Archives for 2023

Key Thought: When we look at God’s bilateral covenant with us, we can see both our blessings and our responsibilities. By our responses, we establish our relationship with Him and determine our destiny.
January 14, 2023

1. Have a volunteer read Deuteronomy 28:1-14.

1. Ask class members to share a short thought on what the most important point is in this passage.
2. What great blessings are promised to the people?
3. Personal Application: What must we do to receive God’s blessings today? Share your thoughts..
4. Case Study: One of your relatives states, “What does it mean to “listen diligently” to what God has said? I have accepted Jesus and have been saved; I am receiving His blessings. What more would I need to do?” How would you respond to your relative?

2. Have a volunteer read Proverbs 3:1-10.

1. Ask class members to share a thought on what the most important point in this text is.
2. What promises are given here?
3. Personal Application: How do we learn to trust God during hard financial times when there is a famine in our lives? Share your thoughts
4. Case Study: One of your friends states, “What does the “firstfruits of all your increase” mean? Was this just a Jewish thing in the commandments of ordinances, or does it have an application to us today?.” How would you respond to your friend?

3. Have a volunteer read Malachi 3:7-11.

1. Ask class members to share a short thought on what the most important point in this text is.
2. What are the promises and obligations found in these verses?
3. Personal Application: What does your tithing (or lack of it) say about your spirituality and relationship with God? Share your thoughts.
4. Case Study: One of your neighbors states: “I don’t give ten percent. I give as I am able after all the bills are paid and financial obligations taken care of. It’s not about a certain number, but the actual intention and giving of what we can that counts..” How would you respond to your relative?

4. Have a volunteer read Matthew 6:25-33.

1. Ask class members to share a thought on what the most important point in this text is.
2. What were the people to do in order to receive these promises?
3. Personal Application: What do we need to do in order to have peace with God? Share your thoughts?
4. Case Study: Think of one person who needs to hear a message from this week’s lesson. Tell the class what you plan to do this week to share with them.

(Truth that is not lived, that is not imparted, loses its life-giving power, its healing virtue. Its blessings can be retained only as it is shared.”Ministry of Healing, p. 148).

Amen!(0)

The post 2: God’s Covenants With Us – Teaching Plan appeared first on Sabbath School Net.

Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/2-gods-covenants-with-us-teaching-plan/

There is a close spiritual connection between the practice of tithing and our relationship to God. The Israelites prospered when they obeyed God and were faithful in tithing. In contrast, they fell on hard times when they didn’t. They seemed to follow a cycle of obedience and prosperity, and then disobedience and problems. It was during one of these periods of unfaithfulness that God, through the prophet Malachi, proposed a bilateral contract with His people.

Read Malachi 3:7-11. What are the promises and the obligations found in these verses?

Image © Review & Herald Publishing at Goodsalt.com

God promised the people that if they would return to Him, He would return to them. When they asked what He meant by returning to Him, He explicitly said, “Stop robbing Me of tithe and offerings.” Their robbery was the reason they were being cursed. Here is God’s solution to the problem of the curse: “Bring all the tithes [the whole tithe] into the storehouse” (Malachi 3:10, NKJV). And if you do this, then “I will … open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it” (NKJV). If we don’t have room enough to receive it, we have a surplus with which we can help others and help to advance the cause of God.

“He who gave His only-begotten Son to die for you, has made a covenant with you. He gives you His blessings, and in return He requires you to bring Him your tithes and offerings. No one will ever dare to say that there was no way in which he could understand in regard to this matter. God’s plan regarding tithes and offerings is definitely stated in the third chapter of Malachi. God calls upon His human agents to be true to the contract He has made with them.” — Ellen G. White, Counsels on Stewardship, p. 75.

One of the positive cycles of obedience is recorded during the reign of good King Hezekiah of Judah. There was a genuine revival in Judah, and the people started faithfully returning their tithes and offerings to the temple storehouse. So much came in that it was piled in heaps at the temple. Second Chronicles 31:5 tells what happened when the people “brought in abundance the firstfruits of grain and wine, oil and honey, and of all the produce of the field; and they brought in abundantly the tithe of everything” (NKJV).

<–Tuesday Thursday–>

Amen!(0)

The post Wednesday: The Tithe Contract appeared first on Sabbath School Net.

Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/wednesday-tithe-contract/