While working for many years in information technology (IT) education, I was often involved in discussions about the project management golden triangle. According to an article on Forbes.com, the “project management triangle, which is also known as the iron triangle and the triple constraints, is a project management model that shows how three constraints (scope, time and cost) interact with each other and determine the quality of a project’s outcome. If one variable changes, the others must change to keep the project in balance. For example, if the project scope changes, the project’s timeline will need to change. If one variable is changed so much that the triangle is broken, the quality of the project will be reduced.”
We educators repeatedly reminded project managers and team members that you get to pick two of the three, but not all three. For example, you can’t have the ideal software development project that delivers maximum application features in a very short time at a minimal cost. You can deliver maximum features in a given time, but the cost must rise to secure the resources needed to do so. Or you can deliver a product in six months and stay within budget, but you can’t include every imaginable feature. Again, you can pick the two most important, but you’ll have to adjust the third.
How does this relate to teaching a Bible study class? It relates because teachers must make a similar decision: choose two of three possible constraints: breadth, depth, and time. The choice will inevitably affect the third element of the triangle.
I have pondered this reality several times this year since I am about sixteen months into a two-plus-year study of Psalms in the Sunday morning Bible study class I teach for adults at my church. Because Psalms is filled with songs and poetry, the study offers far more than textual/theological study. By nature, it differs in content from when we spent eighteen months in the Gospel of John or another eighteen months walking through Romans. The Bible teacher in me wants breadth and depth as my two priorities, allowing the time it takes to go through Psalms to adjust as needed, regardless of duration. I’d love to go deep into all 150 Psalms. We listen to songs based on the Psalms, sing occasional hymns, or pray through some, while also trying to understand the background, key messages, and relevant applications to our lives.
The reality, though, is that it would likely take a full three years or more to do all that I might imagine with 150 psalms, taking our time. I have to be mindful of people’s attention spans and interest in staying in the same book of the Bible for an extended time. I understand anyone’s hesitancy to spend three years in one book, regardless of how amazing it is as God’s poetry and song book.
So, after several months of teaching about one psalm per week, almost always having some video or other musical element, I decided several months ago to keep the breadth of all 150 psalms as the scope, but make time the second enforced element of the triangle rather than breadth. My goal is to complete the study in about 26 months total, averaging two psalms per week for the last year plus. As a Bible teacher, it’s hard for me to feel like I’m sacrificing depth, but I also don’t want to sacrifice the breadth of studying all 150 psalms.
It’s a tradeoff. Teachers (and pastors when they preach) must make hard decisions that involve breadth, depth, and time. It’s a balancing act. Not everyone will like the choices made (including the teacher or preacher), but there is no way around that in any size group.
The good news is that everything we study is God’s Word. However we structure the teaching, God will speak through it. The Holy Spirit will guide us into all truth. We will learn. We will apply His truth to our lives as we seek to be conformed to the image of Christ. We will grow as beloved brothers and sisters in Christ. I am guaranteed to teach it imperfectly, but oh, what a joy it is to open His Word with others every week and mine the depth of the riches to be found!
I hope you are engaged in Bible study with a small group every week. If you aren’t and you’re in the Winchester, Kentucky, area, I invite you to join our small group. Feel free to contact me for details on when and where.
