Charlotte Mason thought that the Bible lesson should be the most important lesson of the day. We think so too.
But as my children grew older, I found it harder to apply Charlotte’s wonderful principles of direct contact with Scripture and forming your own relation with it through forms of narration.
You see, in the younger years, it was easy to simply read aloud the great accounts of the Old Testament and the Life of Christ and have the children narrate the episodes. But once we got into the older years, I wanted my children to learn how to study the entire Bible for themselves, to think about cause and effect, to learn how to analyze and synthesize and categorize in an effort to understand. But almost all the Bible studies I found used fill-in-the-blank, true-and-false, multiple choice, direct questions—all the things Charlotte told us to avoid if we wanted to encourage real learning.
So I set out to write our own Bible studies in a Charlotte Mason way. We currently have six Bible studies available. These studies get the student into direct contact with Scripture, give him the tools he needs to observe carefully, and encourage him to form his own relations with what he has read.
We are often asked about the differences between our Bible study books so here is a quick summary along with links to more details and a free sample download of each one. Be sure to read through to the end and we’ll tell you how you could win a free copy of one of our Bible study books.
SCM Bible Studies
GOAL Bible Study Journal—Read through the New Testament epistles one chapter at a time and focus on being a doer of the Word. As you read each chapter, you and your children look for and record promises, commands, sins, and principles. Then throughout the week, you review your findings and remind yourselves to Grasp this promise, Obey this command, Avoid this sin, and Live this principle. Designed for the whole family.
Life in the Word—A how-to sampler of several types of foundational Bible study methods. As your student walks through the steps outlined, he learns how to perform important Bible study skills, such as word studies, Bible book studies, character studies, inductive studies, and more. He can then take those same steps and apply them to any other passage that he wants to study. Recommended for grades 7–12.
Foundations in Romans—Walks your student through doing an inductive study of this foundational book of the Bible. Your student works his way through Romans, reading and narrating each paragraph, looking for key words and finding their meanings in their original language using Strong’s Concordance, outlining the chapters, and more. Designed to get students into direct contact with the Word and encourage them to draw their own conclusions. Recommended for grades 7–12.
Wisdom for Life—Gets your student into the book of Proverbs every day. Eight life-related topics are given, such as speech, money, and friends. Each month the student selects one of the topics, then reads a chapter of Proverbs each day and records any verses that speak about that topic. At the end of the month, he summarizes his findings in a written narration. Then he selects a different topic for the next month and reads through Proverbs again. Recommended for grades 7–12.
Jashub’s Journal—Makes God’s law come alive! In this combination living story and Bible study, your student will join Jashub, newly settled in the Promised Land, as he seeks to counsel his fellow Israelite townspeople to follow God’s good law. The situations of the townspeople will unfold in the story. At crucial points, the story will stop and the student will be directed to the Old Testament passage where he can read what God’s law says about the situation. He will then return to the story to read what Jashub counseled his fellow townspeople to do. Recommended for grades 7–12.
Discovering Doctrine—A personal journal in which your student can record and organize doctrinal truths as he reads them in Scripture. Designed to go with any Bible reading plan, this long-term project helps your student develop the habit of watching for truths about the ten main doctrines any time he is reading the Bible—whether for schoolwork, personal devotions, sermons, or other settings. After he has read the entire Bible and recorded the doctrinal truths he has found, he can narrate each doctrine’s findings, thus writing his own personal doctrinal statement. Recommended for grades 7–12.
All of our Bible study books encourage you to explore the Bible for yourself. We don’t tell you what to think, but simply help you learn what the Bible has to say. You can use any translation you prefer to complete the studies.
It is our hope that these Bible studies will help you keep the Bible lesson the most important lesson of the day.
