Preparing To Die Well

“In every century until our own, Christians saw this life as preparation for eternity. Medievals, Puritans, and later evangelicals thought and wrote much about the art of dying well, and urged that all of life should be seen as preparation for leaving it behind. This was not otiose [i.e., futile, of no use] morbidity, but realistic wisdom, since death really is the one certain fact of life. Acting the ostrich with regard to it is folly to the highest degree. Yet today it has become conventional to think as if we are all going to live in this world forever and to view every case of bereavement as a reason for doubting the goodness of God. We must all know, deep down, that this is ridiculous, but we do it all the same. And in doing it, we part company with the Bible, with historic Christianity, and with a basic principle of right living. Dag Hammarskjold was thinking Christianly when he wrote that no philosophy that cannot make sense of death can make sense of life either."
J.I. PACKER – Canada (1926-)


This Sunday School class is being held at the request of several members.  We all need to know what it means to "die well," as the Puritans put it, and what we must do to prepare for that inevitable day.  The notes below are the instructor's lecture notes - imperfect though they may be.  They are the same as the student handouts but with the blanks already filled in and some additional discussion as well. They are in PDF format, so you'll need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader to open them.