Jeff Benson

Who Is Jeff Benson?

Jeff Benson is the founder and lead architect of Benson Academy and the Abide Discipleship Program — a free, structured, Scripture-saturated training ministry built for one purpose: to equip ordinary believers to read, study, interpret, and obey God's Word with confidence and fidelity.

He is not a pastor or a seminary professor. He is a disciple — one who was given a rare gift early in life, spent years away from it, and came back with a renewed conviction that what he had been given needed to be shared.

The Story Behind Abide

Jeff came to faith in Jesus Christ through YoungLife when he was 16 years old, at a camp in upstate New York. But the groundwork had been laid long before that night.

In the months before he made his decision, Jeff had been reading the Bible on his own — working through the New Testament, then deep into the Old Testament. One day he came to the passage in John 3 where Jesus tells Nicodemus, “You must be born again.”Jeff's reaction was quiet and clear: “Those ‘born again’ Christians are on to something. Jesus said it right here.” The Scriptures were forming his faith before his faith was declared. The Spirit used the written Word to draw him to the Living Word.

God called him to Grove City College, and he is grateful for that calling. There, studying Computer Systems and Psychology, he filled every available elective with courses from the Religion department. Two of those courses — Biblical Ideas and Biblical Interpretation — changed the direction of his life. The professor who taught them was a rigorous scholar whose love for Scripture left a permanent mark on Jeff. That man went on to spend his career teaching at Reformed Theological Seminary. The method those courses taught was Inductive Bible Study: a structured, disciplined approach to reading the Bible through Observation, Interpretation, and Application.

That class was the most impactful of Jeff's academic life. He had to press hard into the text to begin to see clearly. But as he did, God showed up — opening the eyes of his heart and mind to hear what was actually being said. His heart soared.

He carried those tools into local church life through the 1990s, serving as a small group leader, a worship leader, and investing years in Biblical Counseling training. It was a rich decade of active ministry.

Then came a long desert season — years when Jeff stepped back from active ministry within his local church. It was not a season of ease or clarity. It was a season of wandering.

What the desert planted in him, though, was a longing he could not shake. Not just for belief, but for rootedness. Not just attendance, but abiding.

In the last four years, that longing drove him back to the Word with a hunger he had never known. He read through the entire Bible more than thirteen times across more than ten translations. As he did, a pattern emerged that he could not unsee: from Genesis to Revelation, across every era of the biblical story, God's people are called to the same three things. Meditate and Obey. Study and Apply. Hear and Do. It is everywhere — in the Torah, the Psalms, the Prophets, the Gospels, the Epistles. It is the shape of a living faith.

The name came from Jesus' own lips. In John 15, He repeats one word ten times in eleven verses: abide. “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit from itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.” John 15:4 · LSB That single repeated command became the name of the program and the center of its vision.

Those themes became the Abide Discipleship Program.

Why This Ministry Exists

After forty years of walking in local churches, Jeff kept seeing the same gap: believers who love God and want to understand their Bibles, but who have never been taught how.

Reading Scripture well is not automatic. It is a learned skill. The Bible is an ancient text, written in languages we no longer speak, in cultures we no longer inhabit, using literary forms we rarely encounter anywhere else. Without training, the natural default is to read our own assumptions into the text rather than drawing God's meaning out of it. Scholars call this body of knowledge Biblical Hermeneutics — the art and science of biblical interpretation. In the Abide program, it becomes something simpler and more memorable: The Guardrails of Biblical Interpretation.

The problem is that this training has historically been locked behind seminary walls or a generous church budget. Jeff searched for a free, structured equivalent accessible to everyday believers and could not find one. His conviction is direct: every believer deserves to be equipped — not just inspired — to handle the Word of God accurately (2 Timothy 2:15). He sees it as part of the Great Commission itself.

The Abide Discipleship Program is his answer to that gap. It is free. It is structured. And it is built for the believer who never had a professor like the one Jeff had at Grove City College.

How the Course Works

Abide is designed for self-directed study — every lesson delivered in five formats so you can engage in the way that fits your life:

• Article (Web Page) with Engage the Text questions — the richest, most thorough experience. Best to start here.
• Podcast Discussion — ideal for learning on the go, during your commute, or while doing chores.
• Brief Overview Video — useful for reviewing key points visually.
• Slides— a graphical summary of the lesson's core content.
• Study Guide — a concise version of the lesson with follow-up questions and a glossary of key terms.

You can save bensonacademy.com/listento your iPhone home screen as a web app — a single page where you can listen to any lesson's podcast or watch its video without leaving the page. The Teacher's Portal provides a complete lesson guide and student handout for anyone who wants to lead others through the course in a Sunday school or small group setting.

The aim is not to feel like a seminary class. A high school student should be able to follow and understand every concept taught. When technical terms appear, they are defined. The depth is real — the barrier to entry is not.

The Vision: More Than Self-Study

Jeff's long-term vision for Abide goes beyond individual learning. Learning the tools is one thing. Using them in community is where they take root.

He hopes to support group sessions — virtual or in-person — where participants work through the lesson content on their own first, then come together to open Scripture, study collaboratively, and practice the skills the lesson teaches.

The capstone of the program's roadmap, Abide 205: Multiply, is designed to raise up trained facilitators who can guide others through the full program or lead ongoing Inductive Bible Study small groups — communities where the skills are practiced for a lifetime.

If you are a church elder, ministry leader, or small group facilitator interested in exploring what that could look like in your context, Jeff would love to hear from you.

Get Started or Get in Touch

Ready to begin? Start working through the lessons at your own pace at bensonacademy.com. Take advantage of the multi-modal presentation — start with whichever format fits your life today.

Want to partner, collaborate, or learn more? Reach out via the Abide Discipleship Ministries LinkedIn page. Whether you are interested in supporting the ministry, exploring group curriculum use, or simply have a question — the door is open.