Bible Teaching in SDA Religious Education
Can Bible classes be life-changing? If so, how?
For thirty years I have been teaching Bible on the college level. I have seen the "generation gap" come and go. Church attendance on the part of our youth has noticeably lessened during the past three decades. I have heard it said many times that the church is not retaining its youth. Clearly a smaller percentage of our youth in North America are attending our own schools. We have written articles bemoaning the problem. We have done surveys to find out the whys. Sometimes I have felt that, as the youth read our articles and surveys, we are further convincing them of the ineptness of the church to keep them, thus confirming in their minds the rightness of their decisions to part company with the church, attend secular schools, and generally live lives of their own choosing, often quite apart from both the church and Christ.
Isn't it time to focus on what we could do right and better, and attractively, and drawingly, and dynamically, to help our youth grow up as dedicated, born-again Christians, who will not even think of leaving the church? We can greatly lessen scars if we can lead our growing boys and girls and youth to avoid falling into a pattern of living that is sure to cause scars. No one needs to taste of the world in order to become an intelligent Christian. Rather, we need such a taste of Christ that the world around us will become something to be won for our Lord, not something first to be tasted so that then, seeing the contrast, we can become dynamic Christians. Let's flee from such erroneous thinking.
Conversion-centered
How can we make our teaching of the Bible truly conversion-centered in the elementary grades, in academy, and in college? How about in teaching the Sabbath School lesson, or using the Bible in youth rallies? How could we improve our discussions at retreats, our presentations to friends who do not belong to our church, and even how our pastors use the Bible in their sermons each week? What follows applies to all of these, plus to our approach to the Bible and the writings of Ellen White in our own personal devotions and reading opportunities.
In all of these exposures, there are facts to be presented, and an experience to be encouraged and developed. The BIG question will always be, How can we bring the Word of God to the heart, so that dynamic and exciting Christian lives result?
Work as God's Tools
We can stop harping on the problem, and attempt to get a hold on how to work as God's tools to produce dedicated and growing youthful Christians. This must include how we use the Bible, how we help youth to relate rightly and enthusiastically to Ellen White, how we can teach the inspired materials so that transformation of character is central and achievable, and how to show the true purpose of the Seventh-day Adventist Church to our youth so that they will not choose to be anywhere else.
Jesus, our example, certainly taught religious information to His disciples. He taught them the facts about salvation, obedience, judgment, death, tithing, Sabbath, second coming, sanctuary, and much more. Read the gospels—they are all there. But He also presented along with them a beautiful, personal illustration—His own example of the translation of those many facts into a living, loving, drawing, exciting experience. The Teacher demonstrated something.
His closest followers caught it. One day Jesus told a rather large group of listeners, His disciples included, that they must "eat His flesh" and "drink His blood" if they were to have life. Immediately afterwards, John 6:66 tells us that "from that time many of His disciples [other than the twelve] went back, and walked no more with Him." We may have missed the magnificent point in the next three verses of the passage. The Lord then turned to the twelve and asked, "You do not want to leave too, do you?"
"Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God."
In verses 68 and 69 we have one of the greatest statements of commitment in all the Scriptures. Peter said, "Lord, [if we go away,] to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God" (NIV, emphasis supplied). Note that Peter did not ask, "What other theology is there except Yours?" or, "Where would we go?" Going somewhere else would break their personal relationship, and for Peter such would be impossible.
We have our central directive for better Bible teaching right here. In whatever situation we teach the Bible, in the classroom or in the church or in the community, we must strive to lead young and older minds to a personal relationship with the Lord as the result of correct religious facts.
How does one do that? It begins with our own essential relationship to Christ. We must first be mastered by the Master, for we cannot give to others what we do not have ourselves. One who would teach others to become Christians must daily seek earnestly after God for his own soul, to bring every thought, word and action into captivity to the Lord. Yesterday's conversion experience will not do. As God's mercies and compassions are "new every morning" (Lam 3:22-23), so must be our experience of them. We can expect no fruit without this.
The second principle follows from the first. The student must be able to see the Master in the teacher. We must accept the responsibility for being teachers whose lives demonstrate what the facts look like when they have been translated into loveliness, joyfulness, peacefulness, kindliness, goodliness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control—the earmarks of the Spirit-filled Christian life (Gal 5:22,23). Uncommitted teachers can teach religious facts; and that is probably as far as their "Bible teaching" will go. Committed teachers must also live them.
But this is still not enough. The committed teacher must also master how to translate facts into experience for the students as a daily part of the program of Bible teaching. This is where "the rubber meets the road" in teaching. We need to learn how to do this in an expert way. The remainder of this article will attempt to show how it may be done.
How?
How can we accomplish this objective? We must realize that the Bible and the writings of Ellen White contain many facts, but only one central theme. "The central theme of the Bible, the theme about which every other in the whole book clusters, is the redemption plan, the restoration in the human soul of the image of God. From the first intimation of hope in the sentence pronounced in Eden to that last glorious promise of the Revelation, 'They shall see His face; and His name shall be in their foreheads,' the burden of every book and passage of the Bible is the unfolding of this wondrous theme,—man's uplifting, the power of God, 'which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ'" (Education, pp. 125-126, emphasis supplied).
Further, "It was His mission to bring to men complete restoration; He came to give them health and peace and perfection of character" (The Ministry of Healing, p. 17, emphasis supplied).
We have studied more about redemption than we have restoration. Yet the central theme is clearly redemption-restoration. "To restore in man the image of his Maker, to bring him back to the perfection in which he was created, to promote the development of body, mind, and soul, that the divine purpose in his creation might be realized—this was to be the work of redemption. This is the object of education, the great object of life" (Education, pp. 15-16).
"The central theme is clearly redemption-restoration. This is the object of education, the great object of life."
After Adam and Eve sinned, physical, mental, and spiritual deterioration set in, and has never stopped to this day. Deterioration was the first result of separation from God. In the deteriorated state, mankind's greatest problem has always been selfishness. Adam placed his love for the created (Eve) above his love for, and trust in, the Creator. There we have it—selfishness. It took the place of God's divine love ruling in the human heart. (See Steps to Christ, p. 17.)
Adam and Eve received forgiveness that very day as they believed in what the innocent blood of the first sacrifice represented. But, as with every succeeding generation, they were then faced with recovery from selfishness. They must find insights into God's way rather than a selfish way of dealing with the physical being; God's guidelines rather than selfish impulses for improved mental abilities; and God's plan for recovering spiritual supremacy and godlikeness. Human beings ever since must also discover how their selfishness may be replaced with God's selflessness—with His love as the new ruling force in the life.
According to the statement above from Education, pp. 125-126, the burden of every book and every passage of the Bible is to provide the answers we need to accomplish these ends. But if we study the Bible (and the writings of Ellen White) and stop with only facts, without the "how" of an accompanying transformation of character, then we have not understood the central redemption-restoration theme, and have not made a clear application of how it all works. We must discover the "how it works" first for ourselves.
Is Jesus not only redeeming us, but working His restoration to His image in our lives? If we are experiencing this, we will be able to convey it to our youth, to any audience.
"Redemption-restoration" means that people separated from God (with all that the word "separation" implies) need divine healing—from selfishness, from all physical, mental and spiritual illnesses. Could we fairly say this is all included in Christ's statement in Luke 5:31, "They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick"?
If we can make this point, then we admit that we must begin our healing by coming to the Great Physician, Whose office is at the foot of the Calvary. All true healing (restoration to the image of God) begins there. And all further, future recovery—physical, mental, spiritual—takes place only as we remain there.
Divine love and selflessness are discovered there. When we accept that love, we are reborn and are forgiven for the past. When we bask daily in that same love, it works to replace selfishness; it reverses what happened when Adam and Eve sinned. And if we will stay at the foot of the cross for the rest of our lives, restoration to God's image absolutely will take place. Our lives will become Spirit-filled lives of love, joy, and peace, and all of the Spirit-fruit.
Jesus clearly identified the final proof of redemption-restoration: "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another" (John 13:34). Must we present facts, data, doctrines, beliefs, objective norms? Of course. Such are the Biblical fabric that makes the cloth. Discussion without the facts can lead to conjecture, personal opinion, bias, falsehood, downright deception. But the correct information must also be translated into a type of life that loves again as Jesus loves, with selflessness as the ruling principle of living.
In 1 Corinthians 13 Paul tells us at length how such operates. And Jesus helps us understand selflessness in His statement of His own life principle, "The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister" (Matt 20:28).
We will see precious few of our dear youth (or persons of any age) who have experienced this transformation as the result of an experience with the loving Christ, who have discovered triumphant living that results from that personal relationship, and who have experienced the Spirit's fruit, ever drift away from the church, or choose any secular education which would lead away from a life of ministering in some way to others' needs. They find the rewards of true, Christlike living too overwhelmingly great. Settling for anything less they find not just second best; rather it is choosing emptiness and meaningless in life—going nowhere every day.
Illustrating the Central Theme
We need now to put the central objective, the central theme, back into the situation where we are doing the teaching—in the school, in Sabbath School, at home, in the pulpit. Let's take two doctrines of the Bible with which we are very familiar, and illustrate how we can accomplish God's central theme of redemption and restoration.
1) Tithing. In both the Old and New Testaments, the Bible is clear on the tithing principle. "Tithe" means tenth, so the amount is not in doubt. Refusing to return it to God is called robbing God. Christ upheld tithing, and Paul affirmed the tithing principle. The key texts can all be presented, the doctrine forcefully spelled out. We present the facts.
Is that where we conclude our presentation of the day's lesson? We might add a strong appeal NOT to rob God of what is rightfully His. Is that where we conclude our study? What really is the basic point of tithing in light of the central theme of redemption and restoration? How does tithing contribute to transformation of character?
Sin brought a change from love to selfishness. And restoration to the image of God indicates a return to love from selfishness. Such an experience begins when we come face to face with Christ, the loving One, at the cross where He died.
Then why tithe? Could it be that God saw that one great source of the selfishness problem would arise from man's possessions, from his money? Did God then see that a practice in the Christian life, which involves money, would serve to further help to destroy selfishness? Placing God first, even with our money, lines up with everything else in the redemption-restoration centered life. With a dime on every dollar, we honor our Creator God just as surely as we honor Him in His claims on us in connection with daily salvation. As we have experienced His blessings which flow so full and free from Calvary, we also come to experience the abundant blessings He has promised the faithful tither in Malachi 3:10.
We quickly learn that what we receive back may not be an unexpected windfall of money because we tithe, but rather a new inflowing of divine love into a life that is already daily growing in the love of God. With every faithful tithing experience, selfishness is dying, God is being made first, and the effect of sin is being continually reversed. Love is increasing.
Is this what we are teaching in our classrooms, in the Sabbath School class, in Bible studies, in the pulpit? Fear of God is not a transforming factor in teaching tithing. Character does not necessarily develop from being afraid. But character does develop when we relate to God in an ever-growing love experience as loving stewards. Tithing so perceived is attractive, and aids in restoring us to a total, genuine Christlikeness.
2) Sabbath. From creation to the new earth, the Bible facts for keeping the seventh-day Sabbath are clear. In fact, the evidence is overwhelming. In our teaching, do we overwhelm our students with the facts, and then ask for conformity as the result of the weight of the data? Is that how a knowledge of the Sabbath transforms the character and contributes to man's redemption-restoration?
If every book and every passage of the Bible has one theme, then the Sabbath has the same theme. How is it that the keeping of the Sabbath on the seventh day can transform the character, free us from selfishness, make us more loving? We must include answers to these crucial questions, and add our own living demonstration that it really works this way, that will attract our audience to the real benefits of Sabbath-keeping. We must help them to see its redemption-restoration quality and purpose.
"Teach the Sabbath truth, not as a strict time to sit and be good, but as God's day of opportunity to become truly good in a greater way."
The seventh day honors our Creator and Redeemer. But it is not enough merely to be reminded of Him; we need to plan our time in such a way that maximum restoration to God's image takes place every Sabbath. That must include private study time, special prayer time, corporate worship time, family time, nature time, service time, "lawful to do good" time. At the close of the Sabbath, our prayer will not be, "Lord, if I've messed it up somewhat, forgive me," but "Lord, if I have not used the past 24 hours in such a way as to have obtained maximum growth into your image, if I haven't learned to love more, help me to begin now to plan for next Sabbath to achieve the maximum results You have in mind for me."
Teach the Sabbath truth, not as a strict time to sit and be good, but as God's day of opportunity to become truly good in a greater way. We should be able to take our whole class home with us for those sacred hours, and demonstrate how we can really grow much closer to the Lord with a new discovery of the Sabbath's redemption-restoration central theme.
Exegesis and exposition of the Scriptures are critical to our discovering of the facts. But we can correctly parse the verbs, accurately decline the nouns, discover fresh nuances of words, take adequate consideration of historical backgrounds and contexts—then faithfully present it all; yet fail to show our students how the redemption-restoration theme is involved. And they can go away with more facts, but without transformation of character, restoration to the image of God, or the ability to love more fully.
The central theme of redemption-restoration must emerge clearly from the most scholarly of presentations, and be illustrated in the life of a totally committed Christian teacher, or the student still has only a facts-religion.
Summary
What can we do to lead our youth, our church members, our neighbors, into a Biblically-oriented, truly transforming and genuinely exciting way of Christian living? First, we must get our facts straight. And we must present them in the clearest, simplest, most commanding way possible. But we must never make this first step the "end" of what we are doing. Facts are a means to the end. If we faithfully and winningly present the redemption-restoration theme contained in each set of facts, and support it by our consistent and attractive demonstration of the results in our own lives, God will speak through us His will, His way, His love, His ability to transform and give victory, His great drawing power.
God can turn the trends we don't enjoy seeing today in our church, in our schools, in our towns, into a new atmosphere of Pentecost, into a new day of faithfulness, into continual restoration of true godliness. He can use us to lead boys and girls, youth, and older people to a relation to Christ that is so full and secure, that they, with Peter, will chorus their faithfulness to their Lord: "If we left You, Lord, to whom would we go? You have the truths that lead to eternal life, and we will not forsake you." In wisdom that comes from the Old Testament, and from the knowledge of their own weaknesses of the flesh, they add, "By Your grace."