Thursday, February 16, 2012

Sunday School Pays Off

Mondays and Wednesdays are quickly becoming my favorite day of the week. Luka has a nephew named Anton who came to church with his wife a while back. He was interested in studying English and the Bible. So he, Luka and I started to meet last week. We're studying the book of Mark.

Our Bible studies are in the morning and on Mondays we meet at the church while on Wednesdays we meet at Luka's apartment. I can't tell you exactly why I enjoy it. Maybe it's getting together and having chai, maybe it's because in English, maybe it's because this is the one Bible in English group that I feel like I don't have to really prepare for. It just seems effortless. Or maybe because I'm just kind of a discussion moderator and the other two do the rest. Or perhaps it just feels like a "legit" Bible study.

You know what I think it is. I think maybe because it feels less to me like I'm "Teaching" and more like a group of friends just getting together to read and talk about the Bible. I like that. It's kind of like I can just relax and we can study together.

It's also giving me a chance to talk about my faith and what I believe and you know what I've discovered? It's not really that scary. Especially when you're already studying the Bible anyway. For example, Anton's friend Roma joined us this past Monday. He had a lot of questions about what we were reading. One was about sacrafice. He wanted to know about why the Jews were sacraficing things. It gave me a chance to explain Old Testament sacrifices and how Jesus came and was the perfect sacrafice for us and so we don't need to sacrifice animals anymore. Luka also explained how every action had a price and in the Old Testament the price for doing wrong was having to sacrifice an animal.

By the way parents, this is why you and your children should attend Sunday School. Biblically we are told that we need to study scripture so we can be prepared to answer questions. Part of the reason talking and sharing about Biblical things isn't as hard as I thought it would be is because I've spent a long time attending Bible class, youth rallies and listening to sermons. I'm not discounting self-study. Obviously that's a huge part of one's relationship with God, but I'm also saying that Sunday School and sitting through church are valuable as well.

Oh and all that time in an a capella church where my mom sang with me and my aunt sat with me, helping my  finger follow the notes as we went has finally paid off as well, but that's a story for a different post. 

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