Bible study for small groups: how to lead one, and four studies to start

A small group can study the Bible with a Bible for each person, three questions, and a leader who has prepared, so there is no curriculum to buy. Pick one book of the Bible and read it a chapter or two at a time.

The three questions

Ask these about any passage, in this order.

1. What does it say? Have someone retell the passage in their own words, with the Bible open. Who is speaking, who is listening, and what happens?
2. What does it mean? Ask what the passage teaches about God, about Christ, and about us. When the group gets stuck, look at the verses around it and at the notes in a study Bible before anyone guesses.
3. What do we do? Ask for one thing each person will believe, stop, start or pray because of this passage.

Give the first two questions most of the time, because the third depends on knowing what the passage says.

Take Philippians 4:6 as an example. It reads, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” It says to bring every request to God with thanks. It means that God invites his people to hand him their worries, and the next verse promises his peace to those who do. One person’s answer to the third question might be to pray about a job interview each morning this week.

A handout makes this concrete. This one fits on half a page, and every person in the group gets the passage and the questions in front of them.

Philippians 2:5-11. Week 2 of 4

Read the passage twice, with two readers.

1. What does it say? Who is speaking, and what did Christ do?
2. What does it mean? How did Christ humble himself, and what does Paul ask us to do for each other?
3. What do we do? One thing each of us will start, stop or pray this week.

Next week: Philippians 3. Maria brings dessert.

A 90-minute meeting

Read the passage aloud, and read a short passage twice with two readers. Find out ahead of time who is glad to read, because some people would rather listen, and ask about food allergies before the first meal.

Nobody has to pray aloud or share a request. What people share stays in the group unless they ask you to pass it on, and anything that involves abuse or danger goes to a pastor the same day.

When more than twelve people come regularly, start a second group with its own leader, so everyone still has time to speak.

How the leader prepares

Read the passage three times during the week, on three different days. Write down what repeats, what surprises you and what you do not understand, and then read one commentary, a book that explains the Bible passage by passage.

Matthew Henry’s commentary is free to read online at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Henry wrote it as far as the end of Acts before he died in 1714, and other ministers finished it from his notes. Works published in the United States in 1930 or earlier are in the public domain, according to Duke Law’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain, so you may print a paragraph of it for the group. A recent commentary is still under copyright, so quote a sentence or two from it with credit and ask the publisher before you copy more.

A leader who reads only English can still see what the Greek says. In Berean Blue, a free Bible study app that opens on December 1, 2026, a tap on a word opens the Greek or Hebrew behind it. Tap a word in John 3:16 to see how it works.

Free tool you can try here

Tap a word, see the Greek

Berean Blue shows the Greek or Hebrew behind a word in the English text. Tap a word in John 3:16.

John 3:16 · Berean Standard Bible

For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Tap loved, world, believes or life.

ἠγάπησεν

egapēsen

From agapaō, to love. The verb is past tense and shows the love as an act that was carried out.

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Prepare the three questions and the week’s question from the tables below, and resist writing a lecture, because the meeting is for the group to work through the passage together. When someone asks a question you cannot answer, say so, write it down, and bring it to your pastor before the next meeting. If one person does most of the talking, ask a quieter member by name what they noticed.

Four studies to start with

Each study gives a passage and a question for each week, to use along with the three questions above. The Bible verses quoted here are from the Berean Standard Bible, which its translators dedicated to the public domain, so you can print them on a handout.

Philippians in four weeks

Philippians is a letter the apostle Paul wrote from prison to the church in the city of Philippi. It makes a good first study, because it has four short chapters.

James in five weeks

The letter of James is five chapters of direct commands about how faith acts. Read its line “Be doers of the word, and not hearers only” (1:22) at the start of every meeting.

In week five, remind the group that faithful Christians stay sick too. Paul left his friend Trophimus sick in Miletus (2 Timothy 4:20).

Mark in eight weeks

Mark is one of the four Gospels, the accounts of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. It is the shortest, at sixteen chapters. Two chapters take about ten minutes to read aloud, so read them once in the meeting and ask the group to read them at home first.

Most Bibles carry a note at Mark 16:9 saying that the earliest copies of Mark end at verse 8, and the group should read that note together in week eight.

Six psalms in six weeks

The Psalms are the Bible’s prayers and songs, and many were written by David, the king of Israel. Read the psalm aloud at the start. To close, have each person turn one line of the psalm into a prayer of their own. This study suits a group that is grieving or tired, so let people share as much or as little as they want.

Keeping the group together

Send the passage, the time and the address to everyone the day before each meeting, and check on anyone who misses two weeks in a row. A short text works best for that, and Free Church Texting sends it to the whole group from one inbox.

Berean Blue has no connection to the publishers of the Berean Standard Bible. It will put older commentaries such as Matthew Henry’s beside the text.