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The Most Important Component of Children’s Ministry

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In a blog post last week, Russell Moore makes an critical point about “The Cosmic Importance of Children’s Sunday School“:

Sunday school transformed my life.

What I needed was the slow repetition, over years and years, of the Word of God. What I sometimes find among Christians is knowledge of systematic theology in one tribe or of biblical moral principles in another—without knowing the narrative of the text itself. Some Christians know how to argue their view of whether Romans 7 describes pre- or post-conversion experience but don’t know the difference between Rehoboam and Jeroboam, between Abigail and Michal. We would all—as gospel Christians—affirm the entirety of the Bible as necessary and profitable but still might, if we’re honest, think that knowledge of the text’s details—rather than the theology or life principles arising from it—is more about Bible trivia than the Christian life. If so, we are wrong.

Now the exact structure of the education—that is, what we think of as “Sunday school”—is much less important than the form of the education—the slow repetition, over years and years, of the Word of God. And Moore nails his point here. The next generation needs to be fed God’s Word. Principles of theology are important, but not sufficient. Lessons in morality are important, but not sufficient.

The Church’s little ones are depending on us to get this right. Please consider what Dr. Moore has to say on this topic. Check it out!

Dear Church: I Dare You to Trust Your Bible This Year

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Wim Mulder (2005), Creative Commons

Dear Church,

Greetings in the name our common savior and only master, Jesus Christ. I remember you often in my prayers, as I beg our God and Father to strengthen your faith, increase your love, and magnify your hope through the good news revealed in the unbreakable Scriptures delivered to us through the mouths of his holy apostles and prophets. We do not serve a silent God. He has spoken to us by his Son (Heb 1:1-2), who in turn has spoken words of Spirit and life (John 6:63). In his limitless mercy, our God has made his will known and knowable to all his people unto the ages.

You, Church, are the bride of Christ. Do you hear what your Husband has to say to you? You, Church, are a pillar and buttress of the truth. Are you grounded directly in the truth that proceeds from the very lips of your God? You, Church, are the household of God. Does your Master have the final say on all that takes place on your watch? You, Church, are the assembly of the firstborn. Does the only wise God preside over all your affairs? Does your firstborn brother have preeminence? Is his teaching the primary lamp to your feet and light for your path?

I fear for you, that you have listened to so many voices, you no longer trust yourself to hear your Lord’s voice. That, from fear of ignorance, you have relied on experts to mediate God’s words to you. That, from fear of getting it wrong, you have become addicted to being told what to do. That, from fear of disapproval, you have created self-contained, self-congratulatory communities that no longer know how to give other God-honoring, Christ-worshipping, Truth-loving communities the benefit of the doubt.

Let me be clear: I fear that you may not trust your Bible to be enough for you. And if your Bible is not enough for you, it is inevitable you will stray from the truth of the Lord.

As we near the end of this year and prepare for the start of another, I dare you, Church, to trust your Bible this year. I dare you, church leaders, to preach the word. I dare you, teachers, to teach good reading skills at least as often as you teach true content. I dare you, all, to spend more time in the Bible itself than you spend in supplemental works about the Bible.

I dare you to consider some of the following resolutions:

  1. Our pastors will preach the word (2 Tim 4:1-2). When preparing a sermon, they will not read any commentaries until after they have identified a probable main point from the biblical text itself (Ps 119:15-16). Our preachers will not preach every possible point of theology or morality brought to mind by the passage’s terminology. They will preach only the main points of each sermon text, and they will connect those main points to the person and work of Jesus Christ.
  2. Our Bible study groups will study the Bible. They won’t depend on a curriculum. They won’t use a study guide. They won’t read a Christian book together. They will sit down, open their Bibles, read what’s on the page, and discuss what it says (Ps 119:18-19). Group leaders may use study guides to help them prepare, but they will reject any resource that doesn’t show its work (i.e. that doesn’t explain how it reached its conclusions from the text).
  3. Our elder meetings will not allow for any major decisions to be made without explicit reference to one or more specific Bible passages that inform our thinking. We will not excuse our failure to do this by appeals to “broad biblical truth not contained in a single text” or to “general wisdom informed by biblical truth, even if this specific decision isn’t addressed in the Bible.” We will not assume that every church leader knows how to apply biblical truth to real-life situations, and we will reject the lie that it is too elementary or pedantic a task to list specific verses for specific decisions (Ps 119:10).
  4. Our children’s ministries (Sunday school classes, Bible clubs, preschools, etc.) will dedicate time to read a passage from a normal (adult) translation of the Bible at every meeting. We might use children’s Bibles to supplement the instruction, but the children won’t be able to escape without hearing God’s own words unfiltered through a paraphraser (Ps 119:43).
  5. Our youth groups and teenage classes will not need a specialized curriculum to address moral issues facing teens. They will focus on learning how to study the Bible so they can be equipped to apply this old truth to any new problem they happen to face (Ps 119:27-28).
  6. We will train church members to lead their own evangelistic Bible studies. When we encourage them to reach out to coworkers and friends, we will encourage them not only to invite these contacts to church, but also to invite them to read and discuss the Bible over lunch breaks or in their homes (Ps 119:21).
  7. We will in no way communicate that anyone is too young, too immature, too uneducated, or too unbelieving to be able to read the Bible and understand it. We will trust the Lord Jesus to work by his Spirit through the word to convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment (Ps 119:17).

Let me also clarify: Scholars, academics, researchers, professors, pastors, and educators are a great gift to Christ’s Church. Commentaries, study guides, and academic resources have inestimable value. We could not thrive without them. But please remember that while they are mighty assistants, they make poor high priests. We do not need such things or people to mediate our relationship with Christ; we need them to help us see the way to him.

Dear Church, are you willing to trust your Bible this year? Before you reject these ideas out of hand, why not try them for a while and see if they produce pleasing fruit? Perhaps you will do well to pay much closer attention to the prophetic word, as to a lamp shining in a dark place (2 Pet 1:19).

Your servant and co-laborer in the word of truth,

Peter

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10 Super Helpful Bible Reading Tips

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This week, courtesy of the Christian satire site, Babylon Bee, we bring you 10 super-helpful Bible reading tips. Please remember these tips are not only helpful, but super helpful to your devotional life.

  1. Carefully select the Bible that looks the coolest.
  2. Broadcast your quiet time on every outlet available.
  3. Pray that God would reveal how awesome you are.
  4. Take it easy.
  5. Figure out the context of a verse, and then disregard it completely.
  6. Draw elaborate doodles all over the text.
  7. Allegorize literally everything.
  8. Make every effort to apply the difficult texts to everyone in the world except yourself.
  9. Keep in mind, every verse means “judge not.”
  10. Remember who it’s all about: you.

For a richer explanation of these magisterial skills and how you can perfect them, make sure to see the full article.

Check it out!

Beware the Instagram Bible

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Jen Wilkin makes a critical point about context and reading, when she writes of “The Instagram Bible” at her blog. Here is a taste:

Beware the Instagram Bible, my daughters – those filtered frames festooned with feathered verses, adorned in all manner of loops and tails, bedecked with blossoms, saturated with sunsets, culled and curated just for you.

Beware lest it become for you your source of daily bread. It is telling a partial truth.

I saw in my vision by night, and behold, I dreamed of a world in which every copy of the Bible was gone, except those portions we had preserved on Instagram. Consider this Bible, my daughters, if you will:

Its perfect squares are friend to the proverb, the promise, and the partial quote, leaving laws, lists, land-allotments, and long-stretching lessons to languish off-screen.

It comforts but rarely convicts.

It emotes but rarely exhorts.

It warms but rarely warns.

It promises but rarely prompts.

It moves but does not mortify.

It builds self-assurance but balks at self-examination.

It assembles an iconography whose artists, by spatial necessity, are constrained to choose

brevity over breadth,

inspiration over intellect,

devotion over doctrine.

Beware its conscribed canvas, where calligraphy conquers context.

Beware.

Click here to see the full post. And please take this to heart as you post verses, share verses, or even memorize verses. All such verses are but a nibble of a larger passage, a broader argument. If we don’t get that argument, we misuse the verse.

Check it out!

More Reasons to Read the Entire Bible Quickly

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For a few years, I’ve promoted the idea of reading the entire Bible as quickly as possible. I’ve made it my annual practice beginning on New Year’s Day for 6 years now, and it shows no sign of slowing.

What do I get out of the practice?

  1. It helps me grasp the overall story of the Bible.
  2. It reminds me the Bible is a work of literature.
  3. It gets me through the difficult parts more easily.
  4. It heightens my anticipation for Christ.

Now I have some more reasons to offer you, courtesy of Jordan Standridge:

  1. It caused me to understand that I exist for the purpose of glorifying God.
  2. It caused me to believe in the absolute sovereignty of God.
  3. It caused me to see that the sovereign God of Scripture was sovereign over my personal life as well.
  4. It was clear that God called His people to stick out from the world.
  5. It showed me that I am totally depraved.
  6. It showed me that people need God.

Standridge writes of his experience reading the entire Bible quickly in an article at The Cripplegate. Check it out!

One Very Good Reason to Read Your Bible

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Tim Challies writes of “One Very Good Reason to Read Your Bible.” And he’s absolutely right. This is about the best reason I can think of.

One of the great dangers in the Christian life is living first for self. One of the associated dangers, then, is seeing personal devotion as a practice that goes no further than my own mind, my own heart. But nothing could be farther from the truth. Your intimacy with God, your knowledge of God, your time with God, works its way outward to everyone around you. The good you can do them every day is the good of spending time with God.

Challies expands on how your daily Bible reading will benefit your spouse, your children, your neighbors, and your fellow church members. If you think you are not smart enough, or you are too busy—or if you ever struggle with finding the Bible too boring or Bible study too complicated—please lift your eyes off yourself and consider the good God would have you do for those around you. There is too much to lose if you don’t read your Bible.

Challies’s article is excellent and worth full consideration. Check it out!

Making the Most of Your Bible Reading

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Writing at For the Church, Godwin Sathianathan has some great ideas for making the most of your Bible reading.

  1. Anticipate God speaking to you through it.
  2. Set aside regular time for it.
  3. Pick one thing and read it the way it was intended to be read.
  4. Study it.
  5. Meditate and pray through it.
  6. Memorize it.
  7. Take it into your day.
  8. Apply it.

Sathianathan’s article has more explanation for each point. Check it out!

17 Benefits to Reading the Entire Bible

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At For the Church, Kristen Wetherell explains 17 benefits to reading the entire Bible. The reasons are below. Click over to her article for more explanation of each one.

  1. You’ll know God better.
  2. You’ll know yourself better.
  3. You’ll see how the whole Bible points to Jesus.
  4. You’ll be more in awe of the gospel.
  5. You’ll build an eternally significant habit.
  6. You’ll avoid tunnel vision.
  7. You’ll discover answers to some of your questions.
  8. You’ll discover that some questions don’t need to be answered.
  9. You’ll get more familiar with different genres.
  10. You’ll gain a God-centered vision, rather than a self-centered one.
  11. You’ll experience God’s faithfulness.
  12. You’ll grow in prayer.
  13. You’ll bear fruit.
  14. You’ll be more prepared for evangelism.
  15. You’ll be more prepared for discipleship.
  16. You’ll see how God’s word is consistently relevant.
  17. You’ll be increasingly transformed into the image of Jesus.

Reading the entire Bible is well worth your time. Perhaps you might even like to get in a speed-read before the year is out?

Check it out!

The Main Message of Your Bible

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In an excerpt from the ESV Men’s Devotional Bible, Bryan Chapell summarizes well “The Main Message of Your Bible.” Here is a taste:

God doesn’t intend for this divine crusade of redemption merely to interest us. As the apostle Paul writes, “Whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Rom. 15:4). The history, poetry, symbols, and instructions of Scripture vary greatly in style but not in their intention: all are intended to affect our response to life in our fallen world. Though evil is always present and frequently prevails, we are not to despair. With a patient confidence in God’s ultimate providence, and the assurance of the Scriptures that his redemption is ongoing, we always have hope.

Check it out!

5 Reasons to Study Old Testament History

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My church is wrapping up a sermon series through Mark’s gospel, and we’re getting ready to begin preaching through Exodus. To prepare for our preaching team’s meeting to discuss an overview of the book, I’ve been reading and re-reading the book. With my mind saturated in Exodus, I was delighted to see this brief article from David Murray with “5 Reasons to Study Old Testament History.”

Many Christians, according to Murray:

entertain a negative view of Old Testament History; of its usefulness and even of its accuracy. It is often regarded as “far away” and “distant” chronologically, geographically, socially, and theologically. “What can it do for me?” and “Why study it?” are common questions. Here are five reasons to study it and benefit from it.

Murray’s 5 reasons:

  1. OT History is True History
  2. OT History is Selective History
  3. OT History is Relevant History
  4. OT History is Purposeful History
  5. OT History is Redemptive History

Reading Murray’s comments, I couldn’t wait to dive back into Exodus. May it encourage you to pursue studying those many narratives that tell the stories of our people and of our King.

Check it out!