This year, CVS decided to offer a live Bible study time for elementary and secondary students. I had the privilege of leading this weekly Bible study and seeing the students grow in their relationships with each other and in their understanding of Scripture.
Every study started with a time of fellowship. We played all kinds of Bible-based games from Jeopardy to Wheel of Fortune to Blooket to Pictionary. Students even took turns creating and leading games! These times were a highlight for our groups as we got to know each other’s personalities and game-play styles. Many laughs were had during our times of fellowship.
After fun and games, we moved into our Bible lesson. The theme this year was Communicating Christ’s love. When I first heard the theme, I was overwhelmed by the many possible focus points we could discuss. Eventually, I whittled it down to four main learning topics by helping students answer four main questions:
- What is love?
- Why do we love?
- Who do we love?
- How do we love?
Each week, we spent time looking to Scripture to help us answer these questions. Here’s a snapshot of some of the things we learned.
What is love?
There are four types of love: phileo, eros, storge, and agape. Each type of love is important and mentioned in Scripture; however, our focus was on phileo and agape – the two most mentioned forms of love in Scripture. Our Scripture focus was 1 Corinthians 13 which emphasizes the need for agape, a self-sacrificing love. I challenged students to memorize the chapter, and some did! Each week, students would recite the verse they had memorized until, eventually, they had quoted the entirety of 1 Corinthians 13!
Why do we love?
To answer this question, we spent much time in 1 John. We learned we are children of God; therefore, we must reflect God’s love to others. We are motivated to love others because God loved us first and showed us what true love is by sacrificing his Son on the cross for our sins. If God was willing to do that for us even while we were his enemies because we were stuck in our sin, then we must love those around us!
Who do we love?
The answer to this question is summed up in 4 words: God and our neighbour. But we couldn’t stop there. We needed to figure out who our neighbour is. This led into various Scripture passages telling us to love our enemies and fellow Christians. We discussed why it can be harder, sometimes, to love other Christians. We often hold Christians to higher standards because they should know better than to sin or do wrong towards someone; however, Christians are still humans struggling against sin. We need to show love to our fellow Christians when they sin rather than immediately judge and belittle them for a sin they are struggling with.
How do we love?
We started answering this question by looking at Jesus command to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. This means having perfect love for God and our neighbour. Impossible! Our Scripture passages told us with man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible because we have the Holy Spirit living in us who transforms our hearts and helps us love the way God loves. We know we won’t be perfect in our love while we live on Earth, but every day we can improve and love better than we did yesterday.
Then we discussed practical ways we can show love to God and our neighbour. Some examples are caregiving (having mercy and compassion on others), praying for our enemies, worshipping, encouraging words, sharing the Gospel, and keeping God’s commands. There are so many more examples in Scripture of how we can show love to God and our neighbour. My prayer is each student will take we we’ve learned and continue looking to Scripture to find ways to show love.
It has been such a blessing getting to know the CVS students and helping them understand a few more things in Scripture. I pray the Holy Spirit continues to transform their hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, so they can be ambassadors of God’s love here on Earth!
