Bible Studies Designed for New Believers

Lesson Content

Each lesson is designed to be about an hour in length. Since these lessons have been designed to help new believers gain a firm foundation for their new faith in God through Jesus Christ, great care has been exercised to determine, as much as possible, which subject matters are truly essential for such a purpose. Also, the same care has been exercised in determining the order in which they would best be presented.

Since the Bible is the basis for everything we believe, it is the very first topic to be addressed. The next most important aspect of the Christian life is prayer. God has designed that each believer start their walk with him by being saved, water baptized, and baptized in the Holy Spirit, which are covered next. In order for any believer to grow properly, they need to be planted in a local church and they need to share their faith, so these are covered in lessons 6 and 7. Love is the main quality believers should be manifesting, but it is followed by eight other evidences, or fruit, of the Holy Spirit, which together make up the next three lessons. Sin is the greatest problem a follower of Christ will face, and repentance is God’s way of dealing with sin. Then, the last four of the foundational doctrines listed in Hebrews 6:1-2, the ones not taught in a previous lesson, are covered. Lessons 16B, 17, 18, and 19 all deal with matters that are truly essential to a healthy walk with God, and lesson 20 gives the truth that is necessary to distinguish Biblical Christianity from cults and false religions.

Other topics are very worthy of consideration. Praise & Worship, Healing, the Bread & the Cup, and other aspects of life in Christ certainly are important. Such topics could possibly be covered in the future as supplemental lessons.

How To Utilize These Lessons

When anyone accepts Jesus Christ to be their personal Savior and Lord, much is required for them to experience healthy growth. Although these lessons attempt to meet some of the need for solid, Biblical teaching, they have never been designed to replace the need for love and care from mature believers, the need for learning to pray, and a variety of other needs.

In light of this, it seems that these lessons work best when they are utilized as homework assignments in small group settings. In this way, each member of the small group can download and print out their copy of the outline and listen to the Spoken Lesson files at their convenience. Then, when the entire group meets, opportunity can be given for the leader to answer questions that may have arisen about the lesson being studied, and the relationships within the group can develop and grow.

These lessons can be utilized in other creative ways as well. Even mature Christians have testified that they have been greatly blessed and helped by their content.

Improvements

No human work is perfect. Even though, in preparing these lessons, the help of God has been sought much and often, the room for improvement is probably quite large. Therefore, anyone who feels they are able to upgrade any of the material in these lessons (whether by correcting a typo, providing a helpful illustration, citing a Scripture that more clearly supports the truth being taught, or in any other way) is invited, encouraged, and requested to share that information. Such correspondence can be sent via email to: [email protected]. When improvements are made to any of these outlines, the date (found in the lower right-hand corner on the last page of each outline) is updated to reflect that improvement. Therefore, the outline of any lesson with the latest date is the one which would be the most improved version.

Acknowledgments

Many servant-hearted ministers of the gospel have provided outstanding materials in giving new believers a firm foundation to their faith in Christ. The Foundations Lessons provided here are indebted to the works of (in alphabetical order) Saied Adour, Randy Anson, James Lee Beall, Christal Clayton, the ministry team at Rock Church of Virginia Beach, and others for their excellent contributions on this vitally important subject.

Free Use of This Material

Dr. Fuchsia Pickett once quipped that the material she was presenting was copyrighted, which meant that she had a copy and we had the right to use it. In that same spirit, this material has been developed as a free contribution to the Body of Christ at large. It may be used, tweaked, or in any other way changed to suit the needs of the particular circumstances where new believers need a solid spiritual foundation. When this material is used, we ask that the following be observed:

No money is to be made. These materials are available at no cost and they will always remain free of charge. Anyone who generates financial gain from this material will encounter God as their judge for having done so.
Please remain true to the original purpose of trying to help Christians, especially new believers, grow in their relationship to God.
Please adhere to evangelical doctrine.
Anyone using this material is free to acknowledge or not acknowledge the web site where it is posted: www.foundationsofthefaith.org. However, anyone who changes any of this material to suit their own needs is asked not to acknowledge the web site. In such a situation, please present the material as your own, just as if you had created all of it.

May God be glorified; may new believers gain a firm foundation to their faith in Christ; and may those who have walked with God for years grow closer to Him as a result of these lessons. Amen.

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