Susan Reynolds Facebook ad: “If you’re a Christian believer read this.”

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I have been teaching Hermeneutics for twenty years, and I watched my entire class lie to my face last Tuesday, and they didn’t even know they were doing it. When I finally figured out what was actually happening, I realized I had been failing them for two decades and not one of them knew. I teach at a small Christian college in the South, and Hermeneutics is the class everyone dreads. It is the study of how to interpret Scripture. Context, original languages, literary genres, historical background. The kind of class that separates students who think they understand the Bible from students who actually do. My class that semester had twelve students. All of them had been raised in the faith since childhood. A few were already serving in ministry. And every single one of them walked into that first class assuming they would do well. They were wrong. I would ask a question about a passage, and the room would go quiet. They would fumble through answers, guess at meanings, share opinions they could not back up. I would patiently correct them, and they would write down what I said and move on. — Three weeks into the semester, we were studying the Book of Romans. I asked them what Paul meant when he wrote, "There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." Everyone nodded. One student said, "It means we are forgiven." Another said, "It means our sins are washed away." Good answers. Safe answers. So I asked the question that broke open everything. "But why did Paul write that specifically to the Roman church? What was happening between the Jewish and Gentile believers in Rome that made him say this?" And then silence. They looked at each other. They looked at their Bibles. They looked at their notes. Nothing. A student in the front row finally said, "I don't know professor. I just know the verse." And that is when I realized they did not understand the Bible. They only understood my explanations of it. The moment they had to engage with the actual text on their own, they were completely lost. I had been giving them fish every week. I had never once actually taught them how to fish. — That night, I went home and sat in the dark for a long time. I thought about every student I had taught over the last two decades. Hundreds of them. People who would walk out of my classroom and into ministry thinking they understood Scripture and yet could not actually open their Bible cold and engage with what was in front of them. I had built their dependence on me instead of teaching them to engage with the text themselves. So I started writing. Every book of the Bible. Who wrote it. When. Why. What was happening at the time. Not a sermon. Not a devotional. Just the context. One page per book. All sixty-six. I worked through the night and into the next morning. I built one page for Genesis explaining the polemic against Egyptian and Canaanite gods. One page for Hebrews explaining the Jewish Christians being pressured to leave the faith under Roman persecution. One page for Revelation explaining the symbolism rooted in Daniel and Ezekiel. Each page laid out the same way. Who wrote it. Why. What was happening. The key themes. The symbolism and imagery. The practical application. And then on the opposite page, four reflection questions for every book. Context first. Then Scripture. Then reflection. Three steps to actually understand any book of the Bible. — The next Tuesday, I walked into class and put a copy at every seat. The students looked confused. "What is this professor?" "Before we open our Bibles today," I said, "read the page on Romans." I watched their eyes change. One student, a woman who had been quiet all semester, looked up practically with tears. "I finally get it. I have been reading Romans my whole life, and I never knew Paul was writing to a church divided between Jewish believers who felt superior and Gentile believers who felt rejected. The whole letter makes sense now." A guy in the second row said, "Why didn't anyone ever tell me Paul wrote this before he had even visited Rome? That changes how the whole letter sounds. He was introducing himself to a church he had never met." Another student said, "I have written papers on Romans. I have read commentaries on Romans. And I have never understood Romans the way I understand it after reading this single page." The whole room started talking at once. Then I told them to open their Bibles and read Romans 8 with everything they had just learned in mind. I watched them slow down. I watched them actually wrestle with what was on the page. When they finished reading, I had them flip the page back over and work through the reflection questions. I watched them write things down they had never written down before. One student paused for a long time before writing her prayer. Another flipped back through Romans rereading entire chapters to answer the application question honestly. The room got quiet in a different way than it had been quiet at the start of the semester. Not the silence of confusion. The silence of people actually carrying what they had just read. For the first time in twenty years of teaching Hermeneutics, I watched my students actually engage with the Scripture itself instead of waiting for me to tell them what it meant. And then I watched them take it with them when they closed the book. — At the end of class, a student who had been working toward ministry for years came up to me. He was forty-two years old. He had been a Christian for twenty years before he ever set foot in my class. He was preparing to lead his own congregation. He looked at me and said, "Professor, this is the first time I have ever studied the Bible and felt like I was actually reading what was on the page instead of guessing what someone else thought it meant." I almost cried right there in the classroom. Because that is exactly what I had been hoping to give them for two decades and never figured out how. — Over the next few months, I expanded the pages. I added the historical context for each book. I added the literary genre. I added the symbolism and the practical application. I added the reflection page with the four questions, all on the opposite side of the context page. And I watched my class transform. Students who had been afraid to speak started leading discussions. Students who had been faking their understanding for years started asking real questions. Students who had been writing safe academic papers started writing papers that actually engaged with the text. By the end of the semester, my final exam scores were the highest they had ever been in twenty years of teaching this class. But the real difference was not the grades. The real difference was that for the first time, my students were leaving my classroom able to open their Bibles cold and actually understand what they were reading. I had finally taught them to fish. — Here is what I realized. Most Christians, even ones who have been in church their entire lives, are skipping at least one of the three steps. Some of them just open to a chapter and read with no context and no reflection, just words on a page. Others read with context but never reflect, so nothing they read ever sticks and they forget the chapter by the next morning. A few reflect without context, and they end up applying verses they do not actually understand. But when you do all three, every time, it changes everything. You stop guessing. You stop reading verses out of context. You stop closing your Bible without a single thing to take you. You start understanding what the original author was actually saying to the original audience, and then you start letting it actually shape your life through the reflection. The application becomes ten times more powerful, because it is grounded in truth and walked out in writing. — That is what this Bible Study Guide does. The guide I built for my class worked. But the one I recommend to anyone who asks me where to start is the Elvasma Bible Study Guide. It is built on the same three step method and goes even deeper on every single book. Sixty-six pages, one for every book of the Bible, and each one is built around the same three step method I taught my students that Tuesday. Step one is the context page that walks you through who wrote the book, when, why, what was happening historically, the key themes, the symbolism and imagery, and the practical application. Step two is reading the actual Bible book with all of that context fresh in your mind. Step three is writing your responses in the guided reflection page. No commentary required. No seminary degree needed. Just three simple steps for one book at a time. And suddenly you are not reading isolated verses or closing your Bible empty handed. You are walking through Scripture the way it was meant to be walked through. — If you have ever opened your Bible feeling completely lost inside, you are far from being alone, and it had nothing to do with you. You just needed context. If you are tired of opening your Bible and feeling like you are missing something, if you have sat in church listening to sermons reference passages you do not understand, or if you have avoided certain books because they feel too confusing, this is for you. You do not need more information. You do not need a 12 week class. You do not need a degree. You just need three steps for every book, every time. This guide is at thirty percent off right now, and if you get two, you will get one free. Because you are probably not the only one in your circle who does not understand the Bible and does not say it out loud. Get this guide. Share it with your Bible study group, or with your family, or even with the Christians around you. And watch how fast the confusion turns into clarity. Stop reading fragments. Start walking through the story. — EDIT: I almost forgot to give you the link to get the guide. Here it is below: https://elvasma.com/pages/6-reasons-christians-are-saying

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