The Art of Home Bible Study

About the Book

This book is written for church laypersons with the purpose of aiding those who wish to become at least beginning novice of learned biblical knowledge and interpretation on their own, in order not to be primarily dependent upon others to disclose the biblical message to them.

For too long, ministers have allowed the laity to rely primarily on Sunday school curriculum materials alone, or other canned (preprinted Bible study programs) to enable the biblical message to come alive in their lives. This is not a criticism of the curriculum materials in question, but the dependency upon them which result in a form of stunted biblical growth in the word of God.

When the Bible admonishes us to “study to show thyself approved unto God…RIGHTLY dividing the Word of truth” (2Timothy 2:15), how do we respond without a method of study as individuals on our own? If Christian education functions as it should, we need to produce people who are growing in the knowledge and wisdom of the word, moving from being BABES of the word fed with milk, to becoming adults in the word, being able to digest the meat of sound doctrine, as the apostle Paul admonishes us to become.

This should enable us to become at least semi-dependent learners and critical biblical thinkers, and not merely receptacles of information fed to us about the word of God!

About the Author

J.R. Glover received the Bachelor of Arts degree from Wilberforce University, the Master of Divinity and the Master of Arts in Christian Education degrees from The Methodist Theological School in Ohio. He pastored as an ordained United Methodist minister for thirty plus years, serving churches in Toledo, Columbus and Springfield, Ohio.

He was the organizing pastor of the New Horizon United Methodist church in 1980, and served there until 1985 when he accepted the position as a full time staff chaplain at the Toledo Hospital. He completed four units of CPE (clinical pastoral education) from the Samaritan Counseling center of Toledo, and was a member of APC (association of Professional chaplains) until his retirement in 2000.

He operates a nonprofit LLC corporation in North Carolina THE LEARNERS BIBLE STUDY ACADEMY, and is the author of the suspense novel The Gilded Web published in 2011, along with the completion of this manuscript. He has used this method of Bible study in the churches that he has pastored his entire ministry in his Bible study classes, and is now extending this concept to the public at large.

He currently lives in South Mills, NC where he retired to build a retirement home for himself and his wife Hattie of 46 years, until her death in 2010. He currently lives with his daughter Alicia, her husband, and granddaughter Jaden. He is currently pursuing a writing career, while acting as intern pastor for a Baptist church Hertford, NC.