Teaching People Through Sunday School

2 Timothy 3:16-17 - "All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work."

The Bible, the Word of God, is central to the life of the Church and central to the life of every true follower of Jesus. Listen to these words by Pastor Mark Dever:

"Because we have separated ourselves from God by our sin, God must speak if we are to know Him...God will not be known if He does not speak, and we cannot know Him if He has not spoken a word that we can rely on. God must reveal Himself. That is the point of the Bible. Because of our own sins, we could never know God otherwise. Either He speaks or we are forever lost in the darkness of our own speculations." (Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, p. 49)

The Bible is how we know who God is, who we are, how we relate to God and how we relate to one another. In order for us to know these things we must study the Bible and teach from it regularly. Thus, teaching the Bible is a foundational aspect of our Sunday School strategy.

We can reach out to one another and the lost world around and bring them to Sunday School, but if we are not regularly and faithfully studying and teaching the Word of God to them, then Sunday School becomes nothing more than a social gathering. The Church has a purpose and that purpose is to love God, love others, and make disciples (faithful followers of Jesus Christ) of all nations. This purpose cannot be accomplished apart from the studying and teaching of the Word of God.

One of the goals of our teaching the Bible is that some of those sitting in our Sunday School classes will hear the Gospel and God will draw them to Himself through repentance and faith that they would be forever saved and changed by His gracious, merciful, and eternal work. Another goal we aim at in teaching during Sunday School is for the encouragement and building up of the Church. Those who are sitting in our Sunday School classes that have already experienced God's miraculous salvation need encouragement and direction in how to live the Christian life in a way that will bring honor and glory to God.

Even though these two goals for our teaching the Bible in Sunday School are great goals, we know that the Sunday School experience is supposed to be so much more than just a one hour Bible study on Sunday mornings. In the previous post about reaching through Sunday School we relayed the fact that Sunday School ought to be more about people doing life together than just a "school" setting. Many around the country look at Sunday School as old and just a time of Bible study, but that is not what we are aiming at in our strategy with Sunday School in our church - we are aiming at doing life together with the goal of doing "spiritual good" to one another, to borrow a phrase from Mark Dever. This is our aim because we know that the teaching of the Word of God will be more effective in reaching the lost world around us if they see the Church living it out together in front of them. We don't want to just sit in a class once a week, we want to do life together (teaching and doing). So that we may know Him!