Curriculum and Discipleship

The question regarding how appropriate a published curriculum is for guiding the teaching of a church is a rather good question. Paul the Apostle of Christ says the following, "I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done" - Romans 15:18 (NIV) The the point being made is that Paul would not even speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through him, and when Paul spoke of what Christ had accomplished it was for the purpose of leading the Gentiles to obey God by the work of Paul. A person could organize the work of God for redemption into motifs (or patterns), and one particular motif of the gospel that focuses on redemption is the birth, death, resurrection, and indwelling of the Holy Ghost. Overall, once having established the correct motif that God's power expresses himself in, then a person could organize their presentation of God, but this falls short of developing an organized curriculum because ministry may not be aware of exactly how God plans to use his power in the distant future as the source for scriptural based messages.

1 Corinthians 1:1-2 clearly identifies that God's power is what transforms a person after they have been called to be holy, and the scripture does not particularly ever argue the case that people can control the power of God. According to 1 Corinthians 1:5-9, people in Christ have been enriched in every way without lacking anything, and the challenge of keeping the believer strong and blameless is the work of Christ. 1 Corinthians 1:10-17 argues the case that the efforts that should be strived for are the efforts of unity of the many members of the body of Christ, and the message is that people should seek agreement with each other while it appears to blame human wisdom for robbing the cross of Christ of its power to reconcile all things together collectively.

1 Corinthians 1:18-24 argues the case that the message of the cross is a message regarding the power of God, and this message is both wisdom and power to those that God has called while it is foolishness to those that God has not called. 1 Corinthians 1:27-30 makes the case that Christ is our wisdom, righteousness, holiness and redemption, and the plan of God the Father is to use Christ in this way to shame those that are wise in the world. 1 Corinthians 2:2-5 drives the point home as Paul argues that he has resolved to know nothing at all except the person of Christ and his crucifixion; moreover, the message that Paul gives is that his preaching does not rely on human wisdom as a source of preaching.

1 Corinthians 2:6:10 makes the case that the wisdom that the apostles teach is a secret type of wisdom that God reveals that has been destined for the glory of those that God has called, and this wisdom if understood results in not partaking of the acts that result in the suffering of Christ on the cross (this wisdom is perhaps a type of categorization of faith). 1 Corinthians 2:11-13 argues the case that when a person receives the spirit of God, then they are able to interact with what is given (the deposit or more simply faith), and the Spirit of God both knows the thoughts of God and is able develop what has been given by God to those that God has called. 1 Corinthians 2:14-16 drives the point home by making the case that the person without the Spirit of God cannot even take the things from God because to him they appear foolish, but for those that God has called the mind of Christ is developed in the believer such that the things of God can be understood and accepted.

2 Peter 1:1-4 describes the reception of faith given by the righteousness of Christ, and the case made is that the divine power of God is what allows for those that God has called to participate in the divine nature and by doing so the power of God will be applied to the knowledge of God in order to escape the corruption of the world while having the promises of God bestowed through this process. 2 Peter 1:5-9 describes how the believer should make every effort to (by the power of God) add godly qualities to the deposit of faith that has been given by God, and in doing this a person makes the knowledge of God productive by first starting with the quality of goodness and last ending in love. 2 Peter 1:10-13 reassures the believer that through the process of transformation calling and election are made sure causing a rich welcome into the eternal dwellings, and the point that Peter reinforces is that he does not need to teach such things but simply to remind believers of these things. 2 Peter 1:19-21 concludes that the words of the prophets are made more certain (because of Christ work), and the point that Peter draws home is that no prophet ever emerged from his own interpretation but instead prophets spoke from God as they had been carried through the process by the Holy Spirit.

The point to be made is that a disciple making message does not rely on what people have produced in their own methods to understand the world, but instead a disciple making message transforms the knowledge of God through the deposit of faith (the talent) given to the believer by God. Only the power and the wisdom of God working through the work of the Holy Spirit can develop faith in the believer through a believer participating in the divine nature as the knowledge of God can compel the believer to search the mind of God. Overall, a disciple making message will thus generate people that act like the twelve disciples in that they question Jesus often, interact with Jesus, and discuss things with Jesus, but in the case of disciple makers today Jesus is not physically involved like he was with the twelve but instead Christ shows himself to others through the work of those that believe in him (the body of Christ).

The challenge that I would give for making a published church curriculum is, "exactly how would the curriculum makers know how God intends to work throughout an entire curriculum term, and how do the curriculum makers know the individual spiritual needs that would arise that the church is reasonable for addressing in order to make God available to the people?" Curriculum makers in my estimation are either only good for making a program needed for times when God's power is not visibly at work, or curriculum makers may only be able to make curriculum that help to transmit the knowledge of God but fail to make that knowledge interactive in daily living that would arise unique problems. Sadly, a curriculum may be an embalming tool used to preserve those things that are already dead in Christ by adding the knowable of God without the immediate hope of making that knowledge active through the work of the power of God. Overall, both faith and the knowledge of God may lay dormant until the time comes when the power of God works to transform both in the believer, and during this time of a dormant state knowledge of God can be increased and faith can be increase until the time comes when the power of God revives the believers into more fully possessing interactivity with God.