The Signs of John’s Gospel

Beginning of the Miracles

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels, & Sermons

Lesson: Beginning of the Miracles

Genre: Speech

Track: 109

Dictation Name: RR125A1

Location/Venue:

Year: 1960’s-1970’s

Our Lord and our God, we give thanks unto thee that we can come to thee in confidence, knowing, our God, thy readiness to hear and to answer, knowing that hitherto thou hast blessed us, and that because the garment is upon thy shoulders we can face our tomorrows in confidence, knowing we face them with thee. Bless us now as we study thy word and grant us thy peace. In Jesus name. Amen.

Our scripture lesson is from the Gospel According to St. John 2:1-11, on the Beginning of Miracles. “And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there: and both Jesus was called, and his disciples, to the marriage. And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come. His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it. And there were set there six waterpots of stone, after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece. Jesus saith unto them, Fill the waterpots with water. And they filled them up to the brim. And he saith unto them, Draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast. And they bare it. When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was: (but the servants which drew the water knew;) the governor of the feast called the bridegroom, and saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse: but thou hast kept the good wine until now. This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples believed on him.”

John, in his Gospel, does not, like Matthew, Mark, and Luke, record a great variety of miracles. He has only a few in his Gospel, but the miracles that John deals with are miracles that were proclamations of the Gospel, miracles that set forth a particular aspect of our Lord’s teachings as directly manifested and revealed in a miracle, and this one, the Miracle at Cana of Galilee, it’s called the beginning, or the alpha, of miracles. The alpha and the omega, the “A” to “Z” which is Jesus Christ, means, of course, the essence of all things, and when you speak of something being “A” in quality, you mean that this is the best, the highest. Therefore, when this miracle is called the alpha of miracles, it means that this has a primacy, not only in terms of time as the first of miracles, but as a miracle which reveals the Gospel, a miracle which is, in itself, a revelation. A miracle which unfolds all of the miracles that are to be found in and through Christ.

It was performed, significantly, as a wedding at Cana of Galilee. Now, weddings, marriages, had a special significance to the Hebrews. For them, it was a truly blessed estate, and a man, and this reflected the Mosaic law, was not truly a man until he was married and had assumed the responsibilities of the support of the household and exercised dominion over his wife and children. No elders in the Hebrew church, nor rulers in the Hebrew commonwealth could be single. They were then without glory, without dominion.

Through scriptures, the typology of marriage is central. We meet with it in Exodus when God declares that he is taking Israel to be his bride. In the Song of Solomon, we have the typology of the Lord and of the true church as bridegroom and bride. The prophets, over and over again, use this typology, and Jesus spoke of himself as the bridegroom who would come. Thereby declaring himself to be God coming to gather his church unto himself, and in the book of Revelation, we have, as the culminating scene, the marriage supper of the bridegroom and of the true church.

As a result, it was felt that since all marriage set forth in type, that which God reveals in scripture, every bridal pair on their marriage day, symbolized the union of God with Israel. This was so strongly felt that many extravagant notions arose. The pious fasted before their marriage and confessed their sins, and they now entered into an especially holy relationship in that it set forth the part of the divine typology. Indeed, some of the extravagant people among the Israelites went so far as to believe that entrance into marriage carried with it the forgiveness of sins. There was a strong insistence on marriage as the destiny and privilege of a man. The first prayer on the circumcision of a child on the eighth day, and from then on, looked to marriage. Moreover, it was held that to honor marriage was to honor God, so that everything, even a funeral, had to give way to a marriage procession, and every man who met a marriage procession had to rise and join the procession for a short distance. Thus, if a marriage procession were going down the street, even a funeral had to stop. Follow the marriage procession for a short distance in honor to the couple. Life took precedence over death, and marriage symbolized a most significant typology.

We find, of course, that this was felt so strongly that in Jewish tradition, there was a feeling that a good word had to be said for Jezebel, because on one occasion she joined a marriage procession and did honor to the married couple. A good word was also said for King Agrippa, a thoroughly degenerate man, for the same reason, because he had done honor to a marriage procession on one occasion.

Paul, in his letters to Timothy, warned against heretics forbidding to marry, and in Ephesians 5, we find the typology of marriage set forth. Jesus and his disciples attended the wedding at Cana of Galilee. A wedding, in those days, if the couple were poor, lasted three days, three days of dancing and of banqueting, and of honoring the married couple. A larger celebration would be an entire week. In this instance, apparently and quite possibly, the bridegroom was a relative of our Lord.

Mary seems to have been one of the household, assisting with the servant. She knew that the wine had given out when the governor of the feast, the master of ceremonies, did not know, and so when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, “They have no wine.” She came directly to her son. She knew him for what he was. The angels before his birth had they known his calling, had sung hymns to him, had proclaimed that this was indeed the promised one of the ages. And so her appeal to her son was, “Show thyself now as Messiah, as the great bridegroom of God, and here at the wedding feast, in a most fitting context, reveal yourself to be the fulfillment of prophesy, the great bridegroom, and do it with a miracle. Create wine because these people, our family, are out of wine. Make wine, therefore, the emblem of joy in scripture.” Psalm 104:15 speaks of wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and in Judges 9:13, there is a reference to wine “which cheereth God and man.”

Jesus saith unto her, “Woman, what am I to do with thee. Mine hour is not yet come.” He addressed his mother as “woman.” This was not a term of insult, because to speak of one as woman, in the Greek word, of great respect, was tantamount to calling her “lady” in the old fashioned sense, indicating someone of nobility. Even queens were addressed with this word and considered it a mark of respect, and so he said, “Woman,” but not mother. In his calling, in his divine and Messianic role, Jesus acknowledged no earthly relatives. Neither mother, brothers, or sisters, save the believing, and if he said in Matthew 12:46-50, those who believe in me are my brothers and sister, my mother, my family. “Woman, what have I to do with thee?” Now that I have begun my ministry, I am no longer connected with you. My relationship is only to God and to those who believe in me. Mine hour is not yet come. My time, the appointed time for the fullness of the proclamation of that which I am has not yet come, and John tells us subsequently, “And no man took him because his hour was not yet come.”

But, at the last supper as he met with his disciples, he prepared them for what should come, knowing that his hour was come that he should depart out of the world, and in his great prayer in John 17, he declares, “Father, the hour is come.” His hour, the passion and resurrection into the new creation as the first fruits of them that are asleep.

“His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.” Mary left him in confidence. He had made known to her that the early relationship was ended. He had indeed begun his call. He made known to her that he could not, at this time, proclaim himself openly in all the fulness of his calling, that he did not refuse to perform the miracle, and so she went to the servants and said, “Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.” The word “servants” is interesting. It is, in the Greek, literally “diakonos,” the same word which is also translated as deacon. Deacons are not servants in our modern sense, of a hired employee. Deacons are willing helpers who are associated with you in a cause, and so these were diakonos, deacons, friends who are assisting the family and servants.

“And there were set there six waterpots of stone, after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece.” Each jar held two or three firkins, or measures, and a firkin is eight and a half gallons, and these were two and three firkin sizes, the six jars. Thus, each jar was able to hold between seventeen and twenty-five gallons of water. As a result, six jars of water, at a total capacity of between 100-150 gallons. We are told this to emphasize the greatness of our Lord’s gift. “Jesus saith unto them, Fill the waterpots with water. And they filled them up to the brim. And he saith unto them, Draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast. And they bare it. When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was: (but the servants which drew the water knew;) the governor of the feast called the bridegroom, and saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse: but thou hast kept the good wine until now.”

The six waterpots were empty. The deacons, or diakonos, the family friends alone knew what the situation was. Bystanders would not be aware of what was happening as the water was being carried and poured into these pots. Because the Hebrew custom, and the Hebrews were the most temperate people in all history, was to cut their wine always 50% with water, and as a result, to any but those who were among the family, friends, who were serving, there was no awareness of the miracle, but this was a witness to the diakonos, to the members of the household, to his relatives and friends concerning that which he was.

The water was changed into wine, and the master of ceremonies remarked about the unusual excellence of the wine. This beginning of miracles of Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory and his disciples believed on him. What was the meaning of this? The first sign, the first miracle, the alpha of miracles, the heart of all miracles, the heart of the Gospel. The first miracle of Moses was the turning of water into blood in Exodus 7:20. The first great public miracle before all of Egypt, and this had its fitness, for the law which came by Moses was a ministration of death, and is a ministration of death to all sinners, and as Paul declared in 2 Corinthians 3:6-9, the law works wrath against sinners, and so the first public miracle of Moses was a turning of water into blood, but the first miracle of Christ was the turning of water into wine, and this, too, was a fitting inauguration of all that which should follow, for his was a ministration of life. He came the dispense of that through wine which makes glad the heart of man, and this miracle symbolized his whole work of transformation. Heaven out of earth, a new paradise of God out of the old wilderness of this sin-filled and fallen world. It was a prophesy of the world’s regeneration at the arrival of which time his hour should indeed be here, with himself the true bridegroom even as his church is the bride.

Thus, in this the alpha, the beginning of miracles, Christ is here revealed first as the one who honors the bond of marriage and the whole of natural life. Both because he created it and blessed it, and because it sets forth his own relationship to his people, and so as Christians, we are not called upon to become esthetics, to retreat from the world, but to recognize that this world is to be brought under the dominion of Jesus Christ, that the natural world and the natural life is his creation, that it was made wholly good, and though it is fallen it is to be redeemed, and under Christ made whole.

Second, Christ is here revealed as the giver who gives lavishly, both of things spiritual and things material, both to fulfill our needs and to crown our joy, and here so many, many Christians go astray. In their praying they assume that God is a stingy God, a God who is content to dole us out the barest necessities of life, but which of us is such parents? Which of us limit our children to a starvation diet and say, “You will have so much and no more, just barely enough to exist, and don’t you dare ask for more,” but do we not rather give them as much as we are able as is conducive to their welfare? To reward them for their faithfulness, to prosper them in their godly growth, we care for our children, not in terms of the bare necessities, but in terms of the fullness of life.

Third, Christ is here revealed as the one whose infinite love is backed by infinite power, and this is the source of tremendous confidence. Our love is not backed by commensurate power. We love our family, our relatives, our friends. We see them often take courses that deeply distress us, and we wish we had the power to shake them out of it, but we cannot, or the power to give them things they need, but we have not, but when we come to Christ, we have one whose love is infinite, and his infinite love is backed by his infinite power.

And fourth, Christ is here revealed as the one who is full of grace and glory, the renewer of all things. The glorification of this world in his new creation is the destiny of this world, and our life here and now is to be under his transforming power. The regeneration of all things is typified in this miracle, so that this, the beginning of a miracles, sets forth all the miracles of Christ, culminating in the new creation, and it reveals our life in Christ to be one of joy. The Lord is interested, not merely in our bare needs, but in our joy, and our Lord declared to his disciples as he instructed them before he went to the cross, in John 16:24, “Ask and ye shall receive that your joy may be full.” “Ask and ye shall receive.” Not that ye may barely exist but that your joy may be full.

Thus, we do not honor God when we do not go to him in the confidence that he means what he said. This, the beginning of miracles, the alpha of miracles, sets forth the second great typology of scripture. The first great type of scripture is the cross. The cross sets forth a judgment upon sin by Almighty God. Christ’s atoning work, and his destruction of the power of sin and death through his resurrection, so the cross sets forth both the fearfulness of sin which crucified Christ, but also his destruction of sin and death, and the second great type of scripture is marriage, setting forth the glory of the consummation, the glory of the new life in Christ, the glory of the new creation, the richness of our God unto us who saith, “Ask and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.”

About two centuries ago, one of the greatest hymn writers of the church, John Newton, in a beautiful hymn, wrote the work, “Thou art coming to a king//large petitions with thee bring//for his grace and power are such//none can ever ask too much//None can ever ask too much.” Ask, and ye shall receive that your joy may be full. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God, forgive us that so often we have come to thee with so little confidence in thy love and in thy grace, and in thy power to give. Teach us to pray with confidence, to come to thee with large petitions, knowing that none can every ask too much. To ask not only for our needs, but that our joy may be full in Jesus Christ. Teach us, our Father, to pray, believing in thy word. In Jesus name. Amen.

Are there any questions now? Yes?

[Audience] When I thought that you caused, last week or the week before, I can’t remember which, that even his own family {?} and then they said {?} knew what he wanted {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, for a time. While she knew what he was and who he was, she was unwilling to see him face the course he did, and so when he was facing the opposition of all the leaders of the people, had the position of an excommunicated man, and they recognized running the risk of death, they came to persuade him to cease and desist. In other words, even though you are the Messiah, his mother was saying, if you only followed me you’d know better, and you wouldn’t do the things you’re doing. So they went so far as to say he is beside himself. Let’s make excuses for him. He’s not acting sensibly, and so he had to turn on them and renounce them.

[Audience] Were they protecting themselves or were they being only protective of him?

[Rushdoony] Of him. In other words, it was a lack of faith. So while she knew who he was, yet she was unwilling to see him take his course, even so very often, we do the same thing. We tell God just what he should do in our lives and in our family’s life, and we know so much better than God, and it irritates us really that God doesn’t listen to the very sound advice we give. So we get a little irked with him. We’ve explained the whole thing to him, and he’s so dense sometimes. He just doesn’t get the point we’re making. So you see, we’re guilty of the same thing very often. Yes?

[Audience] Wasn’t Mary along with most of the {?} at the time looking for, actually really a political Messiah, a king, and when Christ refuses to follow {?}?

[Rushdoony] Yes, they were, in great measure. Also, no doubt, this was true they hoped the whole thing would be done in some easy and painless way, and of course, this is what man constantly wants. He wants salvation to come in some easy and painless way, and this of course, as we apply it to the personal realm and then the political realm, I had so many, many people come to me and say, “If only someone would say the right word to my son or to my husband, it would certainly change them.” In other words, just come up with the right combination, but the course they’re taking, the position they’ve taken, the only thing that’s going to bring them to their knees is exactly that which will bring them to their knees. They’ve got to be humbled, but they want it without humbling. Somehow, magically, let him be changed from what he is, and the same way in the political realm. We want some easy gimmick so that presto, by marking the ballot the right way or some other thing, we can reverse the whole direction and never pay the price for what we’ve done, but we’re going to have to go through the ringer, economically if no other way. Now, it’s the same way in every other realm and it was exactly the same way then. They knew what the scripture said, but somehow this was going to be done by some gimmick that would be utterly painless. So when they would come to the passages of scripture that spoke precisely about the necessity for the cross, they tended to explain it away or reduce it to some kind of ritual. It wasn’t going to be necessary. Nobody was going to be hurt. They were going to have salvation, full and free, and gloriously, but our Lord said that he had to go to the cross, and because the nation rejected him, they were going to go to their death and destruction. Total destruction. And that was it, but they wanted an easy way, those who didn’t follow the political {?}. Yes?

[Audience] {?} some material success is always a test our relationship with our religious and spiritual faith. Do you think today that with the material success that we have, I know we’re testing our religious faith, but do you think is also testing to our doom?

[Rushdoony] A good question. In fact, I was just going to get around to that point, because you’re leading up to it, so I’m glad you asked that. John Wesley, some years ago said, as he looked back over history that prosperity was God’s blessing on those who were his faithful, but prosperity then made people forgetful of God, so that then you had to have judgment and you had to strip them of everything so that they might be humbled, and he said this is it over and over and over again.

Well, superficially, that seems true, but in actuality that is not the case, and the Bible does not say that there is anything wrong with prosperity or with wealth. “The blessing of the Lord maketh rich and he added some sorrow to it.” It is not the prosperity but the sin in the heart of man, and when sin is in the heart of man, it is not only prosperity but poverty that makes him rebellious, and angry, and independent of God. The poverty of the people, say, in Harlem, because they are poorer there in a way that they are not in Watts, hasn’t made them humble. So poverty doesn’t do it. Now, God’s judgment can often humble people, but judgment is not poverty. Judgment is a collapse, a breakdown, a jolting, and that can come to poor men as well as to rich, and both alike need it when they transgress. Does that help answer your question?

[Audience] Not clearly {?} I just wondered about the people {?}when we look back down and that they were possible, what was that {?} of what you might call humility {?} and cause this come about {?} fact that they {?} poverty {?} trying to tell us, because they have {?} it appears to me as an unsettled question. I can’t quite see it, Rushdoony. {?} I appreciate the fact that you {?} but the way that it comes out, just purely through poverty, is a big question.

[Rushdoony] No, because poor men are very commonly as proud and more proud than the rich. There’s no humility necessarily among people who are poor, and I’ve worked among very wealthy people and very poor people, and I haven’t seen that there was any difference in pride among them, and very often far more among the poor, a very ugly crowd, and a contempt of everything they didn’t have went with their pride. So, it isn’t poverty that begets humility. A man has to be broken before he humbles, and rich and poor very often have to be broken in their pride.

One of the things that always interested me when I was on the Indian reservation was this: your outstanding Indians, the Christian Indian, had a very real humility. They knew the shortcomings of their people, their own shortcomings as they compared themselves to many Americans, and yet they themselves were living quite well and progressively, but they had to have humility, knowing their background, knowing their struggles, knowing their weaknesses, but the proudest of the proud were the most vicious, degenerate element among the Indians. They were the Peyote people. They were the, you might say, Indian nationalists who just seethed with hatred, who lived in little log cabins and dirt floors, and spent their days talking about their hatred of the white man, and how they had been robbed of everything, and as one of the Christian Indians, one of the weakest of the members we had when a group of them were talking like that one day, said, “I wish you’d be as rich as your grandfather was. He was running around these mountains with nothing on but a loincloth, and a bow and arrow trying to get a rabbit to keep from starving, and now you’ve got a heavy suit of clothes on and four walls against the weather, and you think you were robbed of your wealth.” But, of course, it didn’t phase them in the least, and they were robbed of everything, because when they look at the past, they see the past not as their grandfathers lived it, but as the world is today without the white man, which is nonsense, and of course, this is the way your Negros look at the world. Not as it was in Africa where most of them would have ended in the pot because they were too lazy. They wouldn’t have gotten away. They live with the past. We were robbed of our liberty and what’s that? The world we’ve made. Yes?

[Audience] True, and on the other hand, you find some very, very poor people who do not feel that they should have riches, but who are very, very humble, and they {?} humble, and must not have. They don’t worry about those things, they just know they’re going to be taken care of and that’s their place.

[Rushdoony] Yes, now of course, wealth, riches, is the term that has different meanings, and for some people it means money. For other people it means very, very different things. I’ve known people who had just a small farm, and lived in terms of what we would consider primitive conditions and they felt they were fabulously rich. Very, very rich, and I knew when I was in Nevada, I used to visit occasionally, the families, and the girl had gone to one of the outstanding women’s colleges in the country, came from a very prominent Bay Area family, and she was living the wife of a miner who was a fine, intelligent young man, but trying to develop some mines up there in that country. She was about 150 miles out of any town. They got their mail only occasionally, I think about once a month. They had no electricity, no indoor plumbing. It was a one-room log cabin for herself, her husband, and her three of four boys, as I recall, and she felt she was happier and richer than she had ever been before in her life, and she said, “On rare occasions that I go back to Mill Valley, my mother is shocked when I tell her how we live,” but she said, “I’m living for the first time.” And she said, “I know more about what it means to be a Christian than I ever did before,” and she couldn’t go to a church. She was just taking Sunday School material from me and teaching her own children, and taking care of their religious nurture that way. Now, wealth is a comparative thing.

[Audience] The use of this false deduction which some {?} arises from the {?} which seems obvious {?} is false, but you of course, {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes. Yes?

[Audience] I was wondering if you could give me just a couple pointers. I’m going to be teaching vacation bible school next year and my material is {?}, and I was wondering could you give me a few things to always remember in my mind, as I will be {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes. Most of your Sunday School material today is moralistic. As some of you know, I’ve written an Appendix, it was an article originally in Intellectual Schizophrenia, The Menace of a Sunday School, and moralism teaches basically salvation by works and it tells children, “Now Jesus wants you to be good, and this is how to be a Christian. To be good,” but of course, it isn’t, and I think what we’ve got to do when we teach children is to bypass these things and teach them not these simple moralisms, whose purpose is to make them docile and good in relationship to their parents, and it doesn’t work. They are not made docile and good by this sort of teaching, but to teach them the basic Bible history and the meaning of it, which is that Jesus Christ is our savior, that we are good in and of ourselves, but it is Christ who saved us, and who by his Holy Spirit continually guides us and overrules us in our hearts.

Now, this seems hard to teach the children, but I think it’s surprisingly easy.

[Audience] Third grade?

[Rushdoony] Third grade. Yes, it can be done, because it’s simply a question of saying it over and over again in different ways so they realize that being a Christian does not mean moralism, being good, but in trusting in Jesus Christ, and these children, because they are young, often have very tender consciences. A little thing that they’ve gone will often distress them, greatly, and they make snitch somebody’s pencil or bobby pins or something, and it’ll worry them, and their answer is because this is naturally the way of simple math{?}, moralism, and they feel that if they do something for somebody, they can even it up.

Now, I always could tell when I was in school, when some kid had snitched something because it would take two ways, either he would be angry with me and hostile and I wouldn’t know the reason why until I analyzed it, or else he would be extra nice to me when he wasn’t normally, trying to make it up to me that way. It’s like Samuel Peeps{?} in his diary. Whenever he was faithless to his wife, he bought he a gift, and he figured on the kind of ratio, and he had it in a regular bookkeeping fashion. So, that one kiss with another woman, he’d give his wife so much in return. If he had an affair, it was so much, he balanced it out, with his bookkeeping, and literally bookkeeping on it. So that every now and then he’d still feel sorry for his wife, and he’d speak of her, “My wife, poor wretch.”

Now, children are very easily and naturally moralistic, and whenever kids squabble, if you listen to them squabbling, they’re standing on their rights. They are a moralist to the “nth” degree, and you tell them, “Now look, it’s a trifling thing.” “But she did this,” and she’ll come back, “But he did this.” In other words, “Here are my rights and I’ll stand on these.” Totally moralistic. This is the natural inclination of man, and when the Sunday School teaching reinforces this, what you’re doing is to breed a generation of Pharisees, because you’re taking their natural Phariseeism, the natural Phariseeism all men apart from Christ and reinforcing it with your teaching. So, what you’ve got to do is to work at breaking that down, by emphasizing that they cannot be saved by being good, but they are saved by the atoning blood of Jesus Christ, that God’s penalty for sin is death, and that all of us are sinners and we are saved by the atoning work of Jesus Christ.

Now, you’re going against the grain there of the teaching and of the heart of man, but it does have the blessing of God, and it does have the Holy Spirit working with you when you’re teaching. You don’t have the Holy Spirit undergirding you in your teaching if you teach them moralism. You do have it if you teach the word of God. Yes?

[Audience] Can you recommend some Sunday School material that will be satisfactory and useful?

[Rushdoony] No. I wish I could, but I don’t know any. Now, our church, I don’t know how good all the material will be. They are beginning to work out some materials. I’ve seen the junior and senior high material and I think that is superb. Some of the other materials that they’ve put out on {?} basis for the other grades, because they don’t have it for the whole Sunday School, I haven’t been satisfied with yet, and I haven’t seen it in the last couple year so maybe they’re improving it, but the earlier grade material, I thought was routine. Now, they have a fine young man who’s been working on it of late, formerly an associate of mine on the Foundation staff, but the junior and senior high workbooks are the most amazing things I have ever seen in any teaching. I’ll try to remember to bring them if someone will remind me Saturday, and I’ll have them for samples for anyone who is interested. Yes?

[Audience] {?} public school, teaching school children {?} I think that {?} She has {?} for almost problems you might have {?} but it seems to me {?}

[Rushdoony] I hadn’t seen this material. Yes?

[Audience] Rush, {?} church that {?} National Council of Churches, but the material still would be something would be something {?} work around it and how do you deal with that?

[Rushdoony] If the teachers are ready, they can do a great deal. Now, when we started the church in Santa Cruz, we were a small handful, but we were fed up with most Sunday School materials, and so we started from scratch. For the preschool and first grade we used the Missouri Synod Lutheran material which was very good. Then, beginning with the second grade, we used the Vos’s Bible Storybook as our textbook. Now, every family was to take a copy, or buy a copy, and read it at home every night to their children. Then, Sunday mornings the children went over the lesson from the Bible. So that by the time they finished the fifth grade, they had gone through the entire Bible storybook, and they knew the Bible history in sequence, and they’d also learned to know their Bible with it. Then we had some makeshift materials that we kept changing for the fifth and sixth grades. For the second, third, and fourth, they went through the Bible Storybook. Then, we used this catechism workbook, and the result were excellent as far as the children were concerned, very, very fine, but this takes more work on the part of teachers, far, far more work, and the average Sunday School teacher wants a lesson book that they can look at five or ten minutes before they go to church, and go there and teach the children without any real preparation, and especially if it’s something with nothing but a lot of blanks for the kids to fill in. Then the little brats aren’t asking you questions. You can say, “Fill in the blanks,” and sit back and ask them what they answered and tell them if they got it right or wrong. They love that, the teachers do, because it takes the work off their shoulders, and they don’t want to study.

[Audience] Did you say the Concordia publishing materials are okay?

[Rushdoony] No, they’re beginning to go down the drain very rapidly. We were using just the preschool material. Yes?

[Audience] What about Gospel Light?

[Rushdoony] Gospel Light is professedly faithful to scripture, but it is extensively substituting a lot of fluff and sentimentality, and a lot of the blank filling. So, it is very, very weak, featherweight stuff, and often it has the gooey love bit in place of the Gospel. It’s just weak. Scripture Press is a little better.

[Audience] Well, it’s better than any of the others I reviewed a number of years ago.

[Rushdoony] Right. Yes. Much, much better. Some of the other material is downright subversive. It’s so bad that I know of one very fine church in Northern California that, about three or four weeks ago, at a meeting, decided to abolish the Sunday School, and after their evening meeting, about 11:00, the pastor called me up long distance to tell me what they had done. He’s a friend of mine, and they have a Christian school, and they’ve taken a stand now. “We’re wasting no more time with the Sunday School. We expect your children to be in the Christian school. We will there give them a solid training in the Bible. Then, Sunday morning we expect them to be in morning worship.” They also abolished the women’s association, or guild, and they said they were tired of women squabbling. So that if they want to visit with their friends they can do it, but the church is a house of worship and it’s a school, and that’s it. Yes?

[Audience] Rush, are you familiar with {?} it was written by a woman that was in the church, and someone {?}

[Rushdoony] With what?

[Audience] {?} Press {?} Sunday School material.

[Rushdoony] Oh yes, that’s Gospel Light. Henrietta Meers’ material, and as it began it was far superior to others, but it has been getting weaker and weaker, definitely, and it is too much of the blank filling, and teachers do like it because it means less work. However, it is, I must admit, superior to the other things you can get. The material is abominable, by and large. In most of the churches today, the National Council of Churches has a hand is the writing of the Sunday School material, if they are related to the National Council.

[Audience] Well, isn’t the Sunday School really in any way a {?} responsibility {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes. The Sunday School movement began when the Christian schools were gutted, and it’s always been a poor substitute, because the Sunday School is extensively a babysitting operation. Now, we were talking to a couple Friday night and the wife is assisting with the preschool department of their daily vacation bible school, and she says the thing is destructive every day by two children, one in particular, and she said We know we’re just babysitting, and the mother admits that the kid is a terror. She can’t handle him and she wants a little vacation. So, the entire school in that division is being disrupted, and I’m sure if we asked questions of the other divisions that knew the teachers, we’d find that this was true in all of them, and I don’t believe in babysitting, and I don’t believe that children should be in Sunday School if their parents aren’t there, because it’s the rare child who stays in Sunday School when he hits his teens if his parents haven’t been coming as well. It’s only one out of a few hundred.

So what happens? You’ve babysat that child from about the age of four or five, until about thirteen. He hasn’t learned a thing in that time and he’s disrupted the entire Sunday School and prevented any real teaching, and I think it’s dishonoring to the name of God to tolerate this and to have them there. I think they ought to be booted out, and then there could be some real teaching. So, first the Sunday School movement came into being because the Christian school movement ended. Second, it became a babysitting operating and of course, they justify it in the name of “Well, it’s a form of evangelism.” Well, I believe in beginning with the parents. If you can’t get them, you’re never going to get the children. It’s rare, very rare. I know very few people who are saved because they were sent to Sunday School and their parents didn’t go. They are adults, usually, when they are converted, not as a result of any Sunday School background, and what it does is to produce in them a basic contempt, because they go there and see this nonsense and foolishness weekend and week out, and they bedevil the teacher, and so on and so forth, and they learn to despise the church.

Well, it’s past time so we stand dismissed.

End of tape