Previous Reflections
REFLECTIONS
March 6, 2011 (Refreshed from May 29, 2005)
But be doers of the word, and not hearers only
James 1:22 NKJV
Graduating from Sunday School
Graduations—I remember them all. I remember advancing from grade school and taking all I had learned to junior high. And I remember all the celebrations and feelings of success upon graduations from junior high and from high school. Then I packed all of the knowledge gained from there and took it off to college. And I remember my college graduation—all the pomp of it. It allowed me to carry my training into the business world where I still continue to learn. But I don’t remember graduating from Sunday school.
Sunday school never appealed to me much although as I look back on it now I discover its many benefits. I learned the Lord’s Prayer, the Apostles Creed, the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes, and the 23rd Psalm. I learned many of the Bible stories and I learned of Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross. Through Sunday school activities, I found the love of God and I became a believer in Jesus Christ. So how is it then that I never graduated from Sunday school?
I could argue that the curriculum did little to aim me toward graduation. The lessons were designed to impart knowledge and to introduce Jesus, but nowhere among the goals of the program did I ever feel commissioned or encouraged to carry my knowledge beyond the classroom into the world. So I seldom shared what I had learned.
But some people do graduate from Sunday school. Twelve of them had three years of instruction from the greatest teacher of all time, and eleven graduated. At the graduation ceremony, the Teacher said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” (Matthew. 28:18-20)
With those words, the eleven graduates crossed the stage, received their diplomas, moved their tassels to the other side of their caps, and marched up the aisle as fully commissioned disciple makers. Then with their degrees in hand, they went into the world and shared the good news just as Jesus commanded them.
Jesus has handed me a diploma, too. It hasn’t marked the end of my education or my spiritual growth. Graduating from Sunday school marks the beginning for sharing the good news with the world as a fully commissioned disciple maker.
You have a diploma too.
You are the light of the world,
RichardÌ
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