Adult Bible Study Online

Teaching that transforms

See this lesson as a Word Document

Lesson text: Luke 4:31-37, 20:1-8
By: Omar Eby
Email: ebyo@emu.edu

Unit II of this quarter is titled, “Images of Christ in the Gospels.” This Sunday, both passages from Luke image Jesus as a teacher. But before making observations about teaching and teachers, a few questions about “image.”

Where did we first learn our images of Jesus/Christ? Children’s Bible story books, (depending on our age) the pictures on flannel graphs, or religious videos? Few of us were Herdman kids, catching our first image of baby Jesus in a Christmas skit (“The Best Christmas Pageant Ever”) and, lacking frankincense, we offer the child the family’s welfare gift ham.

Have our images of Christ remained the same or changed over the years? Have they matured? What marks a mature image of Christ? Is he wrapped in a scarlet maple leaf, or stars-and-stripes? Is he the God-Child whose “pierced hand holds no scepter./ His haloed head wears no crown…/ (Whose) keys to His city belong to the poor” (Menotti, “Amahl and the Night Visitors”)?

My friend writes, “My images of Christ have changed drastically during the course of my life. I have grown to look for Christ in unorthodox places. Christ’s image cannot be confined to some Bible storybook picture. In my life, I think of the times I have seen the image of Christ in an old man, a child, a youth group member, a Mexican peasant, even a baseball player. What do you think: does this make me weird?” Is my friend merely fanciful? Or is he on to something profound? What does he see in those that images, the Christ for him across his years?

The image, the face of Islam to many Westerners is Osama bin Laden. Flip it around. Who is the face of Christianity for Middle East Muslims? Why are we shocked when a Christian Islamist tells us that the face is George Bush?

What images come to mind when you hear the word teacher? Do you agree with Walter Brueggemann’s assessment in Living Toward a Vision (United Church Press, 1987)? “If you ask almost any adult about the impact of church [Sunday] school on his or her growth, he or she will not tell you about books or curriculum or Bible stories or anything like that. The central memory is of the teacher, learning is meeting”? So, is it Jesus as teacher, or his message, that we meet? A mere teacher? A mere ethicist? A risen Son? Who, what, transforms?

This message relates to the Adult Bible Study. For additional information on Adult Bible Study or Adult Bible Study Teacher, send email to info@mpn.net. To order either publication call Mennonite Publishing Network at 1 800 245-7894.