Episode 078: Advice for Teaching the Bible - with Gayle Doornbos

This week, Abby was not able to join us for recording, and while we definitely missed her, we were grateful to have a good friend from the Theology Department join us, Dr. Gayle Doornbos, Associate Professor of Theology at Dordt University. Gayle teaches a course entitled “Teaching the Bible,” and knowing this, we invited her to join us for a conversation about teaching the Bible as an academic subject. As Matt and Dave both have had their own (mis)adventures in teaching Bible classes, we thought Gayle’s insight and experience would be worth sharing with our listeners, as we have learned a lot from her! Our conversation today covers a lot of ground–we discuss many parts of the joys and challenges of teaching Bible, from helping students develop a theological imagination, to the understanding the difference between knowing the facts of Bible stories with knowing the Big Story of Scripture, to the question of what should be included in the curriculum of biblical studies, to moralism in teaching the Bible, to whether “anyone can teach Bible” vs. whether we should have specially-trained Bible teachers in Christian schools. Gayle encourages us to think about studying the Bible as not just an academic exercise, but also as a formative experience for shaping students’ faith life–even though that is challenge! We hope that Gayle’s wise words will be an encouragement to anyone called to teach Bible in a Christian school setting.