Sunday School

Click on the graphic and you’ll be taken to my church’s website. From the graphic, you can tell that we’re in a farming community – but it’s a very diverse community and that’s reflected in our Sunday school. We have several adult classes – most are couples classes, though there is one Ladies Class and one college age class. Two of the adult classes are open to anyone, and another is for young marrieds, with pre-school children (most have nursery-age children.)

That’s the class Beloved Husband and I attended Sunday.  Don’t laugh! I know that we have great-grandchildren way beyond nursery age!!

However, this was a special lesson.  The class has been studying marriage, quite appropriately for those couples.  Just as appropriately, they requested three couples join them this Sunday for a question / answer session. The three couples must have met one specific criteria – they were to have been married over 50 years.

There was a wealth of couples from which to choose. Out of a membership of about 250 people, I can name ten couples in our church who qualify. We are not as rare as some people make us out to be.

The students had several prepared questions, and a couple were used as discussion starters. Of course, they were geared toward how God was a part of our marriages, but several other questions came up. Some of the best part of the discussions for me were:

Love changes over the years of marriage. Working together, it never lessens, but it changes as we change. With a God-centered marriage, there will be plenty of love from the time it was just two of you through to the time it is just the two of you, as it is now for us.

One of the first items of dissension will be finances. It is possible to adjust to a lessening of finances without a lessening of marital love. Open discussions about money should always include a prayer for God’s provision to accomplish His will. It makes a difference.

Plan to stay married long enough to celebrate that 50th wedding anniversary. It’s a good goal and will help get over rough spots. They will exist, and they are survivable.

The one thing a marriage cannot do without is either one it’s members. It is a partnership that works together, as God planned from the beginning. Jesus explained:

The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. They say unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away? He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so. (Matthew 19:3-8 KJV)

Oh, we covered so much more! And, the class may do this again. I hope so. That gives us the opportunity to serve our Lord as written in Titus 2. Go ahead, get out your Bible and read that chapter – then follow it.