Shortly after I became a member of a Christian Science branch church, I went through Primary class instruction, and, as a result, I was soon asked to teach Sunday School. Frankly, since I did not think of myself as a teacher, I had no idea how to approach that assignment, so I did what we all do when we need answers: I prayed.
Over and over I asked, “Father, show me how to teach. How can I teach Sunday School, having never taught?” The answer didn’t come right away, but one day this is what I heard: “The Bible is a trinity of instruction.” The three “subjects” are “geography and history,” “divine demands,” and “divine promises.” In other words, the Bible tells us what we must do, and then it tells us what we can expect from God.
From that first day as a teacher and for the next ten years I taught my students to look for the divine demands and divine promises in the Christian Science Bible Lesson, as instructed by the Church Manual by Mary Baker Eddy, which provides guidance for Sunday School classes. One way Sunday School lessons may be structured is by exploring “questions and answers as … may be found in the Christian Science Quarterly Lessons …” (p. 63)—and that’s what we did.
