Terry, you wrote:

#3. Exactly what “theological” issues do you have with Lifeway materail? That’s quite a pronouncement. It’s also a very bold and sometimes reckless statement, to claim what you are doing is “more biblical”. Many Godly leaders have been and still are firmly and excellently grounded in the classroom discipleship. Your approach may be….MAY BE…more relevant to your area/culture but more biblical? That’s bold!
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If I might add to Joe’s comment here with a practical illustration for you, Terry. This past Easter, in the Family’ Bible Study curriculum, the lessons were each focused on the Offices of Christ as Prophet, Priest, and King, with lesson 4 focusing on the atonement. Here was a TREMENDOUS opportunity to lead the membership through a step-by-step explanation of the meaning of this. I was taught about the 3 offices of Christ when I was in high school in the 80′s. My people had never heard of the concept. The curriculum, however, was way too simple. It went something like this: “Jesus is a prophet, therefore we should listen to Him.” That’s it. Every lesson was like that. Thus, I told my class I was going to take the same topic in the literature, let them read it at home, but I would, in class, teach them WHY Jesus is a Prophet, WHY this is important, and, most importantly, HOW Jesus is a Prophet. I started with the concept of “covenant,” and that He is the Mediator of the New Covenant, and that, for centuries, most Christians have recognized that Jesus, as the Mediator of the New Covenant held three offices. These offices were the topic of our lessons for the month. From there, I walked very slowly through a fill-in-the-blank handout I had made for each person, having them read the Scriptures for each part, and I took them through Scripture and showed them how He was the Prophet like Moses, etc. I even had time for feedback at the end of the class. The class I was teaching was, that day, the class of the oldest men in this church, who all told me they had learned more that day than they had in a long time, and that they had never been taught that before. I was even able to give them some names of some good books, but, most importantly, I encouraged them to check the Scriptures we had discussed. THEN, I told them, “Because of all of this, and the record of it handed down to us, THIS is WHY we should do what Christ says as God’s Prophet to us.” THAT is the kind of Sunday School lesson that the curriculum needs to have. What’s more, I taught this in a small, rural church. If my people can “get it,” at that age, anybody can.

As it is now, that particular curriculum is, in the words of several of our teachers, spotty at best, and it jumps around too much. The other curriculum, “Explore the Bible” is more focused on following the text in a systematic fashion, but it is still too shallow a treatment. Rule of thumb: A good teacher will make the best of what s/he has, but, at the same time, no student will rise above the teacher, and, in my experience, most churches have teachers that teach what the teacher’s manual says, but what do they do if the teacher’s manual is wrong? They teach it anyway, and may lack the discernment to know it is incorrect or is an area where there is legitmate disagreement.

For example, I believe in “limited atonement,” I will not teach a lesson referring to “general atonement,” as correct. I refer to it as “a view,” if the issue is relevant. Likewise, I will, and have, openly challenged Sunday School teachers in their classes, just to see how well they handle questions. Many can’t do that, and I don’t ask hard questions at all, but I will sometimes say, “Well, what about this?”

Case in point: “If Jesus paid for the sins of everybody without exception, then how can you say God is just? Doesn’t that mean that the people that are in hell now are there for something Jesus paid for?” Typically, the response is, “Well, they didn’t believe in Him.” To which I simply say, “Isn’t unbelief a sin?” Either they go the “He didn’t die for that sin” route (where is that in Scripture?) or “unbelief isn’t a sin,” (which Scripture contradicts directly in a number of spots in a couple ways). Then I simply ask the folks to think about the definition of “world” in 1 John 2:2, and consider John uses “world” 14 different ways, and I have just shown them that they have chosen the definition that raises more questions than it answers, so maybe we need to discuss which of the other 13 definitions makes the most sense and why, and if John ever actually defines it for us in a similar text, like, say John 11: 51, 52. I explain to them that I understand their view, but that my particular view is the view of the majority of the early Southern Baptists, so this is not a heretical doctrine, and it is believed by others, like the evangelical Presbyerians, and that, while they may disagree with it, it is a legitmate point-of-view that makes sense and actually is very meaningful, because, from my position, I can say, “Jesus really did pay for all my sins. He really did satisfy God’s wrath, etc,” but they can’t say that without being either (a) universalists, or (b) resorting to a solution to my questions that the Bible doesn’t support itself. My goal is to at least get them to understand that one view limits the scope but not the power of the atonement, and the other limits the power, but not the scope. Only one makes the best sense of the texts. Which is it?

Sunday School is still a school. We would never want a math teacher that didn’t move her class out of addition and subtraction by the end of the year and who couldn’t do advanced math, even if s/he taught first graders. We need to do better with training our teachers, provide more challenging curriculum, and get folks to dig deeper, and having some real expectations of that classroom experience, if not the home itself. Where they can get those is the setting that will work. It may mean dropping “Sunday School” for home Bible studies. One very large PCA church here does that, and they are growing tremendously and producing some VERY solid, well educated, Bible-believing members. They have one core training in the fall, and they teach one group class in the spring on church history and historical theology. The kids study through different books of the Bible during the fall and spring, but the adults and youth do most of what we would call Bible fellowship or Sunday School proper in small groups in homes during the week.

I’m going to preach a moment, please bear with me, because I have a very strong philosophy of Christian education. Why is this more biblical?

A. A teacher with no expectations that feeds his students pabulum is not benefiting his students or his church. He has a duty to their souls, and this includes setting goals and expectations for them and following up on them. Simply saying, “Everybody is at their own place with God, and I trust God to lead them,” is just an excuse for “I do not wish to make the effort myself.” We are called to “strive” to “contend” to “study” and to “teach.” Teaching does not consist of spoon-feeding milk to babies. It consists in the exposition of the Word of Truth.

B. Dr. C. Mark Corts, my former pastor, once said that no congregation, no Sunday School, and no Bible Study rises above the level of its pastors, teachers, and leaders. Never was a truer word spoken. The attitude that believes that one must simply give basic teaching to a people and that God will somehow cause them to rise above that level keeps those persons at that level and no further. If a teacher is unwilling, saying “I will do it my way, you can be a part of that or not”…and that way has been shown to them to be woefully inadequate …is the attitude that their pupils will have in their own lives. God gives teachers what they sow. If they sow complacently and do not think through their beliefs and constantly grow, the people will become unthinking, complacent, and stagnant as well. They will, bluntly, come to have the discernment of shoelaces over time. They will be taken in by every manner of doctrine, deceived radically in many ways. Remember, Hos. 4:6, God said, “My people are destroyed, for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you. As priest…as people…as teacher…as students…as pastor/elder…as local church. This is the biblical pattern.

C. If the teacher will not rise up and challenge the students and set the pace for growth, then the students have no example to follow themselves. The growth of teachers and leaders is paramount to the growth of a people. God has ordained this in His teachers as the means to the end, the growth of His people. This is why we Baptists almost universally require some formal training for our ministers now. It is the reason that every lay teacher needs to spend time reading and studying items beyond that which they are simply handed by the leadership. 2 Timothy 2:15.

D.As the teacher then grows the people will grow with him, and not until then. Feeding Christians spiritual milk keeps them in the crib, it does not and will never grow them out of the crib. I believe strongly in education, structure, and setting real expectations that pupils and teachers both need to meet, from the pastor in his preparation to the members of the new Christians Sunday School class. Dr. Corts taught me that, on this, there must be no compromise, or else we should write “Ichabod” (the glory has departed) over the doorways of our churches and classrooms now and all go home. See Hosea…the whole shebang.

E. Paul said that without love we are nothing, he also wrote:

That their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love, and attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ Himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. (Colossians 2:2-3).

How is one “rich” in a spiritual manner? Does love make us rich? No, it is not orthopraxy that makes a man rich. It is orthodoxy. One is rich spiritually who has a “full assurance of understanding.” Love is a result of understanding. Understanding is not a result of love. Too many times we interpret what Paul says about love and apply it toward interpersonal relationships or the way we live for God. However, we are to love understanding as well; that is, we must love the truth. We cannot effectively love others if we do not love the truth as well. Love for others is, in fact, a product of a love for truth. We must do both or neither. For the teacher, he must love the truth and understand it to teach it. Not to grow as a teacher and go deeper than the superficial is to deprive yourself and the souls in your care of spiritual riches. The mind that muddles along with anything less than growth in understanding, that challenges not the minds and hearts of those in its care is dishonoring God. It does not matter if you don’t give them a nice little moral lesson to take home with them (which most can do if they read the literature anyway, after all this is Sunday School, Bible Study, or Sunday worship), what does matter is that they leave understanding the text itself, not what some commentary or denominational literature says about it. The text itself is paramount, even if it doesn’t lend itself to three points for practical application or five alliterated points of exposition.

The Hershel Hobbs Commentary (which is bad enough in my personal opinion) and leaders’ guides serve as a check on private interpretation that may be “out in left field.” They are not intended to direct your teaching’s total content. (That stance is, incidentally, exactly the teaching of Rome and all the cults with respect to their teaching of the Bible.) They are intended to supplement your teaching and private study. God has seen fit that we know things. Thus we should strive to know. What if the leadership or the literature is, in fact, in error? If you are dependent on it, then you will never know, and you too will be led astray. Why do you think so many Baptists, indeed many Christians of all stripes, today do not know the Bible? I submit this is one reason!

F. Regarding the pattern Joe is describing. This is, in fact, very biblical. If you read through the New Testament, you find the church meeting together, and there was teaching, but there was also a significant amount of real dialogue going on in the churches that simply isn’t, in my experience in a smaller church (though not when I served a 5000 member one many years ago) simply doesn’t happen. In fact, it was probably this kind of interaction that Paul had in mind when he talked about divisions in many churches….they tended to listen to each other as well as their elders, and they tended to dialogue with each other. Paul often calls for order (1 Cor., the Pastorals), but he is careful not to tell them not to interact or dialogue, they should simply hear each other out, weed out the bad doctrine, stick to the text of Scripture and the Apostle’s teaching that was congruent with it, listen carefully to the elders, weed out false teachers through observation, and edify each other in the process.

In our churches, even the really big ones (usually especially those) Jesus is just above the pastor and maybe the deacons or teachers are just under them, but that’s it. Our people don’t seem to interact as much as the could in other settings. Home Bible studies are, in my opinion, much better forums. Likewise, I think a good Minister of Education, if you have one, should make himself available for evening sessions twice a week for the leaders of those studies and the Sunday School “proper” teachers to help them prepare, answer questions, go over the lessons with them, see where they are with the Biblical text, and help them come to their OWN conclusions through prayerful, careful study, in good Baptist fashion. He can do what the leaders’ guide does. This isn’t “control,” it’s just responsible leadership, particularly if the church has a, well, not so astute group of teachers. You pray and teach and are faithful with the people God gives you. That’s why He has you there.

Here endeth the lesson…

By the way, I HIGHLY recommend, for you teachers out there, a book I frequently use, because I like to teach in a more interactive setting: Search the Scriptures Alan Stibbs, editor (You can get it at Christianbook.com). It’s a Bible Study Guide for individual use for 3 years, but it is very easily adaptable; very good for adults and families. It works from book to book through the whole Bible in Q/A format. It is extremely adaptable. You can divide the questions up for groups to answer; and bring them back together for short presentations. That way, they teach each other, and you can pick up on their cues. Also, if you want to study say, Romans in class or a home group, you can copy the pages for Romans, seven lessons for the week, give copies to all the class, and ask them to commit to individual prayer and study at home that week. Start the first lesson with the basic information about the outline of the book, dating, setting, authorship, major themes, etc. Let them work through the texts for that week. Make yourself available to answer any questions during the week. Sunday or whatever day you meet each week, when you meet again, you can have them discuss what they learned and share with each other, then you can take the last 20 minutes of a class and develop some of the themes that they mentioned or you can even wait until the end of the study itself and camp out for a few more lessons to do a special on say Romans 4 and 5 (imputation), Romans 9, Romans 8:28 – 30, etc; hitting those areas of particular concern that may be more difficult or other areas with which they may have felt a bit fuzzy.

Thanks for the encouragement guys.

Joe is doing some of the best writing out there on these issues, IMO. I’m glad some people are noticing. Also Joe, your response to Terry was well said. You really weren’t being as bold as Terry implied, but stating what many have been saying for some time, including many more traditional SBC’rs.