Yesterday, I was again reminded of how important it is to be clear when we teach the Scriptures. I was prepared to teach the lesson “Tell the Truth” as outlined in the LifeWay quarterly, however, the following situation occurred early in the class.
I ask members to describe the Mosaic covenant, and with some help, they generally described the agreement made between God and the Israelites in Exodus 19. Moreover, they were quick to point out that the Israelites failed to obey the Law. Hence, the covenant was broken. Then I read Luke 22:20 and asked them to describe the new covenant Jesus instituted with His death. I received lots of answers, but only one was specifically on point.
It dawned on me at that moment (Holy Spirit’s leading) to make sure that every member could clearly state the promise of the new covenant. I essentially chunked the Lifeway lesson I had planned and focused on one basic teaching—what is the new covenant. We contrasted the old and new covenants as outlined in the iLumina Bible, which was very helpful.
Many people came up afterwards to tell me how much they appreciated the clarity of the lesson. They never sensed that I changed horses midstream. Most of the lesson I intended to teach ended up on the “cutting room floor” and what remained turned out to be very clear.
In hindsight, the LikeWay lesson as outlined included too much material and would have been impossible to cover, except only in a “drive by fashion”. I like the fact that this week’s lesson Show Gratitude, from Hebrews 10:1-4,8-18, doesn’t try to cover as much material.
Let me end this post by saying that it’s more important that members firmly grasp basic teachings such as the old verses new covenants than it is to only conceptually grasp a broad range of topics, which last week’s lesson certainly presented good opportunity to do. And even as we teach, be sensitive to the leadership of the Holy Spirit in the classroom!
What was your experience in the classroom on Sunday?
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4 comments:
I had a similar experience on Sunday. I asked what I thought was a fundamental question: why must there be the shedding of blood for the forgiveness of sins? After a lot of furrowed brows and blank stares, I tried to narrow the question: what is sin? The only answer I got was "not doing God's will." I tried to get them to go deeper, but got back more blank stares.
I ended up breaking my do-not-answer-your-own-questions rule and ended up explaining what amounts to the gospel to them. God is holy (explain that to them); we essentially belittle and assault his character by our sin (much like an adulterous spouse, which made sense to them); and therefore, deserve a just death for doing so. The fact that sin, in and of itself, is "bad" is not why we deserve to die -- it's because God is so holy. That's why there must be the shedding of blood for the forgiveness of sin, and that's why Christ came to be our perfect sacrificial High Priest. And that's the whole point of Hebrews. :-)
I ended the lesson with an exhortation not to be the people we talked about a couple weeks ago in Heb. 5:11-14. I didn't have the positive feedback like you did, but I know it served as a wake-up call for those in our class -- I could see it in their faces.
Hey Cameron,
Good to hear from you man! I've been wondering how you are doing. Your experience is very interesting, and thank you for the insight regarding "shedding of blood." For sure, life is in the blood, and shedding of blood indicates death.
I know what you mean by that "look on their faces" comment. The Holy Spirit enables teachers to know when they are connecting with class members and when they are not!
I take it you didn't make it all the way thru the LifeWay lesson either?
Hi Dillon,
You are welcome, and from the sound of things, you must have a great class! God is good, and I am so grateful to be part of such a my Bible study class. I know you feel the same way.
Sorry about the problems with blogger. I'm not sure what happened, but once I had a similar thing occur and I thought I'd lost my post, but I was able to recover using the back button somehow. Strange...
Actually, we did make it all the way through the lesson this week. The "detour" happened in Heb 7:22, so we were nearing the end of the lesson anyway (I sure hadn't planned on that point in the lesson taking so long). After our "detour" I just hit the highlights of the remaining text (had to cover Heb 7:28 about our "eagerly waiting on [Christ]").
Thanks for your faithfulness in maintaining this blog.
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