For a returning soldier

Chip, a father of 4, is finally home. I've never met him, but his parents are members of our church (he was raised in the Lutheran homeland--Minnesota). We've been praying for his safety and his family since we met his parents, and read his Christmas letter. He's a man of great faith trusting God in extremely difficult circumstances.

This week our congregation has been reading the book of Acts, and I noticed a number of references to soldiers and centurions. I'm not much of a Bible scholar, but I did wonder about what studies have been done on their influence in spreading the Gospel during the first century of the church. Then yesterday, while looking for a different book (and knocking some items on the floor because I sometimes stack books behind books if they don't have attractive covers), I found an International Sunday School Lesson book from 1944 which I think I bought at a yard sale for a quarter about 10 years ago. If you can find them, these books are packed with study outlines, bibliographies, lesson plans, illustrations and color maps. No wimp-out, touchy-feely, "let's get acquainted" questions in this book!

In 1943, when the editors were preparing this volume, the United States was in the middle of a terrible war, thousands of our soldiers were dying daily, millions of Europeans were already dead. I was living in a tiny Illinois town of about 2800, and its "War Record of Mount Morris" has about 500 biographies of the men and women who served. Every family in 1943 was affected. These days we like to laud the WWII veterans who are dying of old age (and I think there's only one WWI vet still living), and keep quiet about what our men and women are accomplishing in Iraq. I personally believe the unpopular war president George Bush will be vindicated--it may take 50 years--and will be seen as the great liberator of this century. We ignored the signs of fascism in the 1930s--both our liberals and conservatives were reluctant to dabble in someone else's problems. Then we compounded the error by cuddling with the Communists after victory in Europe, sending many more millions to camps and death. We thought Europe and Asia could go up in flames or go to prison camps and we'd just sit it out. Our 20th century legacy of our leaders' myopia and deceit is being continued in today's political campaign.

Anyway, I digress. Back to the 1944 book. In the introduction the editor writes:

"Inasmuch as we are in the midst of the world's most gigantic military conflict, and the minds of people are so much upon war, some of our readers might be interested in taking up a series of studies in young people's meetings, or in prayer meetings, or in private classes in homes, apart from the International Sunday School Lessons, in Biblical themes that have more or less relation to the subject of war. We here suggest two such series, one a study of the centurions and soldiers of the New Testament [the other was OT battles]. They will be found in eighteen different groups, nine in the Gospels, and nine in the Book of Acts. A fascinating book could be written just about the soldiers of the New Testament.
1. The centurion whose servant Jesus healed of the palsy (Matt. 8:5-13; Luke 7:1-10)
2. The soldiers of the governor who mocked and smote Jesus--between his trial and crucifixion (Mat. 27:27-32; Mark 15:16-23; John 19:2)
3. The soldiers who mocked Jesus at the cross (Luke 23:36,37)
4. The soldiers who parted Christ's raiment at the foot of the cross (John 19:23,24)
5. The soldiers who broke the legs of the 2 criminals crucified on either side of Christ (John 19:32)
6. The soldier who thrust a spear into the side of Christ (John 19:34)
7. The centurion at the cross who confessed that Jesus was the Son of God (Matt.27:54; Mark 15:39; Luke 23:47)
8. The centurion who reported to Pilate that Jesus was dead (Mark 15:44,45)
9. The soldiers who were set to guard the tomb wherein the body of Jesus lay (Matt. 27:65, 66; 28:11-15)
10. Cornelius, centurion of the Italian band, to whom Peter preached (Acts 10)
11. The "devout soldier" who was sent by Cornelius to bring Peter (Acts 10:7,8)
12. The 4 quarternions of soldiers to whom Peter was delivered for safekeeping, and between two of whom Peter was sleeping (Acts 12:4-18)
13. The soldiers and centurions whom the chief captain used to deliver Paul from the mob in Jerusalem (Acts 21:32-35)
14. The centurion to whom Paul declared he was a Roman citizen (Acts 22:25,26)
15. The centurion to whom Paul asked permission to see his sister's son (Acts 23:17)
16. The soldiers who accompanied Paul to Caesarea (Acts 23:23-35)
17. Julius, a centurion of Augustus' band, to whom Paul was committed when he was sent to Rome (Acts 27:1,6,11,31,43; 28:16)
18. The soldiers who were on the ship on which Paul was carried to Rome (Acts 27:31, 32, 42)"

Only the introduction mentions the war that was on everyone's mind, an introduction which included five annotated bibliographies containing about 80 titles, many multi-volume, for the teacher to consult! Many people never read an introduction, preface or footnote (librarians love the secondary and tertiary stuff), so I suspect this was a concession to some heated arguments in the back room when deciding what was to go into this book.

The editors appeared to have no doubts about who would be the victor, although I don't think my mother, aunts and grandmothers, with ear to the radio and eye on the headlines, waiting for the mailman (my own father plus numerous uncles and cousins were in the service) were quite so confident.

"When the war is over, evangelical Christianity will enter upon the greatest struggle it has known since the days of Constantine in the defense of its great cardinal truths. All of this great and important and sober work will not be done by ministers or theological professors, but much of it by the thousands and thousands of faithful Sunday school teachers throughout our land. Let us prayerfully, carefully, with all the mind and heart we have, prepare ourselves now for this great struggle in the expectation of glorious victory in the ultimate triumph of the truth of God."

Certainly a word for the 21st century. And even they couldn't have imagined it would be our home-grown, gold plated idols (celebrities), our wealth (mind numbing consumerism), our gendered temples (desecration of God's plan for man and woman), our university faculties and our own elected leaders we'd need to fear. Or did they?

Children 100 years ago

sound very similar to 60 years ago, or 30 years ago, for that matter, the last time I had experience with the 9-12 age range. This is taken from "Hurlbut's Teacher-Training Lessons for the Sunday School" (1908) by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut, and is a revision of his 1885 leaflets, and was authorized by the International Sunday School Association. The training of Sunday School teachers, he writes in the Preface, was an outgrowth of the Chautauqua Movement, which began in 1874, although there were teachers' guides before that. Sunday schools, not the government, provided the first form of public education in the United States.

These notes are taken from Chapter 42, "The Junior Pupils."

At the age of 8 or 9 a change comes gradually over the child's nature; and a new stage in its history begins. [In Sunday Schools this was called the Junior period.] It lasts about 4 years, from 9 to 12 or 13, and both entering and leaving it, the girls are about a year ahead of the boys in maturity.

Physical Traits--slower growth in the size of body and brain
strong development in strength and firmness of texture
great increase in physical activity--need games and sports
tendency to take risks--especially boys

Mental traits--Curiosity, interest in facts, little interest in abstract
good time for history, biography, adventure
Memory--strong, more accurate, more retentive than at any other period, if they don't memorize now, it will become much more difficult later
Arrangement of Knowledge--learning sequence of events, locality, facts
Love of reading--world of books is opening, reading more rapidly
Acquisitiveness--gathering and hoarding all sorts of things

Social traits--boys and girls no longer want to play together; boys with boys, girls with girls
Friendships--need for a special, constant companion--they never tire of each other
Club-spirit--girls form societies; boys form clubs or gangs; loyalty must be maintained at the sacrifice of truth and morality

Moral traits--sees more strongly the difference between right and wrong, even if they don't follow it in conduct
Sense of Justice--demand "fair play," perceive wrongs and resent them;

Religious traits--admiration for the heroic and noble, usually not doctrinal or emotional
willingness to work for Christ and the church--they have the time and energy, so put them to work--they love accomplishment.

The author suggests same-sex classes of about six, not more than eight, and that the teachers should be different than the ones they had in the primary grades. The author suggests emphasis on history and facts, not theology, but the list to be included was certainly impressive for 30 minutes a week! He suggests avoiding pathetic or suffering pictures, even pictures of Christ. Don't look for emotion or radical transformation, but one might expect a "decision for Christ," between 10 and 12.

This book belonged to my grandparents, who both taught Sunday School many years, and attended special, residential training classes at Bethany Seminary in Chicago. The cover is missing and it has been hand stitched to hold it together, with the back cover from a different source. My children were grown before I inherited this book--I could have saved myself a lot of time and expense if I'd used this instead of some of the trendy, psycho-babble stuff available in the 1970s and 1980s.