Last Lesson #88 — RBS

“I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you. Blessed are you, O Lord; teach me your statutes! With my lips I declare all the rules of your mouth. In the way of your testimonies I delight as much as in all riches. I will meditate on your precept and fix my eyes on your ways. I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word.” Psalm 119:11-16

From the time I was a teenager (a long time ago!) I learned that I needed the Word of God every day of my life. Everybody does. Therefore, when we started Rafiki we made sure that everybody in our Villages studied the Bible every day. We taught the children by using Bible story books, our missionaries taught workers, and the missionaries themselves went to the local BSF classes where available. I had hoped that BSF would allow Rafiki Villages to use BSF materials, but, understandably, they refused. 

What could we do? For sure, I knew I couldn’t write good Bible studies. But the Lord reminded me that I knew some people who could. They were the theologians that I had come to know through the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, and other people I knew who had written good Bible commentaries. So, I wrote 18 of these theologians to ask if they would write adult lessons on all the Books of the Bible—all 66 of them! They agreed and Rafiki contracted with them to write the lessons—all 547 lessons! Then we found “level writers” who volunteered to write the same passages of Scripture on five levels for children. They did it and their reward will be in heaven! We will be forever grateful to them. Of course, we hired a theologian to make sure every children’s lesson was doctrinally correct.

Then I asked David Wells to read all the adult lessons to see that the doctrine was sound. Finally, I got some Rafiki staff members to help me edit and proofread all the lessons. It took us a year but we were able to complete it and launch the Rafiki Bible Study in Africa in 2007. 

There is no question that the RBS is the most significant work that Rafiki has done. It is really good! I can say that because I did not write it. All I did was put together the good lessons that others wrote and edit them all. Yes, I did write the questions for some of the lessons. 

The RBS is used now in all the Villages in Africa—with orphans and schoolchildren, with mothers and workers, and in RICE. We have given it to our partner denominations and to their seminaries. It is taught in every classroom in every church school and recently reorganized as Sunday school lessons for their churches. 

The good news is that the RBS is now available worldwide. In the USA there are about 600 RBS small groups operating and more starting all the time. They may order any of the 66 Books of the Bible they wish to study and most groups have ordered multiple studies.

I have learned that we can never study the Bible too much. The more we study, the more we want to study. We hunger for the Word of God. What is important, however, is that we encourage others to study as well. Do you lead a RBS group? I do! 

RBS packets can be ordered through Rafiki at www.rafikifoundation.org