In the last post I noted that Christian students are often torn between their beliefs from home and their friends at school. Because their home (Christian) beliefs sometimes lack depth and support, they accommodate themselves to secular norms at school and drift away from the Bible. This I have witnessed too many times to count.
To my thinking, the problem stems from a lack of systematic discipleship available in their growing up years. Adult Christians must ask ourselves, “How are we discipling our students in the church?”
Nor can this discipleship begin with the topic of sexuality. Rather, sexuality should be embedded in a broader curriculum of developing a Christian worldview based in Scripture and service.
Biblical sexuality only makes sense in the larger narrative of the Bible. Isolated by itself, the topic of biblical sexuality seems too arbitrary and rule-based for students to accept, as though God is random, oppressive, and against “two people loving each other in their own way.”
Whenever I teach on the subject, I begin with the Trinity and how human beings are made in God’s image, male and female — and what this implies for marriage and sexuality. Both Jesus (Mark 10) and Paul (Ephesians 5) quote Genesis 2:24 as the model of marriage and therefore the template for sexual expression. The rest of the Bible assumes all this.
So, to return to the question: How are we discipling our young people in the church?
We who are leaders in the church must commit ourselves to laying a foundation in the lives of students that goes beyond the smattering of devotional thoughts that often characterizes their spirituality. Yes, they need to know “what” to believe — but also why.
Image by garageband from Pixabay
good reminders about depth in discipleship