Case Study Sunday School1

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Discussion Board 1 Case Study

A Sunday School class has as its lesson Luke 2:41-52, Jesus in the Temple as a boy. The teacher, following the background and explanatory information in his teacher’s quarterly, is trying to help the class understand this story in its historical context and original setting and the fact that Luke (who alone among the Gospel writers tells this story) seems to want to underscore Jesus’ heritage and formation as a Jew. He discusses with the class the fact that the context, culture, and setting of the story was first-century Judaism, and that an understanding of that context is critical to a proper understanding of the story. The teacher spends considerable time with this background information, all of which is quite foreign and strange to those in the Sunday School class whose experience is that of 21st century Gentile Christians.

Finally, and with some exasperation, someone in the class challenges the teacher: “But you talk as though Jesus was a Jew. He wasn’t a Jew; he was a Christian! Oh, I know that he was born a Jew, but he rejected all that ‘law stuff’ along with the rest of Judaism as a false religion. Why are you trying to make Jesus out to be a Jew? Why do we need to know all this Jewish stuff to interpret the New Testament? This is a church, not a synagogue!

You’re the Sunday School teacher. How would you respond to this person?