How Do the Happiness Book and Happiness Bible Study Go Together?

By Karen Coleman
May 24, 2016

Question from a reader:

I’m studying Happiness in my small group with just the large Happiness book and Bible Study (not the DVD Leader Kit). The Bible Study doesn’t seem to follow the chapters in the book. How do they go together?

Answer from Karen Coleman, EPM Ministry Assistant:

Thanks for your good question. It is correct that the Happiness Bible Study correlates directly with the DVDs, which are only available in the Leader Kit. When Lifeway, the publisher of the Bible Study, decided to make the videos about Happiness, they asked Randy to choose six main themes that he saw as the "big picture" ideas of the entire book. The six sessions of the DVD follow those themes. Unfortunately they don’t correlate exactly with the large book. Here is a general correlation between the Bible Study and the book Happiness:

Bible Study
Happiness Bible Study 

Happiness
Happiness

Week 1: Happiness vs. Joy

Chapter 5

Week 2: Hardwired for Happiness

Part 1, and particularly Chapters 1,2; Chapters 31,32,38

Week 3: The Happiness of God

Part 2, Chapters 12-19

Week 4: Happiness and Idolatry

Chapters 8-11

Week 5: Happiness and Holiness

Chapter 37

Week 6: The Happiness of Heaven

Chapter 42-45

Additional resources available:

  • There are six short clips (about 45 seconds each) from the Happiness Leader Kit DVDs on our website which correspond to the six sessions of the Bible Study.
  • Randy taught a three-session conference on Happiness at his home church in April 2016. The complete videos from all three sessions, each about one hour, are available on our website at the links below. Based on the questions asked for each session, here is a correlation between the conference sessions and the Bible Study:

Bible Study
Happiness Bible Study 

Happiness Conference
Happiness Conference

Weeks 1 and 2

Session 1

Weeks 3 and 4

Session 2

Weeks 5 and 6

Session 3
  • Articles, Q & A and other resources on the topic of Happiness available on our site.

Karen Coleman served as a ministry assistant at Eternal Perspective Ministries for three and a half years. She spent 23 years in Cameroon, West Africa involved in Bible translation and missionary care. Before going to Africa and before EPM began, she served as Randy’s assistant when he was a pastor. In June 2018, Karen went to be with Jesus. 

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