An overview for Sunday School teachers and Bible study leaders, of Lifeway’s “Explore the Bible” lesson of Psalm 18;16-29, “God’s Deliverance,” scheduled for Sunday, July 13, 2025. A video version of this overview is available on YouTube at:
INTRO
???DISCUSSION QUESTION???
Can anyone share a time when God brought you through something extremely difficult, and you celebrated when He did?
(In 2015, I had been out of ministry for two years with an illness, but the Lord had raised me back up, and called me back to serve as a full-time pastor again. We celebrated because it was like we were “coming out of the wilderness” again in a sense, and I was very thankful to God for it. He’d delivered us out of that two-year time of trial.)
You/your group can share similar times like that, then say something like: In today’s lesson, King David celebrates how God brought him through a difficult time, in this 18th Psalm.
An overview for Sunday School teachers and Bible study leaders of Lifeway’s “Explore the Bible” lesson of Psalm 110:1-7, “God’s Messiah,” for Sunday, July 6, 2025. A video version of this lesson is available on YouTube at:
INTRODUCTION:
One way to begin the lesson this week would be by asking the
??? DISCUSSION QUESTION???
“Do you have a favorite mystery: perhaps a favorite mystery writer, or mystery tv series — or even a mystery from history of science?”
(A lot of people do have favorite mysteries: my wife Cheryl loves the Agatha Christie mysteries; I enjoy watching some of the BBC mysteries with her.
If you want to share some famous mysteries of history/science, according to an AI search, they would include:
— The disappearance of Amelia Earhart
— The identity of Jack the Ripper
— The Bermuda Triangle
— The Mystery of Stonehenge, and others.)
Then = “Today we are going to look at Psalm 110, at what was at one time a great mystery in the Bible, but which Jesus and the New Testament, show us the conclusive answer to!”
An overview for Sunday School teachers and Bible study leaders, of Lifeway’s “Explore the Bible” lesson of Psalm 132, for Sunday June 29, 2025, with the title, “God’s Promises.” A video version of this overview is available at:
INTRODUCTION:
??? Can you share a time someone made a promise that was important to you???
(Most of us can share something here: my dad once made a promise to me as a boy, to take me to an OU game — which he later surprised me and did; that meant a lot to me. Some might share about their wedding vows, etc.)
Then you can say: In this morning’s lesson we’re going to look at a great promise God made to us as His people, in Psalm 132.
ALTERNATE INTRO (or use this ILLUSTRATION later in the lesson):
During a crucial vote in Congress during President Abraham Lincoln’s administration: “Lincoln walked over to (Assistant Secretary R.H. Dana’s) office, said, ‘Dana, I am very anxious about this vote. It has got to be taken next week. The time is very short … There are three [members of Congress] that you can deal with better than anybody else, perhaps, as you know them all.’ … ‘What will they be likely to want?’ asked Dana. The President said, ‘… It makes no difference what they want. Here is the alternative, that we carry this vote, or be compelled to raise another million … men, and fight no one knows how long. … ’Well sir, what shall I say to these gentlemen?’ ‘I don’t know, but whatever promise you make to them I will perform.’ … So the extra votes needed to pass the Nevada bill through the House were gotten.” (Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln, The Prairie Years and the War Years, p. 497)
President Lincoln made a big promise that day: “Whatever promise you make to them, I will perform.” This morning in Psalm 132, we see that our Heavenly Father also made some big promises — and as we know, whatever promise He makes, He WILL certainly perform! Today’s lesson reminds us of that.
An overview for Sunday School teachers and Bible study leaders, of Lifeway’s “Explore the Bible” lesson of Psalm 96:1-13, for Sunday, June 22, 2025, with the title ‘God’s Reign.” A video version of this overview is available on YouTube at:
INTRODUCTION:
??? What’s your favorite worship song/hymn???
(There are so many fantastic worship songs, it’s hard to say I have one. One of my favorite new songs is “All My Hope Is In Jesus,” by the Gettys; one of my favorite hymns is “O Worship the King, all glorious above …”.
You/your group can share your, and then transition to today’s lesson by saying something like: our Psalm for today opens with a 3-fold command to “Sing … sing … sing” to the Lord!
ALTERNATE INTRODUCTION: After Constantine had made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire in the 300s A.D., he died, and his nephew Julian became emperor — but Julian “reversed course” and tried to re-establish paganism. “The church historians of that period tell us that the psalm commonly sung by Christians during the reign of Julian was the 96th.” I think we will see today why they might have chosen Psalm 96 during this time, as it points to how God is the King and Judge of the whole earth!
An overview for Sunday School teachers and Bible study leaders, of Lifeway’s “Explore the Bible” lesson of Psalm 19:1-11, for Sunday, June 15, 2025, with the title “God’s Glory.” A video version of this overview is available on YouTube at:
INTRODUCTION:
DISCUSSION QUESTION: ??? Can you share a time when you were in awe of something you saw in God’s creation, and you just praised Him for it ???
(Standing in front of the Grand Canyon was one of the most awe-inspiring moment to me. It’s just glorious. When Theodore Roosevelt saw it, he said: “I don’t exactly know what words to use in describing it. It is beautiful and terrible and unearthly.”
(Edmund Morris, Theodore Rex, p. 225)
But also, honestly, every morning I look out my office window during my quiet time, and see the flourishing elm tree in our front yard, and the grass blowing in the Oklahoma wind, and the Robin hopping in our yard after some worms, and the house finch and others flying up to the feeder; virtually every morning I start off the day, just thanking God for the beauty and glory I see in His creation.)
You/your group can share your own experiences of God’s creation drawing you to Him, and then you can transition into the lesson, saying something like: In today’s lesson, Psalm 19 shows us how the Bible does specifically teach that God’s Creation does indeed point us to the glory of God.
OR: you could open with this QUOTE from John Adams:
“I find my imagination … roaming in the Milky Way, among the nebulae, those mighty orbs, and stupendous orbits of suns, planets, satellites, and comets, which compose the incomprehendable universe; and if I do not sink into nothing in my own estimation, I feel an irresistible impulse to fall on my knees, in adoration of the power that moves, the wisdom that directs, and the benevolence that sanctifies this wonderful whole.” (David McCullough, John Adams, p. 630)
An overview for Sunday School teachers and Bible study leaders, of Lifeway’s “Explore the Bible” lesson of Psalm 119:1-8, “God’s Truth,” schedule for Sunday, June 8, 2025. A video version of this overview is available on YouTube at:
INTRODUCTION
— In John Ker’s: The Psalms in History, he tells of John Ruskin, a British writer and lecturer of the 19th century, who wrote:
“It is strange that of all the pieces of the Bible which my mother taught me, that which cost me most to learn, and which was to my child’s mind most repulsive, the 119th Psalm, has now become, of all, the most precious to me …”. (p. 144)
— OR: Pass out pieces of paper and ask each group member to write an acrostic using the word “BIBLE.” A simple example:
Blessed
Is the
Brother who
Learns to do
Every word of scripture!
You/your group can write and share your acrostics for BIBLE.
— OR you could share a famous acrostic, like the old Nat King Cole acrostic song, “LOVE”:
“L is for the way you look at me
O is for the only one I see
V is very, very extraordinary
E is even more than even more than anyone that you adore can”
Whichever way you introduce the lesson, then you can say: “This morning we’re going to look at one of the most famous acrostics in all history: Psalm 119, and most importantly, how these verses challenge us to apply God’s word our lives.
An overview for Sunday School teachers and Bible study leaders, of Lifeway’s “Explore the Bible” lesson of Psalm 1:1-6, “God’s Wisdom,” for Sunday, June 1, 2025. A video version of this overview is available on YouTube at:
INTRODUCTION:
??? Does anyone have a favorite Psalm, verse in Psalms, or a treasured experience with Psalms???
(You and many of your members likely do. God has used Psalms so powerfully in my life, many times. A recent experience was when my wife Cheryl had her stroke the last day of August, and we were in the hospital room for a week straight; we never left. I slept on the couch there every night. Wasn’t much of a time or place for a “daily Bible reading” or quiet time. But I had just finished memorizing Psalms 116 and 118 earlier last year, so each morning when I woke up, or if I woke up in the middle of the night, I would quote those Psalms, and in that worst of all times in our lives, God used His word in those Psalms to keep me so close to Him in that time. Cheryl did the same thing. We relied on Psalms we had memorized. Her testimony was: “The doctors saved my life; God’s word saved me from the darkness” of that time.
You/your class members can share some of your favorite Psalms/experiences.
ILLUSTRATIONS: (you may use these for alternate introductions, or at some point later in the lesson)
Augustine lived about 300 A.D., and his classic autobiography, Confessions, he writes in Book IX, Chapter 8, how his heart was “inflamed by (Psalms) with love for You (God). He spoke of his enemies, the Manichees (Followers of Mani, 3rd century, who considered himself the last prophet) who taught that there is not one omnipotent God, but there is an everlasting conflict between light and darkness going on. Augustine used to be a Manichean, but he came to know Christ. So now, he says I wish the Manichees could have seen my face, and heard my voice, as I read Psalm 4, and could have experienced what that Psalm did for me.The Psalms just worked so powerfully in Augustine’s life.
OR:
C.S. Lewis, in his Reflections on the Psalms, wrote: “A man can’t be always defending the truth, there must be a time to feed on it.” Alister McGrath in his biography of Lewis referred to Lewis’ claim that apologetics were “very wearing.” He needed not only to defend the scriptures, but to feed on them — we ALL do! And the Psalms is one of the very best places in God’s word to feed each day!
An overview for Sunday School and Bible study leaders of Lifeway’s “Explore the Bible” lesson of II Peter 3:8-18, with the title, “Be Encouraged,” for Sunday, May 25, 2025. A video version of this overview is available on YouTube at:
INTRODUCTION:
Lesley Gore is a pastor’s wife in Beggs, Oklahoma (she was in our children’s group when we pastored there in the 1990s.) Lesley recently shared this story about two of her young children:
“Jack, after dragging over a stool and teaching Bea to make toast, (said)” ’…and now we push it down like this, and now we wait. That’s the hardest part.’” (Lesley Gore Facebook post 5/05/25)
Waiting really can be the hardest part, can’t it? Many of us know from personal experience how difficult waiting can be!
(You might also consider sharing here or elsewhere in the lesson, the story I suggest near the end of this lesson for a closing illustration, about the Johnstown Flood, and how the people there acted like an impending tragedy would never happen to them.)
An overview for Sunday School teachers and Bible study leaders who are preparing to teach Lifeway’s “Explore the Bible” lesson on II Peter 2:1-3, 17-19 & Jude 17-23, with the title “Be Alert,” scheduled for Sunday, May 18, 2025. A video version of this overview is available on YouTube at:
INTRODUCTION:
George Whitefield was the “Billy Graham” of the 1700s, with a widespread evangelistic ministry in both England and America. But wherever God is working, the devil raises up false prophets, and he did then too. “Hugh Bryan came to believe that God was raising him up … he sent a book of prophecies to the South Carolina legislature in Charleston, including the prediction that Charleston would be “destroyed by fire and sword … before the first day of next month ” Lawmakers promptly called for Bryan’s arrest. But before they caught him, Bryan already failed a test of his prophetic calling. A report printed in Boston said that he had taken up a rod and, Moses-like, attempted to part the waters of a Lowcountry river. He tumbled into the river with the staff in hand, smiting, splashing and spluttering the water about with it, and nearly drowned.’” (Thomas S. Kidd, George Whitefield, America’s Spiritual Founding Father, p. 180-181)
I laughed when I read about Hugh Bryan tumbling into the river, showing that he was a false prophet. But false prophets and false teachers are not really a laughing matter. They are Satan’s instruments to deceive and delude people, to distract them from God’s true way, and ultimately, to bring them to hell with him.
Thus the importance of our lesson from today from II Peter 2, “Be Alert” — what we are to “be alert” to are the multitude of false teachers and teachings which are bent on deceiving us.
An overview for Sunday School teachers and Bible study leaders of Lifeway’s “Explore the Bible” lesson of II Peter 1:3-8 and :16-21, for Sunday, May 11, 2025, with the title, “Be Equipped.” A video version of this overview is available on YouTube at:
INTRO:
To introduce the lesson this week, you might consider posting one of these quotes, and you/your group can discuss it:
“Education never ends, Watson. It is a series of lessons with the greatest for the last.”
(Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Complete Sherlock Holmes, The Red Circle, p. 867)
(If you use this quote, you might point out that similarly, our education as CHRISTIANS never ends; we continue to grow until we cross that last river and reach glory, and see the Lord and become like Him.)
AND/OR:
“A Christian is not of hasty growth, like a mushroom, but rather like the oak, the progress of which is hardly perceptible, but in time becomes a great deep-rooted tree.”
(John Newton to Mrs. Gardiner, Letters of John Newton, Josiah Bull, ed., p. 285)
(You might point out here that we should’t be discouraged as Christians if we can’t always “feel” or “see” our spiritual growth; that our growth as Christians is gradual, like that oak tree. But the point is, God’s plan for us as His children IS that we should GROW spiritually.
Whichever way you choose to open the lesson, then indicate that growing is what today’s lesson is about. It teaches us how God promises to help us grow spiritually as His children.
I'm a retired Southern Baptist pastor of almost 40 years. My wife Cheryl & I moved to Norman, OK in March of 2025. I share a weekly overview for Sunday School teachers of the weekly Lifeway "Explore the Bible" lesson, as well as texts of my sermons and other articles.
shawnethomas 