Conversations with Myself

I spent much of yesterday talking to myself - in my head, at least. I'm told that's a common malady of the single person (hey, at least no one else has to listen to it!). Every time I teach, the critic in my head starts a theological argument - "Did I just teach them heresy?"

The more that I've studied theology, the harder teaching has become. Topics that used to seem so simple have gained a new complexity, a complexity that I usually have to avoid while teaching. Discussing predestination or the premillenial, pretribulational second coming of Christ with 3 year olds isn't exactly an effective teaching strategy. So we simplify.

And then I find myself wondering, "Did I make that TOO simple?" Case in point - yesterday, we talked about salvation in Sunday School. I grew up thinking salvation was a lot more about what I did (said a prayer, believed in God, etc.) than about what God did. Now, when I teach, I focus on the fact that there is nothing I can do. Yet, there is an element of human responsibility - did my teaching exclude that? I also focused a lot on Romans 8:28, that Christ died for us while we were still sinners; we don't have to "clean up" our lives before we come to Christ. But did I teach that too strongly, to the exclusion of the fact that we must be willing to renounce our sin and allow God to remake us?

Sometimes, I think life was a lot easier before seminary. Not really. But at least the conversations in my mind didn't turn into theological arguments!