Bible Class and Boredom


I must confess to hating Bible Class. As a part of my job I often am asked to teach. At certain points in my life I actually enjoyed this but after several years of teaching adults I really have become cynical and jaded.

To me they often seem more like a time to tell everyone what we already know, boy aren’t we smart. A time to ask the most minuscule questions or to point out the oddest facts. Yes the Magi, they were Magi not Wise men you know, came to a house not a stable, but should we spend the entire class discussing this fact? They seemed to be a time to talk about things we had no intention of doing or changing.

Maybe you know what I mean. It is good when God reminds me that this may not necessarily be so. We have been doing a study entitled Flesh vs. Spirit. We have spent the past several weeks looking at the battle that rages between what our flesh wants and what the Spirit brings.

We had ended by looking at what Paul tells us comes from our flesh and what comes from the Spirit. At the end of class I was approached by a gentleman that I will call Jack. Jack has been coming the past 6 months to worship with us at New Heights. Originally he came because of his girlfriend but when she broke up he decided to stick around.

Now this means a lot because Jack has a rough past. He hasn’t gathered with a church since he was a boy. His opinion of Christians isn’t particularly a high one. He has met too many who didn’t seem to practice what they preached.

He not only began to come with his girlfriend but he started attending class. This past week he approached me afterwards with a question.

He said, “Let me see if I understand this.” He paused as if he wanted to make sure he got this right, “You seem to be saying that if we love God and we appreciate what he has done for us, then we are going to love others and this is the way we love.”

He had another pause before he finished, “Am I hearing this right?”

For all of the times I thought I was wasting it, for all the moments I think we are just talking to hear our own voice, I will remember that day. My friend Jack had no idea that was what it was about, that the idea of Christianity is to love God and love people. Do we hear the irony of this fact? That a person can grow up and have some church experience and yet not know that this is the point.

I think sometimes we have complicated Christianity to a point of confusion. Which way is the right way, which belief is true. What facts must I know to be saved. Jack reminded me that there are a lot of people who don’t understand Christ because they don’t understand church. What makes me sad is that this is our fault.

May we be people who understand what it is all about because there are too many Jack’s in this world.