What Are the Best Explore the Bible Leader Extras?
Updated: Aug 31
If you lead adults using Lifeway's Explore the Bible®, you probably appreciate what the curriculum does best: it keeps your class in the Biblical text. Book by book and passage by passage, Scripture sets the agenda.
But no curriculum can anticipate everything a particular teacher or class may need. That's where leader extras can help. The question isn't, “How much additional material can I find?” It's, “What would help me lead this particular class more effectively?”
The best Explore the Bible leader extras aren't necessarily the ones that give you more material. They're the ones that fill a genuine gap in your preparation or in the way your adults are engaging the Scripture.
A Simple Test for Any Explore the Bible Leader Extra
Before adding something to your lesson, ask what it contributes.
Does it help adults:
understand something in the Biblical text?
see something that would otherwise be difficult to grasp?
discuss the Scripture rather than simply hear about it?
apply Biblical truth to the way they actually live?
An extra doesn't have to accomplish all four. But it ought to accomplish something your lesson genuinely needs. After all, Explore the Bible already gives teachers substantial material for understanding and teaching the passage. Adding another commentary, another page of notes, three illustrations, a video, a map, and twelve additional teaching points may make your preparation pile larger without making Sunday's Bible study any better.
Three Explore the Bible Leader Extras Worth Considering
1. Context, Background, and Visual Helps
Sometimes a little background information unlocks a passage. A good Bible atlas can help adults visualize where events occurred. A timeline can clarify the relationship between people and events. Historical or cultural background can explain why an action or statement carried significance that isn't immediately obvious to a modern reader. Halley's Bible Handbook has helped me many times.
And some ideas are simply easier to understand when people can see them. Maps, charts, photographs, diagrams, or even a few words written on a whiteboard can sometimes communicate in seconds what takes several minutes to explain.
The key word is help. Background information and visual aids should illuminate the Biblical text, not become a twenty-minute detour that leaves everyone knowing a great deal about first-century pottery but very little about what the passage actually says.
So . . . use enough to help adults see the Scripture more clearly - then get back into the text.
2. Good Bible Discussion Questions
This is the extra I think many adult classes need most - not because Explore the Bible is weak, but because it's so Bible-forward.
A teacher can study the passage faithfully, prepare carefully, and still spend most of the class explaining while everyone else listens. Usually the problem isn't that the teacher is lazy or unprepared. Lecture can simply be a trap. The teacher has learned a lot during preparation, so naturally he wants to share it.
Good discussion questions change the dynamic.
Instead of asking only, “What do I need to tell them about this passage?” the teacher begins asking:
What do they need to notice?
What do they need to wrestle with?
What could they discover by examining the Scripture together?
Where does this passage call us to respond?
That's not replacing teaching with conversation. The teacher still prepares, explains, clarifies, and corrects when necessary. But adults become active participants in examining God's Word rather than simply recipients of the teacher's preparation.
If your class already receives plenty of good Biblical information but needs more participation, better Bible discussion questions may be the most useful Explore the Bible leader extra you can add.
3. Teacher-Preparation Helps
Sometimes the best extra isn't something you use in class at all. It's something that makes preparation simpler.
Most adult Sunday School teachers aren't full-time Bible teachers. They have jobs, families, church responsibilities, and plenty of other demands on their time. So a resource that helps a teacher organize or simplify preparation may be more useful than another twenty pages to read.
Whatever preparation helps you use, a simple rhythm might be:
Read the passage early.
Identify its central truth.
Decide what needs explanation.
Choose a few questions that will help adults examine the Scripture.
Think about where the passage intersects with everyday life.
Decide what you most hope your adults will carry with them when they leave.
The best preparation helps don't simply give teachers more material. They make it easier to decide what matters most.
Why I Became a Believer in Discussion
Years ago, I was asked to teach an “older men's” class.
I was 27. Intimidated is probably the best word to describe how I felt.
Instead of trying to establish my credibility by telling these men everything I'd learned about the passage, I used a questions-based approach. I came prepared with the Scripture, a plan, and questions designed to get them examining the text and talking about what they saw.
And I walked out feeling as though I'd learned more from them than I'd taught them.
Men I might never have heard from if I'd lectured the whole time contributed. Their experiences brought perspectives I didn't have at 27. We still studied the Biblical text, but I wasn't carrying the whole hour by myself.
And apparently it worked. They invited me back whenever they had a vacancy.
That experience helped convince me that a teacher doesn't have to choose between serious Bible study and meaningful discussion. Done well, discussion can help adults go deeper into the very Scripture we're trying to teach.
Where Explorations Fits With Explore the Bible®
That's the particular gap Explorations is designed to fill.
Explore the Bible already provides the curriculum. Explorations doesn't try to replace it or rewrite it.
Instead, each one-page discussion guide uses the same weekly Scripture passage and provides ready-to-use questions designed to help adults examine the Biblical text, think about what it means, learn from one another, and consider how God's Word should shape everyday life.
For a teacher who already has enough background material but needs help turning that preparation into meaningful class participation, that's a very specific kind of leader extra.
Want to see whether it would help your class? Try a complete Explorations lesson free.
Choose the Extra That Solves the Problem
There isn't one Explore the Bible leader extra every teacher needs.
If geography or historical context is making a passage difficult to understand, find a good map or background resource. If preparation itself is becoming overwhelming, look for something that simplifies the process rather than adding to the pile.
And if your adults already hear good Biblical teaching but rarely get the opportunity to examine, discuss, and apply the Scripture together, don't assume the answer is more content.
The extra you need may simply be a better question.
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