Sabbath Afternoon

Image © Pacific Press

Read for This Week’s Study: Acts 18:18-21; Acts 19:13-20:1; Acts 20:17-38; Ephesians 1:1-2; Ephesians 6:21-24; Ephesians 3:13; Ephesians 1:9-10.

Memory Text: “Making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:9-10, ESV).

When we write something, we have a purpose for doing so, sometimes a weighty one. Abraham Lincoln, for instance, wrote his famous Gettysburg address in 1863, after the terrible devastation in the American Civil War battle there, which left about 7,000 soldiers dead. In that address, invoking the founding fathers, Lincoln expressed his belief that the Civil War was the ultimate test as to whether the nation created in 1776 would endure or would “perish from the earth.”

Paul has a profound purpose that motivates his letter. Partly because of his imprisonment (Ephesians 3:13, Ephesians 6:20), and partly because of ongoing persecution and temptations, the Ephesians are tempted to lose heart. Paul reminds them of what happened when they were converted, accepting Christ as their Savior and becoming part of the church. They have become Christ’s body (Ephesians 1:19-23, Ephesians 4:1-16), the building materials in a temple (Ephesians 2:19-22), the bride of Christ (Ephesians 5:21-33), and a well-equipped army (Ephesians 6:10-20). They play a strategic role in fulfilling God’s grand plan, to unite everything in Christ (Ephesians 1:9-10). Paul writes to awaken the believers in Ephesus to their full identity and privileges as followers of Christ.

Study this week’s lesson to prepare for Sabbath, July 1.

Sunday–>

Amen!(1)

The post Sabbath: Paul and the Ephesians appeared first on Sabbath School Net.

Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/sabbath-paul-and-ephesians/

How to Follow Jesus in Trying Times

In the Epistle to the Ephesians, Paul tells us about the Ephesians themselves. Years after the exciting events of the early days of Christian mission in Ephesus, the Ephesians struggled with the significance of their Christian faith.

Image © Pacific Press

Paul, once the troubler of the economy of this fourth-largest city in the Roman Empire, is now sidelined and imprisoned. Writing from prison, he worries that the believers in Ephesus may “lose heart,” forgetting any active sense of what it means to be disciples of Jesus in the sophisticated, urban, and thoroughly pagan culture of Ephesus. Though his hearers are already Christians, Paul’s tone is one of recruitment. He seeks to reenlist them in Christian faith, to reignite the fire of their devotion to Christ, and to resurrect the excitement of being part of God’s great enterprise in the world, the church.

Because the Christian faith is all about Christ, Paul radiates admiration and worship of Him. If wobbly Christian disciples are to regain their footing, it will be because they recapture their first love for Jesus and establish fresh trust in His grace and power. So Paul highlights Christ’s exaltation in heaven, above all the powers and deities that seek to attract the devotion of believers in Ephesus. Jesus is the goal of the divine plan for the ages, a plan in which believers, as the church, play an important role in God’s plans to unify all things in Christ.

As Paul seeks to draw believers in Ephesus into fresh devotion to their Lord, he does not dumb down the demands of Christian discipleship. He spells out in some detail what Christian behavior and community look like. Christians are called to Spirit-inspired, Christ-honoring, God-directed worship, which Paul illustrates again and again. A devotion to Christ impacts how one acts and speaks. To love Christ means to respect and value fellow believers. It means resisting the patterns of mean-spirited and sexually decadent behavior so rampant in their culture. It means, in our relationships within church and household, borrowing from the example of self-sacrifice offered by Christ. It means offering fellow citizens of Ephesus clear examples of a new pattern of human existence.

Paul spends a good deal of his letter expressing his excitement for this new pattern of what it means to be human through membership in God’s church. He is especially invigorated by the thought that God has joined estranged segments of humanity — Jews and Gentiles — as one in the church. In living out unity where hostility would be expected, they have an opportunity to exhibit the characteristics of God’s new society and the coming kingdom.

In pursuing the importance of being part of God’s church, Paul develops four metaphors for the church. Believers make up the body of Christ, demonstrating their devotion to Christ and their unity with each other. They are a living temple, built through the sacrifice of Christ on Calvary, in which God is worshiped. They are the bride of Christ, who look toward a grand marriage ceremony when the Bridegroom comes to claim them as His own. In a final metaphor that expresses Paul’s efforts to reenlist them in Christian faith, they are the army of Christ, which wages peace in His name, combating the forces of darkness in God’s strength as they look toward Christ’s return.

Ephesians, then, speaks especially to times like our own in which the allure of the world and the passing of time threaten to dull Christian discipleship. It lifts up Christ and accents the significance of following Him as engaged, active members of His church as we live out the hope of His return. This quarter we have the privilege of listening prayerfully to Ephesians and experiencing anew the excitement of following Jesus in challenging times.

John K. McVay, Ph.D., is president and professor of religion at Walla Walla University in College Place, Washington, USA, where he has served since 2006.

Amen!(2)

The post Introduction: How to Follow Jesus in Trying Times appeared first on Sabbath School Net.

Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/introduction-how-to-follow-jesus-in-trying-times/

We’re ending the quarter on a high note. Join us for Lesson 13, Ablaze With God’s Glory.

Amen!(0)

The post Ablaze With God’s Glory – Hit the Mark Sabbath School appeared first on Sabbath School Net.

Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/ablaze-with-gods-glory-hit-the-mark-sabbath-school/

Training Boys to Read Bible

By Andrew McChesney

What is the secret for teaching a child to spend personal time with God?

Image © Pacific Press

Christian Müller, an Argentine volunteer at a Seventh-day Adventist school in Tokmok, Kyrgyzstan, surprised me with his answer as we spoke in his home. I was in town to collect mission stories for Adventist Mission.

Christian said his 6-year-old son, Thomas, had interrupted his personal devotions that morning.

“Normally, I would have asked him to wait,” Christian told me. “But he held up his Bible in his little hands and said, ‘Papa, I don’t understand what I am reading. Can you help me?’ What else could I do but help him?”

I expressed astonishment that such a small boy was reading his Bible in the morning. My incredulity grew as Christian explained that Thomas and his 7-year-old brother, Lukas, read their Bibles every morning.

“How did you teach them to have morning devotions?” I asked.

Christian thought for a moment. “Actually, I have never taught them to have morning devotions,” he said.

The boys began having personal devotions around the time that they were learning to walk. Christian and his wife, Romina, would sit at opposite sides of the kitchen table to read their Bibles for personal devotions every morning in their home in Argentina. The boys would wake up and, naturally, want to be with their parents. Crawling out of bed, they would find their father and mother in the kitchen. Christian told the boys from the beginning that it was very important for Daddy and Mommy to spend time with God in the morning and that the boys could not interrupt the morning devotions. If the boys wanted to remain in the kitchen, they needed to be quiet and have their own devotions. The boys chose to stay. Initially, they could not read, so they quietly leafed through Bible picture books. As they grew older, they began to read their Bibles. After moving to Kyrgyzstan, the parents and the boys had morning devotions in their own rooms.

This was the secret for teaching a child to spend personal time with God in the morning. “I never once told the boys that they needed to start having morning devotions,” Christian said. “They just saw that their mother and I had devotions and followed our example.”

Produced by the General Conference Office of Adventist Mission. Find more mission stories at adventistmission[dot]org

Amen!(0)

The post Inside Story: Training Boys to Read Bible appeared first on Sabbath School Net.

Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/inside-story-training-boys-to-read-bible/

Further Thought:

 “Servants of God, with their faces lighted up and shining with holy consecration, will hasten from place to place to proclaim the message from heaven. By thousands of voices, all over the earth, the warning will be given. Miracles will be wrought, the sick will be healed, and signs and wonders will follow the believers.

Image © Stan Myers from GoodSalt.com

Satan also works, with lying wonders, even bringing down fire from heaven in the sight of men. Revelation 13:13. Thus the inhabitants of the earth will be brought to take their stand.

The message will be carried not so much by argument as by the deep conviction of the Spirit of God. The arguments have been presented. The seed has been sown, and now it will spring up and bear fruit. The publications distributed by missionary workers have exerted their influence, yet many whose minds were impressed have been prevented from fully comprehending the truth or from yielding obedience. Now the rays of light penetrate everywhere, the truth is seen in its clearness, and the honest children of God sever the bands which have held them. Family connections, church relations, are powerless to stay them now. Truth is more precious than all besides. Notwithstanding the agencies combined against the truth, a large number take their stand upon the Lord’s side.” — Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, p. 612.

Discussion Questions:

<–Thursday

Amen!(0)

The post Friday: Further Thought ~ Ablaze With God’s Glory appeared first on Sabbath School Net.

Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/friday-further-thought-ablaze-with-gods-glory/