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Read for This Week’s Study: Luke 18:1-8; Matthew 24:1-25:46; 1 Cor. 15:12-19; Eccles. 8:14; Eccles. 12:13-14; Rev. 21:1-5; Rev. 22:1-5.

Memory Text: “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 15:58, NKJV).

Jesus announced the kingdom of God as a present reality that we can be part of today. He sent His disciples to make the same announcement and to enact His kingdom through preaching the gospel and by serving others; that is, by giving as freely as they had received (see Matt. 10:5-8).

But Jesus was also clear that His kingdom was a different kind of kingdom—“not of this world” (John 18:36, NIV)—and yet to come in full. By His incarnation, ministry, death, and resurrection, the kingdom of God was inaugurated, but Jesus also looked forward to a time when His kingdom would fully replace the kingdoms of this world, and God’s reign would be made complete.

By definition, Adventists—those who await this coming and this kingdom—are people of hope. But this hope is not only about a future new world. While hope looks to the future, hope transforms the present now. With such hope, we live in the present as we expect to in the future, and we begin working to make a difference now in ways that fit with how we expect the world will one day be.

Study this week’s lesson to prepare for Sabbath, September 14.

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Half Loaf of Bread

By Andrew McChesney, Adventist Mission

Maya approached Valentina with a loaf of white bread after the worship service.

“Valya, please take this”, she said, holding out the loaf.

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Valentina, 40, looked at the bread hungrily. She hadn’t eaten a crumb in more than six months. It was impossible to find bread on store shelves in Sukhumi, capital of Georgia’s breakaway region of Abkhazia. It was 1993, and a months-long armed conflict between Georgian and Abkhaz forces had resulted in a major food shortage.

“Take this, please”, Maya, 45, said again, still offering the bread. “This is from me to you”.

Valentina slowly shook her head.

“I can’t take this from you”, she said. “You need it just as badly as we do”.

Maya began to cry.

“Please, take this”, she said. “You walked so far to help us. This is a gift that I want to give you, but you are refusing to accept it”.

“OK”, Valentina said, finally relenting. “But let’s cut the bread in half. You take half, and I’ll take half”.

The women divided bread with a knife from the kitchen of the house church, where about 40 people gathered regularly to pray and read the Bible under the leadership of Valentina’s husband, Pavel Dmitrienko, a Seventh-day Adventist pastor.

Moments later, Valentina and Pavel left the house and started the 9-mile (15-kilometer) trek back to their home.

Valentina smiled as she thought about the bread in her purse. She looked forward to enjoying it with a simple soup of barley and water that evening.

“I will make soup, and we will eat it with real bread”, she said.

Pavel returned her happy smile. He also wanted to eat the bread.

Partway home, the couple met an elderly woman on a bridge. She was thin, and her clothing was filthy. She looked at Valentina.

“Daughter”, she said with a wavering voice, “would you happen to have a piece of bread?”

Valentina immediately removed the half loaf from her purse and presented it to the woman.

“Yes, I have, dear Grandmother”, she said. “Please, take this”.

The elderly woman wept as she accepted the bread.

“Thank you”, she said, tears streaking her dirty, wrinkled cheeks. “I haven’t eaten in three days. You’ve saved me from death”.

Valentina and Pavel continued on their way home, joyful smiles lighting their faces. They were happy that they had been able to sacrifice their precious bread.

“We gave the one thing that we wanted most of all to the grandmother, and saved her life”, Valentina, now 65 and pictured left, said in an interview in her home in Belgorod, Russia. “It was a real sacrifice—and it made us happier than ever before”.

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

All Rights Reserved. No part of the Adult Sabbath School Bible Study Guide may be edited, altered, modified, adapted, translated, reproduced, or published by any person or entity without prior written authorization from the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.

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Further Thought: Read Ellen G. White, “God With Us”, pages 19-26, The Desire of Ages ; “Saved to Serve”, pages 95-107, in The Ministry of Healing.

“God claims the whole earth as His vineyard. Though now in the hands of the usurper, it belongs to God.

Image © Stan Myers from GoodSalt.com

By redemption no less than by creation it is His. For the world Christ’s sacrifice was made. ‘God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son’. John 3:16. It is through that one gift that every other is imparted to men. Daily the whole world receives blessing from God. Every drop of rain, every ray of light shed on our unthankful race, every leaf and flower and fruit, testifies to God’s long forbearance and His great love”. – Ellen G. White, Christ’s Object Lessons, pages 301, 302.

“‘In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free. All are brought nigh by His precious blood’. (Gal. 3:28; Eph. 2:13).

Whatever the difference in religious belief, a call from suffering humanity must be heard and answered …

All around us are poor, tried souls that need sympathizing words and helpful deeds. There are widows who need sympathy and assistance. There are orphans whom Christ has bidden His followers receive as a trust from God. Too often these are passed by with neglect. They may be ragged, uncouth, and seemingly in every way unattractive; yet they are God’s property. They have been bought with a price, and they are as precious in His sight as we are. They are members of God’s great household, and Christians as His stewards are responsible for them”. – Ellen G. White, Christ’s Object Lessons, pages 386, 387.

Discussion Questions:

Summary: 

The love of God as expressed in the plan of salvation and enacted in the life and sacrifice of Jesus offers us forgiveness, life, and hope. As recipients of this grace, we seek to share this with others, not to earn salvation, but because it is what we have been created and re-created to do. As such, the gospel transforms relationships and moves us to serve, particularly those most in need.

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The transforming invitation and appeal of the gospel “to every nation, tribe, language and people” (Rev. 14:6, NIV) has continued throughout Christian history. However, Revelation describes a renewed proclamation of this message—the good news about Jesus and all that entails—at the end of time.

Read Revelation 14:6-7. How is the common understanding of the gospel—most commonly summarized by John 3:16—included in the angel’s specific message in verse 7?

Revelation 14:7 brings together three key elements we have already noted in this study of God’s concern about evil, poverty, and oppression throughout the Bible story:

The Everlasting Gospel

Judgment. The appeal for judgment—for justice to be done—has been a repeated call of those who have been oppressed throughout history. Fortunately, the Bible portrays God as One who hears the cries of those in distress. As often expressed in the Psalms, for example, those who are being treated unfairly regard judgment as good news.

Worship. The writings of the Hebrew prophets often link the subjects of worship and good deeds, particularly when comparing the worship of those who claimed to be God’s people with the wrongs that they committed and continued. In Isaiah 58, for example, God explicitly stated that the worship He most desired was acts of kindness and care for the poor and needy (see Isa. 58:6-7).

Creation. As we have seen, one of the foundational elements of God’s call for justice is the common family of humanity, that we are all created in His image and loved by Him, that we all have value in His sight and that no one should be exploited or oppressed for the unjust gain and greed of another. It seems clear that this end-time proclamation of the gospel is a broad and far-reaching call to accept the rescue, redemption, and restoration that God wants for fallen humanity. Hence, even amid the issues regarding true and false worship, and persecution (see Rev. 14:8-12), God will have a people who will stand for what is right, for the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, even amid the worst of evil.

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By His ministry and His teaching, Jesus urged a radical inclusiveness. All who sought His attention with honest motives—whether women with bad reputations, tax collectors, lepers, Samaritans, Roman centurions, religious leaders, or children—He welcomed with genuine warmth and care. As the early church was to discover in transformative ways, this included the offer of the gift of salvation.

Humanity

As the first believers slowly recognized the inclusiveness of the gospel, they were not merely adding good works for others onto their faith as a “nice” thing to do. It was core to their understanding of the gospel, as they had experienced it in the life, ministry, and death of Jesus. As they wrestled with the issues and questions that arose, first individually for leaders such as Paul and Peter (see, for example, Acts 10:9-20), then as a church body at the Jerusalem council (see Acts 15), they began to realize the dramatic shift this good news had brought into their understanding of God’s love and inclusiveness and how that should be lived out in the lives of those who profess to follow Him.

What do each of the following texts teach us about our common humanity? How should each idea influence our attitude toward others?

Mal. 2:10

Acts 17:26

Rom. 3:23

Gal. 3:28

Galatians 3:28 is a theological summary of the practical story Jesus told about the good Samaritan. Rather than arguing about who we are obligated to serve, just go and serve, and perhaps even be prepared to be served by those we might not expect to serve us. The common element of the global human family is realized at a higher level in the common family of those who are bound together by the gospel, by the saving love of God that calls us to oneness in Him: “For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free” (1 Cor. 12:13, NIV).

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