I have many memories of Sunday school, especially those from my earliest years. Some Biblical images stay with you forever: like when you heard of Noah herding the animals aboard the Ark, two by two.
One of those images that’s stayed with me is from Acts 9: 24-25. Paul (when he was still called Saul) was preaching in Damascus–and remember, he originally went there to drag Christians back to Jerusalem so the Temple authorities could punish them. But things have changed.
Anyway, the city authorities decide to kill Paul, now they’re hunting for him up and down the city–but the Christians save him by lowering him down from the city wall in a basket. As a boy of six or seven, I could not resist that image. I understood that Paul was a very important man–like President Eisenhower, or my father. The thought of him peering over the rim of a basket was literally unforgettable.
I’m a big believer in bringing the Bible into a child’s life early on, and I’m glad my parents did so. Mustn’t forget aunts, uncles, and grandparents who also saw to it that children in our family knew who their Savior was.
And I knew who Paul was, too!
I am currently reading through “Acts of the Apostles” as my morning devotional time, and recently read this story (I am up to Barnabas & Paul in Antioch at present). I once taught a three-year Sunday School class called “The Ongoing Story” where we studied through the whole Bible as God’s Story (History). We used the offering money we collected each class for Bibles to give out, and embossed on the leather covers was The Ongoing Story – because it is now our turn on God’s stage of life in this fallen world.