Category Archives: Theology

Is Cremation Really an Option for Christians?

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cremation-urn-2Cremation in North America has been on the rise for decades. In 1985 the percentage of deaths cremated was only 15%. In 1995 the number shot up to about 20%. By 2005 the percentage increased to just over 32%. By 2015 the projected figure is almost 45%, and in 2025, 55%.

For centuries, however, Christians have mostly rejected cremation as an acceptable treatment of the remains of loved ones. A biblical reason for this was that the patriarchs and prophets, priests and kings, princes and peasants, were buried in graves or tombs. Cremation was seen as a punishment or curse, not a common treatment of mortal remains (Gen. 38:24; Num. 11:1; Deut. 12:31; Josh. 7:25; 2 Kings 17:17; Ps. 106:18; Isa. 33:12). A theological reason for this was a belief in the bodily resurrection, in which what remained of mortal bodies would be raised anew, glorified, and transformed immortal, never to die again (John 6:28–29; 1 Cor. 15:52; Phil. 3:21; 1 Thess. 4:16). So the burning of remains was often associated with Eastern and Pagan religious traditions that viewed the physical body as an inferior, evil substance to be escaped or overcome rather than a part of God’s original good creation and a partaker in His future redemption.

Yet today many Christians are overcoming the traditional biblical and theological gag reflex associated with cremation by embracing it as a legitimate option. A number of factors contribute to this. First, cremation is significantly cheaper: cremation costs can be between 50% to 80% less than traditional burial, depending on the kinds of services involved! Second, many point out that both decomposition and combustion eventually lead to the same thing: dust and ashes. It’s just that one takes centuries, the other minutes. Third, some insist that cremation is more “green” . . . or at least it takes up less green space. And “green” is all the rage nowadays. Fourth, some Christians regard the body as just so much trash that needs to be discarded. And since some trash is buried and other trash is incinerated, why not do the same with bodies? After all, they reason, “The real me is in heaven with the Lord; I don’t care what happens to my rotten ol’ body.”

I’ll admit, the first reason seems, well, reasonable. Or at least fiscally responsible. The second reason is true: though the chemical processes are a bit different, the end result is more or less similar. The third reason makes sense in a part of the world where land is a premium and the potential for unsanitary burial is high. The final reason, though, is absolute rubbish. The view that the body is insignificant and irrelevant is not a Christian perspective. Period. (See my essay, “Don’t Walk on Those Graves!” for a biblical, theological, and historical explanation of the Christian doctrine of bodily resurrection.)

So, what do we do? On the one had we have traditional biblical and theological reasons to favor burial . . . on the other hand we have, well, let’s be honest—financial and pragmatic reasons (plus one quasi-heretical view of the physical body). It kind of seems pretty clear that the biblical and theological should outweigh the financial and pragmatic, doesn’t it?

Well, not so fast. The truth is, Jews and Christians buried their dead primarily as an act of their belief in the nature of the material body and its future in God’s redemptive plan. They did this explicitly in contrast to religions and cultures that viewed the body as useless trash or believed the body was just borrowed matter that should become one with the physical universe, just as our spirits would be absorbed into the mindless cosmic soul. Christians distinguished themselves in their belief that God will one day raise up the material bodies that had been animated by their immaterial souls, that those bodies originally created good would one day be restored and transformed into glorious bodies that would live forever in a renewed world free of death and corruption. By burying instead of burning, Christians aligned their actions with their beliefs—by their practice they confessed that God would one day win the victory over death through resurrection.

I believe Christians can continue to confess their belief in the resurrection of the body and practice cremation, because it’s not the form in which the mortal remains are preserved that is most important but that the mortal remains are preserved. Christians can distinguish themselves from pagan pantheism and materialistic atheistic by preserving the identity of the remains, whether they are buried or cremated. By maintaining the identity of the departed saint, we confess a belief in the future physical resurrection of his or her remains.

This leads to three practical points for those who choose cremation over burial.

First, avoid any actions that would confess a pantheistic “becoming one with the universe” theology. Scattering ashes in the wind, dumping them in the sea, fertilizing a lawn or garden, or otherwise mixing them with the world is an action that says, “Joe’s body is no longer Joe. It’s just dirt.” Wrong! Joe’s body is half of Joe! One day God will take Joe’s mortal remains, reconstitute and transform them, and reunite Joe’s soul with Joe’s glorified body! So scattering ashes is probably not a good picture of our belief in the bodily resurrection.

Second, maintain the identity of the remains. Yes, name them. Preserve them. Place them in a marked grave, or label them with a name plate—something that indicates that they are of significance and value both to you and to God. By doing so, you’re saying, “This is Jill. Yes, her spirit is with the Lord, but one day God will redeem Jill’s mortal remains, reversing the curse of death, and declaring victory over it forever.” Through our actions we will confess those final lines of the Apostles’ Creed: “I believe . . . in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.”

Finally, make your wishes—and especially the theological reasons for your wishes—clear to your loved ones. If you believe in the proper place of your physical body in God’s redemptive plan, make sure your loved ones know that you desire for your remains to continue to confess your faith in the gospel promise long after you’re gone. Don’t let your children or grandchildren dispose of your remains as if they were just emptying an ashtray!

Yes, I believe cremation is an option for Christians. God can and will raise up bones, dust, or even ashes on that Great Gettin’ Up Morning. But in the meantime, your desire to maintain the identity of your remains can communicate to others your belief that the darkness will one day give way to dawn, that the sun will break over the horizon, and you’ll answer Christ’s trumpet call to awake from your sleep.

 

“Don’t Walk on Those Graves!”: The Christian View of Resurrection

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GraveOne day when my kids and I were visiting a historic family cemetery in Mesquite, Texas, my boys, Lucas and Nathan, were running to and fro over century-old graves. I called them to me and passed on to them the instruction that had been given to me as a little boy: “Don’t walk on those graves.”

Lucas looked puzzled. “Why not?”

Good question. In fact, I had never thought about it myself. “Because . . . er . . .” I fumbled for a reasonable answer. I couldn’t come up with one. Chances are I was just relaying some relic of superstition that my mother herself had received. But somehow I just couldn’t break the chain and say, Oh go ahead, then, walk all over those graves. Trample on them. It doesn’t matter. They’re deader than dead anyway.

Instead, I threw together the best ad hoc explanation I could come up with at such short notice: “Because,” I explained, “if the resurrection were to happen you’d get knocked over!”

It was true. At some point the graves themselves will burst open. Whatever remains of the dead that are still lying in the ground will be transformed and restored in a glorious new body that shares the characteristics of Jesus’ own glorious body. Nothing of the old will remain in the grave. All things would be made new. Yes, that decomposed matter lying under the ground has a future in God’s plan of redemption.

Sadly, far too many Christians believe their bodies are mere shells that contain the real “me,” as if God never intended for us to have a physical presence, a bodily existence, a permanent means of interacting with the creation He fashioned for us. However, the promise of bodily resurrection completely contradicts this notion. The belief in the redemption of our physical bodies has always been a central hope of the Christian faith (Rom. 8:23). When Christ returns, He “will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body” (Phil. 3:21), no longer subject to mortality and death. Note, though, that this is a transformation of our present body, not a recreation of an entirely different body. Jesus did not leave his old body in the grave when He rose—instead, that old body was raised and transformed into the glorious body of His resurrection. Our transformation will follow the same pattern.

This has been the unbroken, unchanged teaching of the Christian faith since the beginning. In the second and third centuries Church Fathers like Irenaeus or Lyons, Athenagoras of Athens, and Tertullian of Carthage argued vigorously for a literal resurrection of the body against Greek scoffers on the one hand and “Christian” Gnostics on the others. The only people challenging the doctrine of the resurrection of our physical bodies as an essential truth were unbelievers and heretics!

Throughout the history of the church, the teaching of the future resurrection of our fleshly bodies continued to be articulated and defended. Consider the following quotations spanning the centuries:

Boethius, On the Catholic Faith (6th century): “This is a firm principle of our religion, to believe not only that men’s souls do not perish, but that their very bodies, which the coming of death had destroyed, recover their first state.”

John of Damascus, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 4.27 (8th century): “We shall therefore rise again, our souls being once more united with our bodies, now made incorruptible and having put off corruption.”

Anselm of Canterbury, Why God Became Man (Cur Deus Homo), 2.3 (11th century): “If he had not sinned, man was to have been transformed into incorruptibility with the very body that he possessed. When he is restored, then, he must be restored with his own body in which he lives in this life.”

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (16th century): “We must hold, as has already been observed, that the body in which we shall rise will be the same as at present in respect of substance, but that the quality will be different.” (John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1 vol. ed., trans. Henry Beveridge [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989], 2:271)

Jonathan Edwards The Final Judgment 4.2 (18th century): “However the parts of the bodies of many are divided and scattered; however many have been burnt, and their bodies have been turned to ashes and smoke, and driven to the four winds; however many have been eaten of wild beasts, of the fowls of heaven, and the fishes of the sea; however many have consumed away upon the face of the earth, and great part of their bodies have ascended in exhalations; yet the all-wise and all-powerful God can immediately bring every part to his part again.” (Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, rev. ed., vol. 2 [Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1974], 194)

In direct opposition to both the clear teaching of Scripture and the consistent teaching of every branch of the Church—Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant—I too often hear people speak of “dying and going to heaven.” Or they speak of departed loved ones as “finally healed” from their maladies. Or they belittle the body as a mere shell, or a prison, or a burden. Or they believe God will simply discard their present fleshly bodies and replace them with a quasi-physical body either in heaven or at the return of Christ. In short, they essentially exchange the biblical, Christian doctrine of the resurrection of their flesh for the Greek Platonic or Gnostic belief that the physical body has no part in salvation and eternal life. But to reject the resurrection of the body is not simply to reject the unchanged teaching of the Christian church. Rejection of the bodily resurrection is a rejection of Christianity itself!

But why? Why would God bother restoring what has been laid to rest? Can’t He just create a completely new body out of nothing? Of course! However, by opening the graves and tombs and transforming our dead and decomposed bodies into glorious, incorruptible bodies, God declares once and for all: “O death, where is your victory” (1 Cor. 15:55). As Paul explained, “When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory’” (1 Cor. 15:54). By snatching our mortal dust and ashes from the grave and transforming them into something eternal and glorious, God will demonstrate that Satan’s attempt at destroying humanity failed. Humans, who had been created with body and spirit in the image of God, will be not only rescued from death and restored to life, they will be crowned with glory and honor (Ps. 8:5).

So, next time you find yourself walking on somebody’s grave, watch out! You could end up getting knocked over if the resurrection happens!

 

[Adapted from the forthcoming Exploring Christian Theology: The Church, Spiritual Growth, and the End Times, ed. Nathan D. Holsteen and Michael J. Svigel (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 2014).]

 

 

Help! The Earth Is Melting! (Or Is It?)

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In 1616 the Catholic Church condemned the views of Copernicus for taking the radical scientific view that the Earth revolved around the sun. Against precise mathematical calculations and empirical data, the church based their dogmatic rejection on the “clear” reading of Scripture, theology, and experience. Case closed. The Catholic Church wasn’t alone in resisting the Copernican revolution. Luther is reported to have said in response to news about Copernicus’s new theory, “Whoever wants to be clever must agree with nothing that others esteem. He must do something of his own. This is what that fellow does who wishes to turn the whole of astronomy upside down. Even in these things that are thrown into disorder I believe the Holy Scriptures, for Joshua commanded the sun to stand still and not the earth.”

Within a couple generations the conservative, Bible-believing Christians—Catholic and Protestant—had to swallow their pride and admit that Copernicus—that rascal!—was right. And in 1999 the Pope even apologized . . . sort of.

Fast forward a century or so. In the midst of the liberal political and religious philosophies of English gentlemen like John Locke, a new concept of tolerationism, pluralism, and democracy began to gain support. The problem, of course, was the absolute, divinely-ordained rule of the King of England and other monarchs. The conservative theologians defended the divine right of the Monarchy and appealed to Scripture and theology to denounce the liberal philosophies churning in the colonies. The political conservatives found themselves on the side of the King—and of political philosophers like Thomas Hobbes. “Liberals” like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington rejected the doctrine of divine monarchy in favor of a concept of divinely-endowed inalienable individual rights (which, on last check, still cannot be found in the Bible).

Within a couple generations, however, the liberal political philosophy of Locke and Jefferson became the fabric of American patriotism and were suddenly found to be in perfect agreement with the revelation of Scripture. In fact, those liberals are now regarded as our conservative Christian forefathers!

A hundred years later conservative Christians appealed to the Bible to battle a new threat to social and religious order—the movement among “liberal” New England Congregationalists toward emancipation of the slaves and abolition of slavery. The conservatives appealed to the sanctioning of slavery in Scripture (both in the Old and New Testaments) as proof that the progressive movement to free the slaves was unbiblical. Denominations split over the issue—Northern and Southern Baptists; Northern and Southern Methodists . . . both sides appealing to Scripture, but the “progressive” or “liberal” view sounded the radical cries for freedom.

Within a couple generations the conservatives began reading those passages in the Bible differently and the evils of modern slavery were finally seen for what they really were: evil.

A century later the civil rights movements in the United States were spearheaded by liberals—religious and social progressives who were attacked by conservatives who appealed to a diverse line of arguments to defend institutional and corporate bigotry and hate: the distinction between Jews and Gentiles . . . Old Testament laws regarding foreigners and women . . . “clear” passages of Scripture that forbade women to even speak in church . . . the curse of Ham . . . the biblical principle of social order and peace. All of these were part of the conservatives’ arsenal against liberals who wanted justice and equality. Sadly, conservative evangelical colleges and seminaries were slow to admit women and minorities into programs for theological training.

Within a couple generations the conservatives came to regret their policies and actions and the narrow, bigoted way they read God’s Word in favor of their own misguided agendas.

As you can see, conservative Christians may have a great track record of preserving and defending the fundamental marks of orthodox doctrine, but they have a disturbing history of missing the mark on many scientific and social issues. Not all, of course, but some. They were critical and wicked when they should have been supportive and righteous (as in the case of slavery and civil rights). Or they were foolish and extreme when they should have been prudent and wise (as in the case of Y2K or the “New Order” conspiracy theories about the end of the world).

This brings me to my point.

What issues today are conservative Christians going to regret in fifty years? Will our children or grandchildren shake their heads and cluck their tongues at some of the things we evangelicals took a firm stand against? Or will they be embarrassed about some of the things we enthusiastically promoted? Some things, of course, we must stand against (heresy and sin) and some things we must promote (sound theology and morality). These things have never changed and have always been under attack. These things we have always defended and never regretted. (Though, of course, we may reg0ret the unloving, un-Christlike ways in which we promoted and defended the truth.)

But what about, say, global warming? Seriously, what do most evangelical Christians and conservative Republicans really know about the science of global warming? What qualifies right-wing talk show hosts to objectively sift through scientific data and determine that it’s all bunk? And why do evangelical Christians allow big businesses, ritzy politics, and glorified DJs to lead them around by their noses?

I’m no scientist. I honestly can’t tell you one way or the other if Al Gore, the Democrats, and all those Scandinavian scientists are right about the world “melting.” But as a historian of Christianity, I can tell you one thing for sure: when it comes to issues other than classic orthodoxy and Christlike morality, we conservatives have a rich and interesting history of being found on the wrong side.

There’s nothing biblically, theologically, or rationally unsound about the idea of global warming. (Unless you say the whole earth is going to flood.) In fact, with my dim view of humanity, I’d almost expect us to be destroying ourselves and our world through greed, selfishness, laziness, ignorance, and apathy. Just take a look at people’s eating habits at fast food restaurants and tell me these same fallen humans wouldn’t melt the planet rather than give up their SUVs. Again, I have no idea if the world is warming. I hope not. But I’m not going to be one of those people my grandchildren point to and say, “Why was grandpa such a dumb Christian?”

Heliocentrism . . . divine monarchy . . . slavery . . . civil rights. Next time you dismiss the possibility of global warming as loony poppycock or liberal propaganda, run this list through your mind. Then use that same mind for the reason God gave it: to think. I don’t know if climate change scientists and global warming advocates are off their rockers. Maybe they are jumping to conclusions. Maybe not. Maybe they’re more right than wrong. Or maybe they’re off their rockers. But then again, Copernicus, Locke, Lincoln, and MLK, Jr. all appeared to be a little “off” in their own days, didn’t they? So, until the issues of global warming and man-made climate change is thoroughly explored, debated, and settled, I’m going to suspend judgment. And unless you’re God or a purely objective scientist who can perfectly and simultaneously process all the data and guarantee a right answer . . . you best shut up, too.

Sufficiency of the Five Senses: An Epistemological Problem for Non-Theistic Evolution?

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If you had access to the external world only through the sense of smell, how would you perceive reality? Your entire universe would be nothing but a series of weak and strong odors; some pleasant, others putrid. If you encountered other beings in the universe, you would distinguish them only by their unique scents—if, that is, they had any discernible scent at all. A person with only the sense of smell may not have enough data to establish his or her own spatial or perhaps even temporal location; certainly they would have no concept of corporeality. In short, the sense of smell alone is insufficient for a being to construct a complete, accurate, or functional picture of the external world—or even one that is at least sufficiently close to complete, accurate, or functional.

Now what if a person only had the sense of hearing? The situation for such a person would only be slightly better than for the person granted the sense of smell alone. Instead of a series of odors, the hearing being would experience a string of loud and soft sounds, some pleasant to the ear, others harsh. Communication might be possible only if he or she could get control of the tongue and vocal chords without the sense of touch, and thus respond to sounds from others with his or her own sounds. Certainly, the hearing person would still have an incomplete, inaccurate, and poorly functional experience of the external universe.

The same thing can be said about all of the five senses—sight, smell, touch, taste, hearing. If any of these senses is missing, a person’s perception of the world would change. He or she may be able to function and communicate in the world, but the subjective experience of the external world would differ drastically from a person with all five senses.

Now, if I were a person with only the sense of hearing and I encountered another being who told me about his own sense of seeing, which I lacked, I would have no category within which to understand a concept like “sight.” Nor would I be able to understand ideas like bright, dark, red, or blue. A seeing being would have no way of explaining what my missing sensations were like, nor would I be able to imagine the kind of world such a person experiences. Though I could be made intellectually aware that I am deficient, I would have no way of knowing what that actually meant. Not really. I would, in fact, continue in my current state of perception as I always have.

If a person with, say, only three senses—the senses of touch, smell, and taste—endured for a lifetime without any knowledge that there were other senses available, that person would have no reason to think there were such things as sight and sound. A person with only these three senses may believe that three and only three senses are sufficient to grant him or her complete, accurate, and functional access to the external world. Such a person would, of course, be wrong, but left alone he or she would be unaware of the error.

Granted, modern humans have used technology to expand their ability to acquire data about the universe. Though hidden to our sight, we can detect infrared and ultraviolet light, radio waves, and radiation. We can examine tiny organisms as well as remote bodies through the use of microscopes and telescopes. But all of these forms of technology work within the existing five senses—enhancing and improving, not supplementing or adding to, the senses of sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell. These means of measuring otherwise invisible or inaudible things in our world have, indeed, altered the perception of reality for modern humans, but these means themselves depend entirely on our five senses. In a similar vein, theoretical physicists can hypothesize about the existence of numerous dimensions beyond those of our limited perspective, but in that case they have no way of imagining or experiencing such theoretical dimensions. They are aware of such possible dimensions through mathematical calculations and “picture” them through analogies and illustrations bound by experiences of their five senses. It is, in short, impossible to conceptually break from the constraints of the five scent perception of the external world.

This brings me to my point.

How can humans have any confidence that additional senses beyond our five would not radically alter our perception and experience of reality? If three senses are better than two, and four better than three, and five better than four, why wouldn’t six, seven, or eight be better than five? We cannot simply respond to such a question by saying, “I can’t imagine what those additional senses would be,” because a person who has only one could not imagine a second, and person with only two could not imagine a third.

So the question remains.

Could there be additional senses, which, if we had them, would radically alter the way we perceive and experience the external world? Would the hypothetical extra senses grant us access to a world similar to ours but more complete, fuller, deeper? As rational beings, we must acknowledge this possibility. But what about its probability?

This is where things get quite messy. Is it probable that we human beings have evolved the precise number of senses to completely and accurately perceive the world around us? Or is it probable that our sensory organs provide us with enough data to at least approximate reality? We know of small, primitive beings that do not possess the five senses we have, and people typically place such life forms into a category of less-evolved beings. But on what basis do we conclude that natural selection would develop five senses with a quality to provide an accurate perception of reality when their data are synthesized by the mind into a coherent whole?

The answer? From a purely naturalistic perspective, humans have no reasonable basis to have confidence that our five senses are sufficient. In fact, it seems more probable that naturalistic evolutionary processes would take the easiest route, as survival of the individual and propagation of the species—not epistemological accuracy—is the result of unguided evolution. Of course, we rational beings would naturally hope that our five senses were not merely all that was necessary for survival (functional sufficiency), but that they were adequate for providing a complete or nearly-complete experience of the external world (epistemological accuracy). While our five senses may provide a functional experience of reality sufficient for the purpose of survival, within a naturalistic view of evolution, our five senses cannot be trusted to provide an accurate (i.e., dependable) experience of reality.

However, I can posit an alternative understanding of the sufficiency of our five senses to provide an accurate or near-accurate experience of the external world. But for such a presupposition to be accepted, one must believe that human beings were designed for the purpose of accurately perceiving the external world, not merely evolved toward the function of survival and propagaion. If humans were designed to live in this particular universe, it is possible to believe that the designer equipped humans with no more and no less senses than are necessary to accurately perceive the external world. And depending on the character of that designer (good, powerful, truthful), one might conclude that such a presupposition about the ability of human beings to accurately experience the external world through their five senses is probable. Of course, a theist must acknowledge that there may be things in the world that go beyond what the designer intended for its creatures to perceive, but in any case the five senses would be sufficient to provide an accurate or nearly-accurate experience of the external world.

This brings me to my closing point. Any human being who believes that he or she possesses enough senses to draw confident conclusions about the external world on a daily basis is inherently drawing on the presupposition of intelligent design (whether evolutionary or non-evolutionary), not of naturalistic evolution. The former presupposition makes the sufficiency of the five senses a probable hypothesis; the latter presupposition does not. Apart from the hypothesis of an intelligent designer who equipped humans with the appropriate number and variety of sensory organs, the question of the sufficiency of the five senses for accurately experiencing the external world becomes, in my mind, an insurmountable problem. An atheist who appeals to evolution necessarily can have no epistemological confidence in his or her ability to adequately gather and to accurately analyze data about the world as it really is. The empirical sciences that form the foundation of their worldview seem to require a presupposition about the nature of sense perception that argues against their methods and conclusions. Only by appealing to an intelligent designer who equipped humans with sufficient senses for accurately experiencing the external world can a person reasonably engage in the empirical sciences.

[NOTE: Originally posts on July 9, 2008, at www.retrochristianity.com. For a more technical treatment of a similar argument as mine, see Alvin Plantinga, “Is Naturalism Irrational?” in The Analytic Theist: An Alvin Plantinga Reader, ed. James F. Sennett (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 72-96. I readily admit that my own popular expression of this argument differs from Plantinga’s in its expression, scope, and quality.]

“By This Time You Ought to Be Teachers”: A Critique of Typical Adult Sunday School

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A couple of years ago, as I was reading through the book of Hebrews, I stumbled over a verse that forced me to reevaluate some key assumptions I had unquestionably inherited from my Bible church tradition: both the necessity and validity of adult Sunday school classes. The verse? Hebrews 5:12—“ For though by this time you ought to be teachers…” At that point I stopped. I thought about the audience to whom the author was writing. The book of Hebrews was written sometime around A.D. 65. The Jewish church—the probable audience of the book—was founded at about A.D. 35. So the believers addressed in Hebrews had been part of the faith for a maximum of thirty years (many of them less).

Having been believers for twenty to thirty years, the Hebrews ought to have been teachers, not students; experts, not novices; doers, not hearers; mature, not children (Heb. 5:13–14). The decades-old believers were expected to be training the younger believers in the “basic principles of the oracles of God”—the foundational doctrines of the faith contained in Holy Scripture (Heb. 5:12). They were expected to be skilled “in the word of righteousness,” passing on this skill to those who were yet unskilled (5:13). They were to be examples of discernment, able to lead the younger, less mature believers to “distinguish good from evil” (5:14). In short, they were to be the disciple-makers of the church, primarily engaged in teaching, not in learning.

After meditating on that passage, I thought about many Bible-adoring evangelical churches I had attended or visited over the years. Then it hit me. There are classes at my own church in which some of the members literally double the thirty-year mark of the book of Hebrews. Many more have been learners for fifty years, more for forty, plenty for thirty or twenty years. In such Bible-believing churches the function of those older saints is to show up Sunday mornings, plug into an adult Sunday school class, and build on their thirty years of Bible training. The goal of the adult education program is more Bible study with practical application for the believers’ lives—“The Bible as it is for people as they are.” The goal is not to equip those saints to teach younger believers in the church the elementary principles of the faith.

I wonder what the author of Hebrews would say if he were to critically evaluate the Sunday morning program of many of our churches. I wonder if he would say to half our adult classes, “By this time you ought to be teachers. Most of you have been believers for 25-plus years. What’s wrong with you? Will you ever step out of the role of unskilled novice and into the role of mentoring disciple-maker?” The model of church ministry defined in Ephesians 4 is pretty clear: The pastors and teachers of the church (those engaged in teaching and preaching) are to “equip the saints for the work of ministry.” Yet in many of our churches the teaching leads to knowledge and practical application—good things, but not quite ministry work specifically designed for “building up of the body of Christ.” Paul’s instructions to the pastor-teacher, Timothy, was to entrust the beliefs and practices of the church “to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also” (2 Tim. 2:2). Yet in many of our churches the teachers entrust the things of God to men and women who are not always themselves involved in any intentional disciple-making instruction. This isn’t true of everybody, of course. Some believers who grow in the faith do move into disciple-making ministries. But far too many get stuck in the rut of the eternal student, growing fat and sedentary in more and more biblical and doctrinal knowledge used only to enrich their own lives or the lives of their families.

So, what can we do to realign our adult Sunday school classes with a more biblical model of discipleship?

First, consider harmonizing Sunday school classes with the rest of the Sunday morning ministry of the church. Too often adult Sunday school classes become “mini-churches,” mirroring at a smaller scale what goes on in “big church.” They sometimes have mini-worship, mini-offerings, mini-sermons, and mini-prayer time. Then those same mini-church members shuffle on to big church where they get a more generalized version of the same activities. This is called redundancy. We need to rethink the role of the Sunday school in the overall vision and program of the church. If there are things that aren’t being done during Sunday worship, they should be done during Sunday school, and vice versa. The normal Sunday morning worship should include Scripture reading, teaching, and preaching from the pulpit that substantially nourishes the faith of growing believers in the church. This pulpit ministry should be the primary biblical exposition and practical exhortation for all members of the church. If the pulpit is functioning this way, then Sunday school should strive to do something that complements this pulpit ministry, not competes with it.

Second, consider grouping adult Sunday school classes by spiritual maturity, not physical age. The New Testament distinguishes the spiritually mature in Christ from “infants” or “children” in Christ (Eph. 4:14, 15; 1 Cor. 3:1; 13:11; 14:20; Heb. 5:12–14). The young in the faith are to be engaged in “basic training,” learning the fundamentals of the faith, the story of Scripture, and the basics of Christian living. Some of this initial training should occur prior to baptism and admission into membership in a local church; some should occur in the first several years of a believer’s new-found faith. Yet this training should be deliberately geared for the spiritually young, regardless of physical age. After passing through spiritual grade school and graduating from spiritual high school, believers should be headed toward honing their spiritual gifts to engage in a body-building ministry of the church. In other words, after a certain period of time, believers should transition from a mentee role in the church to a mentor role, from student to teacher. Of course, believers will always need intimate fellowship, accountability, and additional training. But at some point early in the Christian life, the maturing believer should be weaned from their dependency on constant instruction, and they should get their spiritual nourishment from the church’s pulpit ministry and from personal Bible reading. In a discipleship model, sixty-year-old Christians have no business being in a “senior adult class” taught by expository teachers unless they are still “children” in the faith who need to learn for the first time Scripture, doctrine, and Christian living.

Third, consider restoring a simple structure of beginners’ classes for new or young believers, ministry training for growing believers, and leadership training for mature believers. Regardless of whether Sunday school classes are divided into age groups, each one should be dedicated to one of these three body-building tasks of the church. 1) Beginners’ classes should be designed for those who have been believers for a short time or who have never formally experienced a “Christianity 101” kind of instruction. The emphasis of such classes should be rudimentary biblical content, essential doctrines of the Christian faith, and basic Christian living. Members of this class should typically be in the process of preparation for baptism or church membership. 2) New believers or newly-initiated members of the church should graduate to ministry training courses, regardless of their physical age. These classes should equip church members for evangelism, discipleship of believers younger than them in the faith (i.e., assisting in the classes under category 1), or participation in outreach or other ministries of the church. This training should involve not only biblical and theological truth, but also practical ministry experience—hearing and doing. 3) After many years of demonstrating faithful service in the ministry of the church, mature believers should be selected for leadership training—first as deacons, then as elders. Such training may involve formal education at an accessible Bible college or seminary, but it can also involve a specialized training program in the local church itself. Such preparation should include broad and deep biblical knowledge, systematic theology, church history, leadership skills, and training in teaching and preaching. Those in the early phases of this process would serve the church in the office of “deacon.” This process may take five to ten years, and only after such leadership training and service should believers submit to an ordination examination and appointment as pastors or “elders” of a local church.

Fourth, consider including short-term “elective” classes to meet special needs in the congregation. The changes suggested above in no way hinder a church from periodically or regularly offering special classes, conferences, or seminars dealing with biblical, doctrinal, historical, or practical issues. In fact, one should expect that such supplementary programs should be part of the normal teaching of the church. Marriage conferences, financial seminars, “refresher” courses on Bible doctrine, a series on church history, parenting classes, divorce recovery groups, a young married class—all of these can be offered on a short-term basis and taught or facilitated by members of the church involved in ministry training described above (category 2).

The author of Hebrews castigated his readers who had been believers for twenty-plus years because by that time they should have been teachers (Heb. 5:12). I’m concerned that many of our Bible-believing churches have failed to graduate their long-time believers from the status of student to that of teacher. Instead, they have institutionalized a model of adult Sunday school designed to perpetuate a nursery of needy spiritual children without transitioning them into responsible, mature, and productive spiritual adults. If we consider the four suggestions above, our churches will begin to reflect the biblical emphasis on discipleship rather than the cultural emphasis on personal enrichment.

[Originally posted at www.retrochristianity.com March 24, 2012.]