A Prayer for a Lesson

Heavenly Father, I ask for your wisdom and enlightenment as I study for next week’s lesson.
Help me, Lord, to understand your Word. I know that hundreds of years separate us from when your Word was written. The culture today is very different from that of those to whom your Word was first written. Therefore, I pray for your help as I seek to understand how the first hearers of Scripture understood what you were saying to them and then bridge it to our context and culture today.
Father, I ask for wisdom in applying your Word. Help us not to use your words as “proof texts” to create legalistic rules with which you are not pleased. Yet help us also to regard your Word as authoritative, rather than merely “good suggestions” for living.
I pray also that you would give me creativity and passion in delivering this lesson. Help me to present it in such a way that my students are truly engaged with the topic and text. Help me to teach it with such passion that the students are not bored or might think that the text does not matter to their lives.
Thank you for the help you are sure to give. Amen.