Inside Story for Friday 5th of January 2024

By Andrew McChesney

Paul went from home to home to meet people in a European city. With him, he carried a Bible and the holy book of another major world religion.

One day, a man opened the door. His breath smelled of cigarette smoke.

“I would very much like to give you a gift today,” Paul said.

“What kind of gift?” the man asked.

“I have this Bible,” Paul said.

“I don’t want a Bible,” the man said. “I belong to another religion. You are a Christian.”

“I have the holy book of your religion, too,” Paul said.

The man was surprised. He seemed interested. “OK, read something to me but only from my holy book, not from the Bible,” he said.

Paul opened the holy book and read about Jesus. The man’s surprise grew.

“Is this the same Jesus as in the Bible?” he asked.

Over the next few weeks, he studied four lessons about Jesus from his holy book. The man saw that the book does not talk about Jesus being crucified. He saw that the book predicts Jesus will come again. He saw that both people from his religion and Christians were waiting for Jesus to return.

When Paul arrived for the fifth lesson, the man wasn’t home.

A year passed, and one Sabbath the man showed up at Paul’s church.

“I want to come to this church,” he said. “Can I?”

It was Paul’s turn to be surprised.

“I want to follow Christ,” the man said.

After that, the man came every Sabbath. He said his holy book left him feeling empty. It offered no Savior for his sins. He longed to be baptized.

“Jesus says the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit,” Paul said. “Do you want to be free of cigarettes? Jesus said, ‘If the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed’ [John 8:36, NKJV]. You have to choose Jesus or cigarettes. You can throw away your cigarettes today if you choose.”

The man looked scared. “It isn’t possible!” he blurted out. But then he reached into his pocket and threw a cigarette pack into a trash can.

“Jesus, give me victory over cigarettes,” he prayed. “I want to be free.”

Late that night, he called Paul. “This is terrible,” he said. “I feel awful. I cannot live without cigarettes.”

The two men prayed together on the phone. God heard the prayer and gave the man victory. He has not smoked in the four and a half years since then. Today, he is an outreach leader for the church.

“He loves people,” Paul told Adventist Mission. He is waiting eagerly for Jesus to return.

Thank you for your support of Adventist Mission, whose Global Mission Centers help train people to share the good news of salvation with precious people from other world religions. For more information, visit globalmissioncenters.org.

The post Inside Story: Finding Jesus in a Holy Book appeared first on Sabbath School Net.

Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/24a-01-inside-story-finding-jesus-in-a-holy-book/

Daily Lesson for Friday 5th of January 2024

Read Ellen G. White, “The Temple and Its Dedication,” pp. 35–50, in Prophets and Kings; “The Benefits of Music,” pp. 291, 292, in Messages to Young People.

The book of Psalms consists of 150 psalms, which are grouped into five books: Book I (Psalms 1:1-6−41), Book II (Psalms 42:1-11:1-11−72), Book III (Psalms 73:1-28:1-28−89), Book IV (Psalms 90:1-17−106), and Book V (Psalms 1:1-607−150). The five-book division of the Psalter is an early Jewish tradition that parallels the five-book division of the Pentateuch.

The book of Psalms provides evidence of some already-existing collections of psalms: the Korahite collections (Psalms 42:1-11:1-11−49, 84, 85, 87, 88), the Asaphite collection (Psalms 73:1-28:1-28−83), the Songs of the Ascents (Psalms 1:1-620−134), and the Hallelujah Psalms (Psalms 1:1-611−118, 146−150). Psalms 72:20 bears witness to a smaller collection of David’s psalms.

While most psalms are associated with the time of King David and early monarchy (tenth century B.C.), the collection of psalms continued to grow through the following centuries: the divided monarchy, the exile, and the postexilic period. It is conceivable that the Hebrew scribes under the leadership of Ezra combined the existing smaller collections of psalms into one book when they worked on establishing the services of the new temple.

The fact that scribes consolidated the book of Psalms does not take away from their divine inspiration. The scribes, like the psalmists, were devoted servants of God, and their work was directed by God (Ezra 7:6,10). The divine-human nature of the Psalms is comparable to the union of the divine and the human in the incarnated Lord Jesus. “But the Bible, with its God-given truths expressed in the language of men, presents a union of the divine and the human. Such a union existed in the nature of Christ, who was the Son of God and the Son of man. Thus it is true of the Bible, as it was of Christ, that ‘the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.’ ”—Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, p. 8.

Discussion Questions

1. What does it mean that the Psalms are divine-human prayers and hymns? How does this idea, however difficult to fully grasp, help us see the closeness that God wants with His people? How does it reveal, in its own way, how close to humanity, and to each of us, God is?
2. In class, talk about a time in which you found something in the Psalms speaking directly to your own situation. What comfort and hope did you find there?

The post Friday: Further Thought – How to Read the Psalms appeared first on Sabbath School Net.

Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/24a-01-further-thought-how-to-read-the-psalms/