerated. Sunday Schools had a distinctly Arminian character, being backed by the belief that if these children were not convinced to believe in Jesus Christ, they would be eternally lost.

Seeing that Sunday Schools are, by definition, an institution in which children are divided away from their parents for instruction in the hopes of bringing them to the knowledge of Jesus Christ that they might have eternal life, it should be obvious that this differs greatly from what I have defined as a Bible Study. A proper, Biblical Bible Study contains all the same elements of public worship as any typical Primitive Baptist worship service with the addition of dialog, which is clearly scriptural based on the practices that were not condemned by the Apostle Paul in the Corinthian Church. This scriptural pattern includes entire families being in one common congregation to worship our Lord.

As I define Bible Study, it is clearly not the same as the Sunday Schools that Primitive Baptists have strongly and rightly argued against.

I want to say in conclusion that though I think a Bible Study can be Biblical, and is Biblical, as I have defined it, in the church, I do not think that a Bible Study should supplant the preaching of the Gospel. We need both preaching and teaching in the Church of Jesus Christ. I have heard stories of those that would attend a Bible Study, but did not come to the other regular worship services. I can only assume that this is because they could avoid the conviction that comes when a man powerfully preaches the Gospel of our Lord. I would caution those that hold Bible Studies that they be vigilant about this. Some would say that this risk alone is sufficient to exclude Bible Study from public worship. This is the same as saying we should not teach eternal security because some would continue in sin thinking that they are safe to do so. However, in no way should Bible Studies supplant the plain and powerful preaching of the word of God, but should be in addition to it.

I pray that this document comes across with the charity that it was intended to convey. May God's grace shine upon his church and may revival come again.