In this episode of The Bible Teaching Podcast, Dr. Kelly and Dr. Watson focus on a few passages in the book of Micah and the themes relating to God's presence, transformation, and teaching methodologies. Micah teaches about the importance of heart sincerity over mere adherence to religious rituals. Teaching should aim to facilitate a deeper relational understanding of God rather than just imparting knowledge or behavioral modifications.
Creators & Guests
Host
Dr. Gregg Watson
Associate Dean of Academic Services & Professor of Old Testament Studies
Host
Dr. Paul Kelly
Professor of Educational Leadership
Host
Tyler Sanders
Director of Communications
Producer
Courtney McCaa
Digital Media Specialist
What is The Bible Teaching Podcast?
Practical instruction for today's church leaders with Dr. Paul Kelly and Dr. Gregg Watson.
Tyler Sanders 0:00
I'm your host, Tyler Sanders. And I'm sitting here with Dr. Greg Watson, Dr. Paul Kelly. And today we're talking about transformations. Specifically how Bible teaching can create transform lives in our churches and why that happens. Dr. Kelly, can you kick us off on this one?
Dr. Kelly 0:17
Yeah, you know, I think that one of the challenges for us as teachers is that you teach the Bible over and over again, and you have the same people that come in from week to week, and you don't really see change in their lives. That they that they leave, and they seem to be the same kind of people, and they make the same mistakes and do the same kind of things that they've been doing. And I think that we can get frustrated, because we feel like that if we were teaching the Bible the right way, if we're teaching the Bible well, that the Bible-you know, we've talked about how transformative is in this podcast. And if we could do that, that somehow the transformational power of God's Word ought to be causing people to be new, and to be different, and to be somebody beyond what they are. But instead we seem to be stuck in the same places and dealing with the same sin problems and having the same problems with our spiritual disciplines, and all those kinds of things that we've had before. And I'm afraid that when we start looking at that kind of thing, it can make us feel like that our teaching is futile. I don't really think that's the case. But I think that that can be a challenge for us. Why don't we see the spiritual transformation in the teenagers that we teach? Why don't we see this spiritual transformation in the older adults who care more about the church than they do about God? Or why don't we see the kind of spiritual transformation that we're really looking for as we teach the Word of God?
Dr. Watson 1:45
You know, I think we're patient with this. When we talk about transformation, we'd like these Damascus Road transformations like Paul went through. I mean he goes out a seething killer and he comes back this gospel champion. You know, blind for a few days, but this gospel champion. And that's really the kind of thing that we want to see. Look, back in the day when Billy Sunday and these people were out preaching, man, that's one of the things you hear in those big tent revival kind of things. That man I came in, I was an alcoholic, I gave my life to Jesus, and all those shackles fell off, and I'm haven't had a drink since. That's what we want and we are impatient.
Dr. Kelly 2:29
Yeah. Well, and you see those moments, right? Where God just does something. I remember my mom, my mom was a smoker when I was growing up, and I remember my mom was in a specific Bible study class. And she got convinced by the way that they were studying the Bible that this was something that God didn't want in her life. And she put them down and never smoked again. And I was like-my dad kind of went back and forth, where he would smoke for a while, then he would get off of them and quit. And then you know, well, maybe I'll have one. But for her, it was just like, she had this overnight kind of thing. 'God doesn't want this, God give me the power.' And she just set them down and she was done with it and never smoked again, as far as I know. So I do think we had those moments, where we see God move in this really powerful kind of way, but that makes us even more impatient for times when we don't see those things happen.
Dr. Watson 3:30
You know, a kind of illustration; we planted an apricot tree. And I mean, it was a twiggling. It was just, there was a little bit of a root on it, so we stuck it in the ground, and I put some rocks around it. Put water to it and stuff. And we had been watching that thing. The first year didn't grow much. It's actually gotten fairly tall now. Well, last spring, for the first time, we got blossoms on it. It didn't have any apricots, but you know something, especially with teenagers, middle school and teenagers, man, you've got to wait for it to begin to grow and nurture and blossom. Especially teenagers and college, man, they got so many things competing for their attention. But you know, the thing is teach the truth, and trust the One that's responsible for the growth.
Dr. Kelly 4:29
Yeah. You know, I heard John Taylor, our New Testament guy here, not too long ago talking about-he says, "You know, I hear all these people saying, 'I can't remember what the sermon was last Sunday. I can't remember what the sermon was yesterday.'" And he said, "I get that but it's not like that's not affecting me." He says, "The honest truth is, I can't remember a single Greek lesson that I ever had. I don't remember anybody ever teaching. Specifically what they taught me in Greek. But I can speak Greek now, I can read Greek now. So I must have learned something along the way." There is that sense of consistency. That sometimes is what happens to sort of start this slow growth process, this transformation process that the Holy Spirit is up to in our lives, where He doesn't just in many cases, I mean He certainly can, but in many cases He doesn't just overwhelm us with everything is going to be different now, boom. But he takes the sandpaper and just slowly start sandpapering away those things that don't look like Christ.
Dr. Watson 5:39
I got married in 1989, I was 24. I thought I was ready to slay the world. And about six months in, I've got this wonderful, beautiful young lady in my life, and I looked around and I realized, dude you don't know anything. Her dad has trusted you to take over, be a protecter, help her, provide all these different things that we all think about. And I was the biggest knucklehead. And I'm almost 35 years in, and I'm just now starting to feel like, I think I've got a handle on about 80% of this. You know, and we've got to realize that growth takes place really rapidly in some people. Other people, it just doesn't. So teaching for transformation, it's something that we need to do. And I think nurture in this sense, is not just being pleasant, nice. Making sure the soil is fertile and that right music is playing so that the leaves grow, all this stuff. No, sometimes nurture is being a little bit rough. And calling to account, but always with the understanding that they're maturing.
Dr. Kelly 5:39
Yeah, and I think as well, that my job is to be faithful in helping them to understand and to get the word of God. To be able to see how the Word of God can apply into their lives, to see how that can bring about change in their lives. But the transformation is really not my job. But that's really the work of the Holy Spirit through all of that, and I need to be patient to watch for what he's up to. To be praying, to be calling on the Holy Spirit just to do the things that He wants to accomplish in the lives of the people that I get to teach. And the same thing I think is true for myself, that as I'm studying the Word of God, looking for the Holy Spirit to be at work in my life, changing me, transforming me, helping me to be more the man of God that He's called me to be.
Dr. Watson 7:51
You know, I think we really like to think of growth and transformation according to...I see this characteristic, so I can check that box. Check this, check the boxes. And just going through this sequence of things to say 'Check, check, check, check, check.' I've mentioned martial arts before. But one of the things is, you can go in to karate, and you can learn the kata, you can learn the forms, you can get it all down. You can actually be pretty good at it. But that doesn't mean you understand. Until you get engaged in an actual sparring or actual confrontation with someone, and the reality will set in, 'I really don't know what I'm doing'. You can't just read the list for attaining this belt, and I'm there. I got my black belt. I mean yeah, you could probably hurt somebody, yourself included. But what truly defines someone who's achieved that level of martial artist, is someone who understands how to manage their strength, has the control and the awareness to know how much force I need to use at a given moment. Should I just back-and the wisest thing for a black belt? Walk away. And that's maturity, that's transformation.
Dr. Kelly 9:20
I think so too. But I also think that there are times when we kind of can almost get in the way of what God wants to accomplish in people's lives by the way that we teach. What I mean by that is, sometimes I think we approach teaching the Bible as if the Bible is all about behavior. That the goal is to change behavior. And especially when we're teaching kids, it's really easy for us to focus on being nice to your friends or talking nice or respecting your mother or helping people when they're hurting. There's really a tendency for us, even in adulthood, I think to teach people as if every lesson ends with, what do I do? And here's the behavior that I'm supposed to do. And the Bible certainly calls us to live lives of activity, to live lives that are engaged in activity, that it seems like to me that the Bible-that Christianity is not primarily about behavior, it's primarily about a relationship. And that if my application doesn't drive me first of all, to this deepening, growing relationship with Christ, and somebody is just over here trying to do all the things they're supposed to do in Christianity on their own, by their own power, that I may actually be stifling somebody's ability to grow instead of instead of helping.
Dr. Watson 10:57
Qhat is the motive for transformation? We've got a passage that we wanted to share with this, but I want to jump over to Jesus. Jesus was in the temple one day and a scribe raised his hand, "Master, what's the greatest commandment?" Jesus says, "Well the greatest commandment is 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strengh. But there's a second one that's equal to it. It's love your neighbors yourself.' On this, all the law and the prophets depend." Essentially what He does is breaks the two commandments into two parts and says, first part is about loving God, second part is about loving your fellow man. And this is obedience. This is the heart of obedience. So what is the motive for obedience? Why are we obedient? It's not because we want to please God, it's because our heart, our love for God motivates us to do that.
Dr. Kelly 11:55
Yeah, yeah. Well, and that just really gets into the passage we wanted to read, don't it?
Dr. Watson 11:59
Yeah. I'm gonna go ahead and do the whole first eight verses of Micah chapter six. "Now listen to what the Lord is saying, Rise, plead your case before the mountains and let the hills hear your voice. Listen to the Lord's lawsuit-" So one thing you got to understand, God is being the judge, He's being the lawyer, and He's being the jury here. He's accusing Israel of misbehavior. It says, "listen to the Lord's lawsuit, you mountains and enduring foundations of the earth, because the Lord has a case against His people and He will argued against Israel. My people, what have I done to you? Or how have I wearied you? Testify against Me. Indeed, I brought you up from the land of Egypt and redeemed you from that place of slavery." Here's His testimony, "I sent Moses, Aaron and Miriam ahead of you, My people, remember what Baillet king of Moab proposed with Balum son of Baor answered him, and what happened at the Acacia Grove to Gilgal? So that you might acknowledge the Lord's righteous acts." He takes them back in time, focuses on this history of His interaction with them. And most of this is about deliverance. But it's about deliverance, and it's about discipline, and all of those things.
Dr. Watson 13:19
And then in verse six, he gets to something really interesting, because this is getting to the motivation of obedience. He says, "What should I bring before the Lord when I come to bow before God on high? Should I come before Him with burnt offerings or with year old calves? Would the Lord be pleased with 1000s of rams or with 10,000 streams of oil?" Now, listen, these are commandments. These are things that they're commanded to do in worship. And what he's asking is, Is God really pleased with that? And then he takes us to an absolutely extreme place. He says, "Should I give my firstborn for my transgression? The child of my body for my own sin." That's completely forbidden. It's running to the ridiculous. So God has taken this argument, do you think you could give up something like this? Something this important? Because firstborn son, that's the heir.
Dr. Kelly 14:12
Yes, that's huge.
Dr. Watson 14:13
And he says, No, listen, people. "He has told you what is good. And what it is the Lord requires of you. To act justly, to love faithfulness, and to walk humbly with your God." Now those sounds like-those are three commands. They sound like straightforward commands, but at the heart of them is motive. What is it that motivates you? To act justly, to love faithfulness and walk with humility before your God?
Dr. Kelly 14:41
Yeah. Well, and Micah is not like he's not devaluing at this point, the sacrificial system or any of that kind of stuff. I mean, he's not saying, let's cast all this stuff off, right? But what he's saying is, that's not how you please and honor God. How you please and honor God is something more fundamental than that. It's something that comes back to who you are. It may be not so different from what Genesis says when it's talking about Abraham and says that he had faith and God accounted that to him as righteousness. That it was the faith, not the works that made him righteous.
Dr. Watson 15:19
And you know, the interesting thing, this is given during the kingdom of Judah, about the same time that Isaiah was preaching in Jerusalem. And the people at that time were probably in the peak of their religiosity. They were bringing these things, and if you go and read in Isaiah and you read here, you'll see that one of the condemnations that they receive in the way they're behaving is that, 'well, you bring all these offerings but they make Me sick.'
Tyler Sanders 15:47
Yeah, thats a tough part.
Dr. Watson 15:50
It is, because you're following the rules, but there's nothing in your heart that signifies the real purpose of these.
Tyler Sanders 15:58
I think He's-I think God says He hates it.
Dr. Watson 16:00
He does. Despises. And so you know, when he gets to verse eight, he really turns the pressure and turns the dial right on the spot there. He says, 'I want you to act justly, I want you to quit bringing your offerings and stuff, and I want you to take care of the orphan and the widow. I want you to quit stealing from each other. I want you to quit cheating each other in court.' The faithful love, the love of faithfulness, to love hesed. Boy, what an awesome combination there. Hesed kind of incorporates the ideas of love and loyalty and faithfulness. It's the word that God uses to describe His covenant love for us. And that's a motive in and of itself. And he says and to walk humbly. In other words, don't walk as if everything you're doing is exactly what you're supposed to do. Go always with the trepidation that 'Lord, I'm giving this, I'm surrendering this to You.'
Dr. Kelly 17:03
Right, right, right. Yeah, that God is so important. God's who's important here, that it's not me, that it's not what I do. That I'm wanting to seek Him, to know Him, to magnify Him. Realizing that there's nothing about me that's really good. That anything about me that's good is what comes from God. And I think that's what's so important when we start talking about application of a lesson, is it's one thing to try to give people something to do. It's another thing to push them towards getting to know God better. Serving God with a pure heart and knowing God. That if the application that we're wanting to draw out is the importance of spending time in the Word of God by yourself, why do you do that? Beause I want to know, God. I want to know what He has to say to me. I want to experience this relationship with Him. It was really kind of funny, specifically related to that, when I was doing my doctoral research, what I did was I got indigenous youth ministers from countries all over the world. And I asked them, just to tell me, what are the things that are most important that you're doing with high school? Why are you doing the things that you do? What are the things you're trying to accomplish in the lives of high school students. And only about seven things sort of rose to the surface of 'these are absolutely important for everybody around the world.' One of those things is, there was a statement that we came up with that said, "teaching them to pray and read the Word of God."
Dr. Kelly 19:25
And they wouldn't buy that until they added the word "in order to know God." And it's funny, because it spans all over the world that it was like, No, just reading the Bible isn't it. That if you're reading the Bible in a way that helps you to know God, if you're reading it to find out-if you're praying in a way, not just to get what you want and to try to get God to be like a vending machine, and if I say the right prayer, I get the answer. But that I'm doing [this] in order to get to know God, that somehow that's actually going to be meaningful. And I think that's right. I think that they were onto something, that the way that we help people with application, that the motive is hugely important.
Dr. Watson 19:33
Who is this God? Again, it's something that just seems to percolate to the top every time. Why do we teach? Because we're pointing to this eternal Creator God, who wants relationship with us. And He doesn't want us because we're good enough. I mean, ultimately, we're not. He loves us in spite of the fact that we're not enough and that we can't do it all. So He made a way where He does it, and what He accomplished on the cross through His son, is imputed to u in a way that equals that. And that's where the transformation stuff is.
Dr. Kelly 20:12
Right. And that's what got Paul so upset about the Galatians, wasn't it? That they kept wanting to do all these things, to go back and earn their salvation instead of receiving that through faith.
Tyler Sanders 20:25
It's what we still do, right? I mean, that's like the real challenge, I think, in the Christian life is really living in accordance with the reality of Christ's sacrifice and the righteousness that comes through that because we like to have a checklist. We really like to think, it's weird that we like-maybe we don't like to do this, maybe it's just our tendency-but we'd like to have that....okay, I read my Bible today, qnd then when I don't do it, God's mad at me, I've kind of messed up, how do I get myself out of this hole? And it's like, we just can't get it in our heads that we're not in the hole anymore.
Dr. Kelly 20:29
Yeah, yeah. There is a sense in which sometimes we have to act our way into a new way of being. That there are times when, we do things because we're just trusting God to do those. You know, I don't feel like that this is going to be right for me. I don't feel like that real honesty is going to be right for me, but I'm gonna do that because... or I don't feel like confessing my sins is going to be good for me, but I'm going to do that because that's what God says. And so I act my way into a new way of being. And sometimes there is a sense of obedience in all that. But even at that, it's about trusting God in the middle of all that, not just saying, somehow, my behavior is going to fix it.
Dr. Watson 21:56
It's kind of fascinating to me, I've heard this for years, and being an Old Testament guy, this drives me up a wall, but this idea that the Old Testament is about law, New Testament's about grace. There's really no sense of sanctification in the Old Testament. How can you be sanctified if you don't have-? And my response to that is, I remember David saying something along the lines of "Create in me a clean heart, oh Lord my God. Renew the right spirit within me." Why would he say that? How can that have any relevance if the God we worship hasn't always been about transformation?
Dr. Kelly 22:33
Yeah. Well, and the affirmation of David wasn't; he was a great king, because he did all these things right. It was that he was a man after God's own heart.
Dr. Watson 22:44
He asked for forgiveness. He, unlike Saul, who didn't do, in my estimation, didn't do much that was as bad as what David did. But what was it that set him apart that he became a man after God's own heart? It's because when he sinned, he knew it.
Tyler Sanders 23:01
And he went back to God.
Dr. Watson 23:02
And he sought God's grace.
Dr. Watson 23:09
So we're talking about transformation. Psalm 119 has something about transformation, and the Word of God. And I think this is really fascinating. It says, "How can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping Your Word. I have sought you with all my heart." There it is. "By keeping His word, I have sought you with all my heart. Don't let me wander from Your commands. I have treasured Your Word in my heart." And listen to this, "I have treasured Your Word in my heart, I stored up Your Word in my heart," for why? For what reason? "So that I may not sin against You."
Tyler Sanders 23:46
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dr. Watson 23:49
Transformation.
Dr. Kelly 23:50
That's so good.
Tyler Sanders 23:50
I mean, I feel like I always go to the same book whenever I need an example. But it's always Jonah, because I just think it's so rich. But it's so...I feel like that's such a good example of like him, he's still in the process of being transformed. Because he starts out being very disobedient to God. And God fixes that. And then he's obedient, but his motive is still wrong. And so he gets up there and he kind of has this session up on top of the hill waiting for the city of Nineveh to get turned over. And God has one final lesson for Jonah. Just for him. And [God's] like, Do you think I don't care about this city? So Jonah doesn't quite get it yet. Hopefully he does after that, I guess we don't know. But my hope is that he does, because that's kind of getting into this whole idea of like, you can do the right things but that's not...it's not that it doesn't matter but that's not the means to the end.
Tyler Sanders 23:52
You might be able to call Jonah the first Christian nationalist, right? He's ticked off because God didn't destroy his nation's enemy. And he's up there, probably got his lip out and stuff like that.
Tyler Sanders 25:05
It's crazy. He's probably the most successful Prophet, like in the Old Testament.
Dr. Watson 25:10
And God said, I want you to go preach to these [people]. It's a little bit different than any of the...because He says, "Look, they're evil has come up before Me. So I want you to go to denounce them." In chapter three, He says, "Get up, go and preach the message I will tell you." We can assume God gave him the message but Jonah preached exactly what he wanted to. Four or five words, "in 40 days you're toast". And then he went up, set up a hill watch and see what happens.
Dr. Kelly 25:37
It's kind of curious that you have the book of Jonah. I keep wondering, you know, who wrote the book of Jonah. Because I'm thinking if Jonah wrote this, then it's all confessional. It's all like, 'okay, guys, you're not gonna believe how bad I was." And maybe he did get it if that's the case. If somebody else wrote it, maybe not. But if Jonah actually wrote that down, and then that's pretty much a whole book of confession.
Dr. Watson 26:02
And notice the difference in attitude toward the sailors in the first part of the book. I mean, he's concerned about them. Gives his own life. "Throw me overboard, so you can live." But he gets back over there and this people that are actually repenting, responding to the message, and he despises them. He just despise them. And here's what impresses me. Jonah had no impact at all on the way God dealt with those people. No impact at all. I think we give ourselves way, way too much credit.
Dr. Kelly 26:36
Yeah. Well, and maybe that's really a good lesson for us as teachers, because I mean, certainly God was going to accomplish something. He was going to accomplish something in Nineveh, and He certainly could have, if Jonah runs away, certainly could have called another prophet and sent somebody else over there. That wouldn't have been a big deal for God to be able to do. But He chose not to do that, He chooses to do all the things that He has to do to put Jonah in a position where he sees the repentance of Nineveh. Where he sees these people turning back to God and in mass. That in a lot of ways, you know, God's work seems to be as much in the life of the teacher as it was in the life of the-
Dr. Watson 26:36
Don't be Jonah. Don't be Jonah but...BUT...God don't need you.
Dr. Kelly 27:26
Yeah. And I think the thing is, is that if I'm faithful, that God is gonna do tremendous things at times. And there are other times where I'm gonna be disappointed, but it's not about me. It's not about what I bring. I want to do the level best that I can to teach and to be faithful with the Word of God, but that God's Spirit is going to determine what kind of transformation happens.
Tyler Sanders 27:50
Well, and a word you used earlier was "futility." If you're a teacher, don't give into futility. Which that's a big theme, I think, in Jonah as well. And I think, he thinks he knows exactly what's going to happen. But, I think that's an important thing for us to remember, as teachers as well, is not to give into futility. It can be hard to see transformation, week to week, day to day.
Dr. Watson 28:16
Right, I've got another piece of advice. That's great. Take risks. I mean, as learners, one of the things I have to convince them-and they don't believe me until they actually see the grades-but one of the things I want to convince them to do is take chances in your learning. Take a chance to be wrong. I will grade you off if I see you simply reciting what other people have said and not drawing conclusions. But if I see you working through it and drawing a conclusion, even if I don't agree with it, or even if I think it's wrong, I'm going to give you full credit for the thought process. Look, if God has put you in the position, take the chance. Know that if your heart is in, God's Word doesn't return void. Let Him deal with that. Take the chance. It's okay to be wrong. It's okay not to have 100% full understanding. But be honest, if you don't know, give full disclosure, "I don't know".
Tyler Sanders 29:22
"I don't know." Yeah.
Dr. Watson 29:24
But look, it's okay. It's okay not to have all the 100% answers.
Dr. Kelly 29:28
And I think I would say the same thing about just your approach to teaching. Not even what you teach, but your approach to teaching, that an awful lot of times, we sit down and prepare our notes and teach and do our lecture in class because we can get everything right and we can say it right and people will understand and we don't have to worry about what's going to happen in class. But the honest truth is sometimes people learn better when they are participating in the learning experience. As a matter of fact, I would say most of the time, people learn better when they're participants in the learning experience.
Dr. Watson 30:00
Adult learners especially.
Dr. Kelly 30:01
When you start asking questions, you're taking risks, you know. You don't know how they're going to respond, you don't know what they're going to say, you don't know if they're going to participate or not. But I think doing things that help people to engage with the lesson, provides better opportunities for them to do that. So taking some risks, I think is valuable, even if sometimes you feel like that it sort of leaves you out there flapping in the wind, while your class is maybe not going with you. And sometimes things are going to be explosively good. And sometimes they're going to kind of fall flat. And that's really okay either way.
Dr. Watson 30:34
One of the things I found about online learning, and it's actually made me a better teacher, I prepared better. But one of the things that I found was that when I had to take from a traditional face to face approach, the primary lecture and so forth, when I had to put it into a context where they were going to take the material, and most of the learning had to be on their terms., what I found was, when I let go of the material, when I gave them direction, they usually went where I hoped they would go anyway. Sometimes they don't, which, okay, that's fine. But what it shows me, especially with adult learners, is they are eager to learn how to do it themselves.
Dr. Kelly 31:19
That's so good.
Dr. Watson 31:20
That they're eager to go and find that direction. And in terms of the result of learning, you want to see that effective or emotional change, how they feel about the things they're learning, how they perceive it, and maybe a change in behavior, but there's also, they are able to make connections in their brains and stuff like that, between things that's much more synthetic, it's much broader knowledge.
Dr. Kelly 31:50
And I think more relational. That is, they're experiencing God's Word for themselves. That they're relating to the Holy Spirit, you know, who's God in the person of the Holy Spirit in a way that's different than they do when they're just kind of sitting back and listening.
Dr. Watson 32:05
And more able to relate it to other people.
Dr. Kelly 32:07
Absolutely.
Tyler Sanders 32:08
Yeah. Well, let me ask you, I'm gonna toss this back to you guys. Because we're about to spin the wheel. So, because we've kind of hit two different levels of this-well, probably a lot different levels, but there's two in my brain right now-on one side, we've kind of been talking about this passage in Micah that kind of demonstrates this concept, but we also just have this concept of what really is teaching that transforms? So we're gonna spin the wheel and look at an age group we could teach this kind of concept to, how would you guys want to approach this? Do you think you want to approach it from like, how would you teach a lesson? How would you put a lesson together that would try to aim towards a transformational endpoint? Or how would you approach this passage? What's a little more interesting to you guys right now?
Dr. Kelly 32:57
I don't know, I probably would pick the first one. The 'how do we put together a lesson that's more transformational?
Dr. Watson 33:04
I was fixing to say that that's more along the lines of what people are going to do. If they want to go transformation, 'we can go teach this passage the way they did it'. But you know, let's do something a little more-
Tyler Sanders 33:18
Let's spin the wheel. The seniors.
Dr. Watson 33:25
I do that every Sunday.
Dr. Kelly 33:25
That's who you teach!
Tyler Sanders 33:28
So what kind of lesson plan are we putting together?
Dr. Watson 33:29
Well, first off, I need to say, I'm only 59. I don't consider myself a senior yet. I've got you know, all that stuff. But yeah. Look, especially in the Sunday school class I teach, most of those women have been studying the Bible for 30-they have been in Bible study, fellowship and various things for you know-they catch me on stuff all the time. So you know, you gotta swallow your pride with that. But the main thing, I think that you do in there, and they love this, they want to hear it, that the nature of the Word of God is that if you're humble, and you open yourself up, it settles in and it transforms you by its nature. One of my areas that I've really been focusing on is tabernacle, and that focuses in on the presence of God. And what I find truly transformative now, is knowing that God's desire...He created Adam and Eve, they spent time in the Garden of Eden, they were in His presence. They were with Him constantly. That changes with the Fall. And even past this 400 years. There's nobody that really sees or witnesses or spends time in God's presence until Moses encounters Him at that burning bush. God brings them to Mount Sinai and says, I'm going to give you a tabernacle. Mishcon, the dwelling place. And God says over and over, this is going to be My dwelling place so that My presence is with you permanently. Always. Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us. You go read in Revelation, God says, 'I've got you all here so that I'll be your God, you'll be my people. And I'll dwell with you. You're here with me.' Now, that's what's transformative. Is being introduced and being able-and these people, especially man. Some of them are drawing nearer and nearer to the ends of their lives. And they talk more frankly about how that affects them on a day to day basis. And interestingly enough, they're not all that distressed about it. And so for them, the comfort and transformation is, I think, attached to this idea; the peace that comes with knowing that on the other side here, I'm better then, than I am now. Their spouses are dying. And family members are dying. And it's such great comfort to them. That's transformative.
Dr. Kelly 36:06
Yeah. Yeah, no, I think that's so good. And I think that whole concept of my religion being relational, of being in a relationship is so huge. I mean, in senior adulthood, a lot of folks...there's different stages of senior adulthood, right. That there's this sort of just kind of planning, retirement, and moving into retirement years. And then, there's this stage of still being active, but slowing down a little bit. And then there's this stage of sort of coming to the conclusion of life. And in all those things, it's sort of different, but I think the thing that senior adults can grow in sweetness over is just the sense of the presence of God, of dwelling in the presence of God, of living in his presence. That it may take me most of the morning to get up and take a shower and get dressed. My mom's 80 now, and I talked to her, you know, just about every day, and she'll talk about that a lot. She'll say, "well, I got up a little bit late today. And I've spent the last two hours trying to get a shower and get dressed." And I'm like, "that's okay." But just the sense that in the middle of just everything slowing down, that it gives me an opportunity to be in the presence of God. So I think everything Greg was saying, makes so much sense to me. And I can see how that just provides a richness in terms of the way we study, when our focus is not on, what you do or really even what you know, but on dwelling in the presence of God, of seeing Him and His word, of finding my life lived out for whatever years I have left. Or days, in some cases, that I have left. That I find this dwelling in the presence of God.
Dr. Watson 38:04
And just know that you don't have to have a certain level of spirituality, you don't have to have a certain number of years in service, or anything like that. Man, Jesus walked into a forbidden, unholy land, to spend an afternoon sitting at a well with a woman who was low and snakes spit in the eyes of most of the people that Jesus normally hung out with. And he drank water from the same well, from the same vessel that this woman carried. In Jewish religion, He was contaminated. And yet this is a woman who got the benefit of the presence of God, the living God right there in front of her.
Dr. Kelly 38:51
So good.
Tyler Sanders 38:53
Yeah, I think that's really good. Well, thank you guys so much for talking through this today. For listeners. I think if you're preparing a lesson this week, it's hard to come up with just a really...there's not really a succinct application at all, I think out of this. But really just consider as you're building a lesson plan, how you're gonna try to reach for these things we've been talking about, that we're not trying to do behavior modification. This isn't about learning the list better or knowing all the details, but really about knowing God.
Dr. Kelly 39:27
That's good.