James, people attend church and sabbath school for a variety of reasons…for social, for worship, for spiritual growth, for learning, etc. What I AM saying is that for many without the benefit of more formal education SS school IS where they learn and because of these factors the lessons are written for a person with little formal education.
All of this does not take away your very good point that church (and SS) is supposed to be a family. Nonetheless, I and many others, have been habitually bored in SS…we know that God loves us and received that message along time ago. Some of us need more “meat” and others need more “love”. Sometimes we get what we need but not always.
I agree. I would say though, “The SDA church is plagued with cliche-ism (to coin a new word because none exists to describe the blank, hesitant look and packaged, rolling-off-the-tongue, mundane answer).”
COULD WE NOW TURN OUR ATTENTION TO THE SUBJECT OF THE ARTICLE, PLEASE?
I really liked Dr. Valentine’s presentation on the possessed man whose demons ran away with the people’s pigs. I have something further to share on this; and I am really eager to do so.
Agreed. They’re not challenging in any way, including theologically. They’re completely apologetic, which is I suppose not surprising, but for an adult lesson they’re very bland and regurgitate very safe statements on the subject matter at hand.
One author of these lessons famously stated he’s always eager to get the new quarterly so he can find out what he wrote; a jab at the extensive editing his lessons get before being published, sometimes to the extent that his point is lost or diametrically changed.
