The ancient Greek historian Herodotus (5th century BC) wrote about a tribe that, at a birth, began a period of mourning because they anticipated the suffering that the infant would face if it lived to adulthood. However alien to us the ritual might seem, there is some logic to it.

Millennia later, an advertisement in America in the early 20th century read, “Why live, if you can be buried for ten dollars?”

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Life can be hard enough, we know, even if we believe in God and in the hope of eternity. Imagine, though, how hard it is for those who have no hope of anything beyond the short and often troubled existence here. More than one secular writer has commented on the meaninglessness of human existence, since we all not only die, but we all live with the realization that we are going to die. And this realization is what makes the whole project of human life, which is often hard and sorrowful in and of itself, seemingly of null and void. One thinker referred to humans as nothing but “hunks of spoiling flesh on disintegrating bones.” Rather macabre, but, again, it’s hard to argue with the logic.

Of course, in contrast to all this, we have the biblical promise of eternal life in Jesus. And that is the key: we have this hope in Jesus and what His death and resurrection offer us. Otherwise, what hope do we have?

Read 1 Corinthians 15:12-19. What is Paul saying here about how closely related Christ’s resurrection is to the hope of our own resurrection?

Paul is explicit: our resurrection is inseparably tied to Christ’s resurrection. And if we don’t rise, then it means that Christ has not risen, and if Christ has not risen, then — what? “Your faith is futile; you are still in your sins!” (NKJV). In other words, when we die we stay dead, and forever, too, and thus, it all is meaningless. Paul all but says that in 1 Corinthians 15:32 (NKJV) — “If the dead do not rise, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!’”

If our present existence as carbon-based protoplasm is all there is, and our “threescore and ten years” (if we are fortunate; more if we don’t smoke or eat too many hamburgers) is all that we get, ever — we’re in pretty tough shape. No wonder Ellen G. White adds, “Heaven is worth everything to us, and if we lose heaven we lose all.” — Sons and Daughters of God, p. 349.

<–Sabbath Monday–>

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/sunday-hope-beyond-this-life/

Image © Pacific Press

Sabbath Afternoon

Read for This Week’s Study: 1 Corinthians 15:12-19, John 14:1-3, John 6:26-51, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, 1 Corinthians 15:51-55.

Memory Text: “And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life” (1 John 5:11-12, , NKJV).

Though writing in Greek, all the New Testament writers (except Luke) were Jews, and they of course approached the nature of human beings from the Hebrew wholistic perspective, not from the Greek pagan one.

Thus, for Christ and the apostles, the Christian hope was not a new hope but, rather, the unfolding of the ancient hope already nurtured by the patriarchs and prophets. For example, Christ mentioned that Abraham foresaw and rejoiced to see His day (John 8:56). Jude stated that Enoch prophesied about the Second Coming (Jude 14, Jude 15). And the book of Hebrews speaks of the heroes of faith as having expected a heavenly reward that they would not receive until we receive ours (Hebrews 11:39-40). This statement would be meaningless if their souls were already with the Lord in heaven.

By stressing that only those who are in Christ have eternal life (1 John 5:11-12), John disproves the theory of the natural immortality of the soul. Truly, there is no eternal life apart from a saving relationship with Christ. The New Testament hope, then, is a Christ-centered hope, and the only hope that this mortal existence will one day become an immortal one.

Study this week’s lesson to prepare for Sabbath, November 19.

Sunday–>

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/sabbath-new-testament-hope/

Support for the mission activities of the Seventh-day Adventist church has always been part of the Sabbath School program. This video is Mission Spotlight for this week.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tXVijpoqc0&w=560&h=315]

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/mission-spotlight-for-november-12/

Accepting the Word, Part 1

By Andrew McChesney

Eulalia Rashid ran out of beer and headed to the store to buy more in the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth in the Pacific Ocean.

It was Christmas Eve. She was lonely and had no one with whom to celebrate the holiday. An alcoholic for 37 years, she had all but abandoned her four children and 13 grandchildren. She also was ill with colon cancer.

Image © Pacific Press

As Eulalia walked, a small wooden box caught her eye on the ground on the darkened street. She picked it up and shook it, thinking some money might be inside. Sure enough, a penny was inside, and she placed the box in her pocket. Minutes later, standing in the light of the store, she pulled out the box and saw words written on the top, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Psalm 119:105, NKJV).

The next morning, on Christmas Day, Eulalia read and re-read the words on the box. “What is this word?” she wondered. “What is this lamp that is to light my path?” Eulalia had always believed in Jesus, but she had never had a relationship with Him. Now she tried to translate Psalm 119:105 into her native Tomoro and Palau languages. She looked up the verse in several Bible translations. Still not understanding the words, she decided to read through the entire Bible. Maybe she would find an explanation somewhere.

One day, she reached John 1:1, which says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Her eyes lit up with joy. She read on, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). “Here is the answer!” she thought. “The word is Jesus! Jesus is the Lamp that lights my path!”

By now she loved reading the Bible. She kept on reading, and she started to pray regularly. As she read and prayed, her life changed. She read that God had set aside the seventh day as Sabbath in Exodus 20:1-26, and she began to keep the Sabbath in her home. She read about clean and unclean foods in 11 and modified her diet. When she saw that God gave Adam and Eve a plant-based diet, she cultivated a garden of sweet potatoes, spinach, string beans, eggplant, tomatoes, tapioca, papaya, mangoes, lemons, dragon fruit, soursop, mulberries, and coconuts.

Her family did not understand what was going on. They were astonished to see that she had stopped drinking. She told them that one day she had simply decided not to drink, and Jesus had taken away her desire for alcohol in the twinkling of an eye.

Eulalia didn’t know it, but she was already becoming a missionary to her family by her example.

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

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Source: https://ssnet.org/blog/inside-story-accepting-the-word-part-1/

Further Thought: Read Ellen G. White, “In Joseph’s Tomb,” Pages 769-778; “The Lord Is Risen,” Pages 779-787; “Why Weepest Thou?

Image © Stan Myers from GoodSalt.com

”, Pages 788-794; “The Walk to Emmaus,” Pages 795-801; “Peace Be Unto You,” Pages 802-808; in The Desire of Ages.

Modern sentiment doesn’t believe in something like the resurrection of Jesus. However, the historical evidence is so strong that even those who can’t accept the reality of the resurrection are forced to admit that many people believed that they had seen the resurrected Jesus. Thus, much anti-resurrection apologetics is the attempt to explain what could have caused all these different people to believe that they had seen the risen Christ.

Some have argued that all the disciples hallucinated the resurrected Jesus; others that Jesus hadn’t really died but only had swooned and then come back to life after He had been brought down from the cross, and when He had reappeared, His followers thought that He had been raised from the dead. And (believe it or not) some have argued that Jesus had a twin brother whom the disciples mistook for the risen Christ. In other words, the historical evidence is so strong for Christ’s resurrection that these are the kinds of arguments people concoct in order to try to dismiss it. With the resurrection itself so important, we should not be surprised by all the good reasons we have been given to believe it.

“The voice that cried from the cross, ‘It is finished,’ was heard among the dead. It pierced the walls of sepulchers, and summoned the sleepers to arise. Thus will it be when the voice of Christ shall be heard from heaven. That voice will penetrate the graves and unbar the tombs, and the dead in Christ shall arise. At the Saviour’s resurrection a few graves were opened, but at His second coming all the precious dead shall hear His voice, and shall come forth to glorious, immortal life. The same power that raised Christ from the dead will raise His church, and glorify it with Him, above all principalities, above all powers, above every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in the world to come.” — Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 787.

Discussion Questions:

<–Thursday

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