Simple Answers

A good way to apply a theological question down to real life is to teach a pre-readers' Sunday School class.  My class at The Master's Community Church (themcc.org) is full of little people who have a great deal of energy, love to tell about all the things God made, and are learning how God keeps His promises to His people (amazingly, the exact same thing their teacher is learning!).  The class has put feet on a number of questions that have been in my mind for some time.

1) How do you teach Old Testament Bible stories of God's just punishment for sin and reward for faith without implanting a performance-based mentality in a child's mind?  This past week, the Bible lessons was from Numbers 21:4-9, the story of the Brazen Serpent.  Over the past several weeks we've been looking at the wilderness wanderings and noting how God blesses belief and disciplines unbelief.  On Sunday, I explained to the children that there was nothing magical about the snake on the pole; it was believing in God's promise that healed Israelites.  Someone asked if a person would be healed if he believed God but didn't look at the snake.  And here we were back at the performance vs. faith question.

2) How do you teach an Old Testament passage that the New Testament expands on?  Should you stick to the OT text or highlight the NT explanation of the OT passage?  The Brazen Serpent's significance is highlighted by Christ's reference to it in John 3:14-15: "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life."  All the big questions of the New Testament's use of the Old Testament rushed into my mind.  Should I bring in the NT or stick to the OT?  If Christ used the Bronze Serpent as a picture of Himself, wouldn't it be doing the story injustice to leave out Christ's use of it?

3) What about passages whose meaning is dependent on your theological paradigm?  Upon further investigation, I discovered this was one of those passages.  What did Christ mean when He said that He would be "lifted up"?  Was it a reference to the Cross (John 8:28, 12:32-34), or was it also a reference to His glorification (Isaiah 6:1, 52:13).  There was a neat string of theology behind both views, and I wasn't ready to pick a position.

In the end, all three questions had much simpler answers than I was prepared for.  1) Someone who believed God's promises would look at the snake.  A person who believes God's promises obeys His commands.  2) Since Jesus used the Bronze Serpent to picture Himself, we should use the same picture when we teach the story.  3) Since John would have been familiar with Isaiah's use of "lifted up," it's possible that his use of the term included the Messiah's glorification from Isaiah.

The purpose of this post is not to say that these questions are not legitimately difficult or that I've found amazing answers to them, but that when it comes right down to explaining to pre-readers what the Bible means, the answers are amazingly simple.  Through prayer, submission to the Holy Spirit, and exegesis it is possible to know what Scripture means by what it says.