A Little Bit of Bad Stuff (or Don't Eat the Poop Brownies)

This is an awesome high school age Bible Study that makes an impact. Disclaimer: I don't actually like chocolate anyway, so I have problem with this. To prepare, make brownies with dog poop in them. Set them out in front of the group during discussion as a “treat" at the end. It is also a good idea to make a good batch and hide it to actually give them so they don't get too disappointed at the end.

Start off with asking questions:

• What do you think of the media?
• What kind of t.v./music do you like?
• Why do we (society) condone so much today?
• How much do these things affect us?
• Do you pick up bad habits/words from people.

We are so ready to accept a little bit of bad language, one or two sex scenes, violence in a movie.  We “listen to the beat” of a song that doesn’t glorify God.  We say these “little things” don’t make a difference, that we can “block them out” and they won’t change anything.  The brownies will not have a different taste and would not hurt you, why doesn’t anyone ever eat them? A bad apple really does ruin the whole bunch. Once a fruit starts rotting, it spreads quickly to all the other fruit around it.

Bible Verses:

"You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion is not from him who calls you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. I have confidence in the Lord that you will take no other view, and the one who is troubling you will bear the penalty, whoever he is." -Galatians 5:7-10

"As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine." -1 Timothy 1:3

But avoid irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness, and their talk will spread like gangrene. -2 Timothy 2:16-17

Dr. Robert Kolb in his book The Christian Faith has a great analogy:

"[C]ompare the doctrine of the Scripture to a human body. The body of doctrine cannot exist if Christ the head is decapitated. It dies without the heart of our understanding of how we become right with God pumping away—although the heart, the doctrine of justification, may be partially diseased and still pump, it is true. This was evident in the medieval church, where preachers put a high but false premium on good works and still pointed people to Christ’s saving blood. We see this in contemporary Christians who empathize the contribution of our own personal decision in coming to Christ and still try to cultivate trust in his grace.

"If an arm, the doctrine of Baptism, for example, is severed, the body may be able to survive. But it may hemorrhage and die. If the leg of the doctrine of the church become paralyzed, the body may survive, but it will be crippled at best, and it may fall down in a heap and crack the head, too.

"So the question, “How much doctrine must be pure if one is to remain a Christian?” is simply a wrong kind of question. The whole of our conveying of biblical teaching needs to be accurate and on target—both because believers need to know what God wants us to know and because God’s Word is true. Nonetheless, sinful doctrinal error does not always break our relationship with the Lord even though it makes it more tenuous."