Helps to Bible Study was written by John Lewis Shuler (1887-1984), professor of evangelism. Pastor Shuler has written more than 1,000 sermons, several books and manuscripts on effective evangelism. In 1937, before the technological era, he was the first to introduce a printed Bible course for teaching the truth. It was called the Home Bible Course and led to the worldwide use of the Bible correspondence course plan.
Helps to Bible Study, published for the first time even earlier (1934), is a very simple system of Bible study, using clear Scriptures and very short notes to cover the main teachings of the Bible. In fact, one could offer a basic Bible study with this tool only without any other resources.
How does it work?
On the blank pages at the end of your Bible you can make a list of all the subjects you want to present to an interested friend or to a small group. To exemplify, we’ll choose as our first topic The Second Coming of Christ (you can mark it as SC) and we are going to see it in the Bible, marking 10 key texts that address it.
Grab your Biblie and write on that back page #1. The Second Coming of Christ (SC). Next to it, Begin at Hebrews 9:28. That is your first text (SC1) for the topic selected.
Then turn to that first reference of your subject and write in the margin near it the second reference, for this topic, John 14:1-3 (SC2). Then turn to that second reference and write in the margin near it the third reference, Luke 24:36-40 (SC3), and so on to the end of the lesson.
When you come to the last reference, which for this topic is Philippians 3:20, 21 (SC10) please write End SC.
Thus you will have a complete thread.
Let’s see the 10 key Bible texts for the topic The Second Coming of Christ. Each text is followed by a very short note, highlighting the main idea of the Scripture quoted and sometimes making the connection with the text to follow.
The Second Coming of Christ (HBS-01)
SC1. Hebrews 9:28
Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.
Just as certainly and surely as Christ was offered on the cross 2,000 years ago, just so certainly He will appear the second time.
SC2. John 14:1-3
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.“
When Jesus was here on the earth 2,000 years ago, He promised in just so many words that He would return to earth at the last day, or at the end of time, to reward every man according to his works (Matthew 16:27; 26:64). He said, “I go and I will come again.” So as surely as He went back to heaven, just so surely we may know that He will return to this earth at the right time.
SC3. Luke 24:36-40
While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet.
He had a real body of flesh and bones, with hands and feet, after His resurrection, and He went back to heaven with that real body (see Luke 24:50, 51).
SC4. Acts 1:9-11
After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”
He will come in like manner as He went back to heaven at His ascension. He went back to heaven literally, bodily, personally, and visibly. So when He comes in like manner at His second advent, we know that He will come from heaven bodily, literally, personally, and visibly. The second coming of Christ will be a literal, bodily appearing of Christ from heaven in the sight of all the people of the earth, and not any figurative or spiritual coming.
SC5. Revelation 1:7
“Look, he is coming with the clouds,” and “every eye will see him, even those who pierced him”; and all peoples on earth “will mourn because of him.” So shall it be! Amen.
Every person, every eye, will see Him when He appears in the clouds of heaven. Christ will not appear at His second advent in any secret way just to the elect, but all the tribes of the earth shall see Him coming on the clouds, with power and great glory (Matthew 24:30). His coming will be just as open and visible to all people as lightning (Matthew 24:27).
SC6. Revelation 6:15-17
Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and everyone else, both slave and free, hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. They called to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can withstand it?”
The wicked will see Him as He approaches the earth at His coming, and will try to hide.
SC7. Matthew 25:31
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne.“
All the angels of heaven, countless millions (Revelation 5:11; Hebrews 12:22) of bright shining angels, will surround the Son of God as He comes down from heaven.
SC8. Matthew 24:30, 31
“Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.“
The angels are coming with Christ to gather all the good and pure people of all ages and from all lands to meet Christ and be with Him forever. The supreme purpose of Christ’s second coming is to take His people to that wonderfully prepared place in heaven, the New Jerusalem (John 14:3; 17:24).
SC9. 1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17
For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.
Christ will not come down and walk around on the earth at His second advent, but will appear in the air above the earth in the sight of all the people. The saints will be caught up from the earth to meet the Lord in the air, and go back with Him to the mansions of the heavenly Jerusalem. Christ will not come secretly, but with a mighty shout that will be heard all over the earth. That shout will cause the millions and millions of graves where the righteous are buried to open, and all the righteous dead will rise from the graves with immortal bodies. At the same instant the righteous who will be living on the earth at that time will be changed in a moment from mortality to immortality (1 Corinthians 15:50-53). Then the angels take all the righteous up to meet Christ in the air, and they go back with Him to the mansions of the city of God, the heavenly Jerusalem.
SC10. Philippians 3:20, 21
But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.
At the second coming of Jesus the righteous will have their bodies changed and made like Christ’s glorious body. Then we will have a glorious, immortal body that will never have an ache or a pain, that will never become old, and will never die. The coming of Jesus means that we will say good-bye to this world of sin with all our troubles, trials, hardships, and sorrows, and we will then enter into everlasting happiness and joy with Jesus Christ.
