Closer To Heaven
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Is this True, Somewhat True, or False: Spiritual Maturity can be gauged by how one engages with others in the church? Join the Hit the Mark panel as they discuss Sabbath School Lesson 3 – Unity in Christ. It’s the fastest hour of the week! Get this week’s keyword workbook HERE.
Daily Lesson for Sabbath 18th of July 2026
Image © Pacific Press
1 Corinthians 5:1-13, 2 Corinthians 2:5-10, 1 Corinthians 6:1-13, 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20; 1 Corinthians 7:1-9.
Memory Text:
“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20, NIV).
Our brains are like sponges: whatever is brought to them, via our senses, stays in them. We might not be conscious of most of what comes in (we’d be unable to think clearly if we did remember everything), but it’s all there, and, to some degree, impacts what we think, feel, and do.
That’s why it’s so easy for us, even as Christians, to be impacted by all the bad things around us. The Christian church, from the start, has struggled with this problem. Where, for instance, did Sunday keeping come from? Did the church just pull it out of the air? Of course not. It came from the culture around it.
And we can see this principle unfolding here in Corinth. After an appeal against factionalism (1 Corinthians 1:1-31; 1 Corinthians 2:1-16; 1 Corinthians 3:1-23; 1 Corinthians 4:1-21), Paul now turns to issues related to sexual immorality, lawsuits, prostitution, marriage, and singleness (1 Corinthians 5:1-13; 1 Corinthians 6:1-20; 1 Corinthians 7:1-40). The standards of the world affected them extensively. The factionalism portrayed in 1 Corinthians 1:1-31; 1 Corinthians 2:1-16; 1 Corinthians 3:1-23; 1 Corinthians 4:1-21 opened the door for the moral behavior denounced in the ensuing chapters. How does Paul seek to address this sin in the church, and what lessons can we take from what he wrote?
Inside Story for Friday 17th of July 2026
This mission story offers an inside look at the results of a previous Thirteenth Sabbath project. In Spain, Sagunto Adventist College received part of a 2019 Thirteenth Sabbath Offering for its theology department, where Dante Herrmann studied. This quarter, your offering will again help spread the gospel in the Inter-European Division, which includes Spain.
Dante Herrmann had two dreams: to be a millionaire or a tattoo artist.
Everyone laughed when he, as a 12-year-old boy, eagerly shared his first dream. “If you want to be rich, you have to work,” they said.
“No, I can become a millionaire without working,” Dante replied.
He was a dreamer who needed a miracle for his dream to come true.
Dante himself was a miracle. His mother had tried for years to have a baby, and doctors finally had told her to give up. Then Dante was born. But he was a sickly baby, and doctors said he needed to move to a tropical climate to survive. So, his parents left their home in Germany to live in the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago off the coast of northwestern Africa.
By the age of 16, Dante wasn’t any closer to becoming a millionaire or a tattoo artist. A hyperactive teen, he followed the advice of exasperated teachers and dropped out of high school to work as a handyman. But the work was hard and the pay was poor, and he began dealing drugs, mainly cocaine. A year later, he made a pact with the devil, offering his soul for drugs, wild living, and rock ‘n’ roll. He sealed the deal with a tattoo on his hand.
For a while, Dante felt happy. He wasn’t a millionaire, but money and pleasure never seemed to end. Yet, he felt a hole in his heart. He saw that his drugs were ruining lives, and he sensed an inner voice, asking, Do you think it’s OK to get rich at the expense of others?
Then fear set in. He had trouble with the police, and he fled to Germany, where his mother had moved after leaving his father a few years earlier. Life wasn’t better in Germany, and Dante ended up back on the Canary Islands seven years later, when he was 25. He quit drugs, and a friend taught him how to be a tattoo artist. Dante was pleased to fulfill one of his childhood dreams, and he was making good money, although not enough to be wealthy.
Then he learned that he could still become a millionaire. His father, a rock music promoter and club owner, sued a major beverage company for billions of dollars in damages in a copyright infringement lawsuit. His father had trademarked a brand name that the company was using without his consent. He offered Dante 10 percent of the proceeds if he helped with the suit.
At the same time, a friend gave Dante a Bible, and he began to read it. He read, “The blessing of the Lord brings wealth, without painful toil for it” (Proverbs 10:22, NIV). He thought, If I give God my heart, He will bless me and make me rich. He decided to give his heart to Jesus.
Today, Dante is rich, but not in the way that the world calculates wealth. “When I was a tattoo artist, I wanted the hole in my heart to be filled,” said Dante, a Seventh-day Adventist pastor in Germany. “I thought I had to be a millionaire for the hole to be filled. But all I needed was Jesus.”
Daily Lesson for Friday 17th of July 2026
Further Thought:
Read Ellen G. White, “The Training of the Twelve,” Pages 17–24, in The Acts of the Apostles.
Image © Stan Myers from GoodSalt.com
“The oneness and unity of God’s truth-believing remnant people carries powerful conviction to the world that they have the truth, and are the peculiar, chosen people of God. This oneness and unity disconcerts the enemy, and he is determined that it shall not exist. The present truth, believed in the heart and exemplified in the life, makes God’s people one, and gives them a powerful influence.”—Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 1, p. 327.
“God is leading out a people to stand in perfect unity upon the platform of eternal truth. Christ gave Himself to the world that He might ‘purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.’ This refining process is designed to purge the church from all unrighteousness and the spirit of discord and contention, that they may build up instead of tear down, and concentrate their energies on the great work before them. God designs that His people should all come into the unity of the faith. The prayer of Christ just prior to His crucifixion was that His disciples might be one, even as He was one with the Father, that the world might believe that the Father had sent Him. This most touching and wonderful prayer reaches down the ages, even to our day; for His words were: ‘Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on Me through their word.’ ”—Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 4, p. 17.
Discussion Questions
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Daily Lesson for Thursday 16th of July 2026
The fact that we should not form cliques, especially around human leaders, does not mean we should not support our leaders. We are supposed to appreciate and help those who lead out in church work. God commissions people to do His ministry on earth. Church leaders who display a lifestyle that reflects the submissions represented by the Cross are worthy of being heard and followed.
And this is so because only the Cross has the power to reverse any manipulative form of control in favor of submission to God’s Word. Christlike leaders attribute the success of their ministry to God alone. In His earthly ministry, even Jesus as a human assigned glory to God (John 17:4).
Image © Steve Creitz at Goodsalt.com
According to Paul, faithful Christian ministry must be grounded upon what we can call a theology of the Cross. The Cross is God’s revelation of His wisdom and power to save. At the same time, it also displays human wisdom as foolishness. In 1 Corinthians 4:1-13, Paul makes it clear what such a theology of the Cross looks like. First, he indicates that it is God who sets the standard for Christian leadership (1 Corinthians 4:1-5). Second, he points to the fact that suffering is the trademark of true Christian ministry (1 Corinthians 4:9,11-13). This second point deserves to be further developed.
Christian leaders follow the footprints of Jesus by being willing to suffer for their fellow brothers and sisters, and even if need be die for the sake of their ministry. Paul refers to himself and Apollos as “men condemned to death” (1 Corinthians 4:9, NKJV). They are portrayed as facing a lack of food and water, as well as being “poorly clothed, and beaten, and homeless” (1 Corinthians 4:11, NKJV). In addition, they were also reviled, persecuted, defamed, and “made as the filth of the world, the offscouring of all things until now” (1 Corinthians 4:12-13, NKJV). Furthermore, by referring ironically to the Corinthians as rich, kings, wise, and distinguished (1 Corinthians 4:8,10), Paul demonstrates that pride must have no place in true Christian leadership, for it is the root of division in the church (1 Corinthians 4:6).
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How much have you suffered for Christ’s sake, whatever your role in the church? What lessons might be found in your answer? |
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