This past Saturday, the ‘teaching committee’ of my church got together to plan future direction. Having recently changed teaching days from Sunday to Wednesday, we needed to think about cirriculum and other things. Having decided that we are going to go through the Wild at Heart book and workbook this fall, the topic changed dramatically. Suddenly, someone said,
“People want a Study Series.”
There’s a lot I could say about the so-called study series and the dangers of creating another one. The biggest issue being that a study series reinforces a checklist-mentality. I’m sure the spreadsheets will come back with the names of the studies measuring a person’s “progress” through the studies. This would be awful. I know that structure is good and healthy and I’m not against having list of people that are studying the Bible. I am against the one-size-fits-all approach.
Aside from that, the key goal is to get back to the message of the gospel. The good news is simply that Jesus was a man like us, sacrificed his life on the cross for our sins, and rose again. I think we’ve traditionally done very well in discussing Jesus’s humanity and sacrifice. However, we’ve never done so well at the resurrection. During communion, a host of good-hearted people are trying to get in touch with Jesus’ pain and their sin instead of the good news of the resurrection. Communion is a ‘common’ time, not a group of isolated individuals in a room crucifying themselves in order to be ‘broken’ about their sin. You think the first believers gladly defied the government and said “Jesus is Lord” for this? Where in the Bible does it say that being a Christian requires a desire for masochism? The Bible is clear about taking communion in a worthy manner and I am suggesting that we have rarely taught a worthy manner.
The following are some ideas I have: unlike other posts, I will clean this one up considerably over time.
Jesus was human
As many of you know, the word gospel means ‘good news’. That begs the question, “What is this good news?”. It’s more than Jesus died for our sins. Without his humanity brought into the message, his ministry was nothing more than a field trip from Heaven. Without the humanity of Jesus, it is almost impossible to believe that he suffered. Even if that hurdle is overcome, it makes the message of God becoming like us incorrect. How can a spirit, especially the divine spirit, make a claim that He understands us and our lot in life when he really wasn’t experiencing life like we do?