The Benefit of an Adult “Sunday School” Time – Part 4
This is the final post in a series on Sunday school. Here, we look at the need for the church to do life together, and how Sunday school fosters life together.
Sunday school allows us as a church to do life together. It is very easy to become a consumer in church, but being a part of a Sunday school makes this more difficult. By “a consumer,” I mean someone who views their church as a sort of entertainment entity. These people come only on Sunday morning or maybe if there is a special event, they tend not to talk to other people in the church, and they come mostly to hear an especially gifted speaker, or some music, or even worse, for the coffee. A Sunday morning service is an experience for them to have. But, in his word, the Lord teaches us to have a far different mentality from this consumeristic one.
The early church knew that they had become family through their bond in Christ Jesus, and we see that many of them lived like it. The Scriptures often speak about this familial connection we have to one another in Christ (Jn 1:12; Rom 8:16, 29; Gal 3:26-29; 1 Jn 3:1-2). This brotherly love was put on full display for us in The Acts of the Apostles (cf. Heb 13:1). Early in Acts we see the amazing power of the gospel transform the lives of people. They are surely all individually changed, but their transformation is more than personal; it ultimately results in them becoming part of the congregation and doing life with each other. Notice how the Spirit describes these believers’ relationship to each other: “And the congregation of those who believed were of one heart and soul” (Acts 4:32). These were brothers who were living together in harmony (Ps 133:1). Through the Lord Jesus, they had become brothers, and through the Lord Jesus, they were knit together in love (cf. Rom 12:5; Col 2:1-2). This unity was a natural product of their salvation because the death of Jesus not only cleanses us from sin, allowing us to have fellowship with God, but it also causes us to have fellowship with other believers (1 Jn 1:6-7). You are not saved apart from the church, because you are saved into the church (Eph 4:15-16). Therefore, doing life with others in your church is natural and good – they are your brothers after all.
What does doing life together look like? We certainly see that the believers in Acts 4, who were of one heart and soul, financially supported each other (Acts 4:32-35), but this is a post about Sunday school so I want to focus more directly on what applies to a Sunday school time. There are at least two key ways Sunday school can help us do life together as a church: [1] fellowship, and [2] mutual edification and encouragement.
Fellowship is key to genuinely doing life together. In a sense, you’re doing life together with every person you come across. You both are alive and your paths cross, but this is not what I mean by “life together.” The “together” I am talking about is a sort of hand-in-hand or side-by-side approach; it is intentional, not merely coincidental. The difference between your relationship with the drive-through window girl and your relationship with the little old lady in your church is fellowship. Fellowship is this idea of a shared community; it’s a participation with one another in life. For the Christian, fellowship with other believers exists because of Christ’s death and resurrection. But fellowship does not stay abstract. Real fellowship is tangible, it’s not superficial, and it actually requires us to know what is happening in each other’s lives. It’s hard to pray for others or physically help them if you don’t know anything about them. This is where Sunday school can be helpful, because the group is smaller in Sunday school, and everyone has the opportunity to interact as the Scriptures are read. This all goes back to our conversation about discipleship. One of the best texts that speak about doing life together is Acts 2:42. Here, we have a short description of what life together looked like in the early church. The believers were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, the Lord’s supper, and prayer. Fellowship is key for us and our Christian life, and Sunday school gives you more opportunities for fellowship than you would have if you just came to the morning service.
Mutual edification and encouragement are a part of doing life together, and Sunday school is a perfect time for this. What is edification? Edification is the building up of one’s faith, just like a house is built over time, we should increase in Christlikeness over time. Look at how the Apostle Paul talks about corporate worship to the disordered and often self-serving Corinthian church: “When you assemble, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has a translation/interpretation. Let all things be done for edification” (1 Cor 14:26). The Corinthian church was out of control, and people were trying to one-up each other with their flashy abilities. But Paul does not correct this error by excluding all but the pastor from speaking during the gathering. Instead, he seeks to correct motives; the goal must always be edification. And this is because Paul firmly believes that the church is one body and that God equips each member of the body for a particular task (1 Cor 12:4-30). One part of the body, let’s say an eye, simply cannot do all that is necessary for the body to function. In the same way, one man cannot do all of the edifying; we need mutual edification.
Just as building up, or edifying, one another is something that everyone in the church can do, encouraging is another task that we are called to do as we do life together. In Heb 10:25, the church is commanded to continually and regularly meet in person, but why? Because we all need to be “encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near” (Heb 10:25). Notice that God tells us to regularly assemble as a church, not so that the pastor alone can encourage us, but so that we can encourage one another. To varying degrees, we all have the task of edifying and encouraging one another. These things cannot happen if we are not interacting with one another. This is where Sunday school can come in, because this time allows for anyone to interject, edify, and encourage those in the class (assuming the teacher fosters this kind of environment). Not only that, but this smaller group makes it so much easier to form real connections and relationships with others in your church. As these relationships form, it only becomes more natural to build up and comfort each other throughout the week.
Life together is what God envisions for his church, and Sunday school is a very practical way for you to begin doing life with those in your congregation. We all need fellowship, edification, and encouragement; God tells us this plainly in his word. How will you grow and be challenged? How will you be able to make it through the rough waters of suffering? How can any of this happen unless you have real people around you who know you and are speaking God’s word into your life? If your church has adult Sunday school, they have it for your good, and your pastors believe that it is a practical and effective way for you to begin doing life together as a church.