I actually thought I was the only one concerned about how little Bible study is actually done in Sabbath School. It seems we study the quarterly more than the Bible. Then I found this quote from 1991, and found out I am not alone, and have not been for years.
“Too often I find that what passes for Bible study in many Sabbath School classes is little more than a rehash of familiar sayings, personal opinion, and Ellen White quotations. It isn’t Bible study, but simply comments about the Bible…..Our “lesson study” has the guise of Bible study but isn’t. It is more a study of the Sabbath School lesson quarterly than the Bible.” –Myron Widmer, Adventist Review, September 12, 1991.
During the quarantine I would ask people what they have been finding in their personal Bible study time, only to get answers about what they heard a television preacher say. I never got any direct answers to my question about personal Bible study time. This greatly concerned me. In Acts 17:11 they were not only listening to Paul preach, but they were searching (not just casually reading) the Scriptures (Not a quarterly or periodical) daily, not just every now and then.
This is why I enjoy Michael Fracker’s teaching plans. These plans make Sabbath school a Bible study that may casually reference the quarterly, instead of a study of the quarterly that may casually reference the Bible. Quarterlies are great as they direct us to the Bible, but we need to follow those directions and go to the Bible. By the way, after using Michael Fracker’s lesson plans for twenty years, I have also helped write his lesson plans on occasion and even edit them. In the process I have also developed a somewhat similar set of lesson plans following Michael Fracker’s vision of making Sabbath school time Bible study time. While some use my plans and many more use Michael Fracker’s teaching plans, I talk to several Sabbath School teachers who feel more comfortable making their own teaching plans. That is really best. The suggested plans are just to get you started. What is most important is making sure Sabbath School time is Bible study time.
You may study this week’s Sabbath School lesson here.
Main Theme: Paul’s message is not just for the Ephesians but for believers all over the world.
Read in Class:Ephesians 1:4. Define the main idea of this passage. Study: If God chose us before the foundation of the world, what does that tell you about His foreknowledge? Apply: How do you react to the thought that God not only knew you before you were born, but that He had chosen you to be saved and to live with Him throughout eternity? Share: Your friend asks if Ephesians 1:4 teaches we are all predestined to be lost or saved with no choice of our own? What do you tell your friend?
Read in Class: Ephesians 3. Define the main idea of this passage. Study: Is it both exciting and important to be a part of God’s church? Why or why not? Apply: What kinds of barriers between believers exist in our church that should not be there? Share: Your friend asks how God has exceeded your expectations? What do you tell your friend?
Read in Class: Ephesians 4. Define the main idea of this passage. Study: What things does Paul tell believers to stop doing, and what things does he tell believers to do? Apply: What are ways that we can contribute to the unity of our church, both at the local and worldwide levels? Why is it important to do what we can? Share: Your friend asks how she can know what her spiritual gifts are? What do you tell your friend?
Read in Class:Ephesians 5. Define the main idea of this passage. Study: How does Paul ask us to live out the gospel in our relationship with others? Apply: How can we walk in love as imitators of God in our lives? What hindrances do we face in that kind of walk? Share: What is your main take away from the book of Ephesians?
Main Theme: Peace comes from knowing Christ is fighting our battles with us and for us.
Read in Class:Ephesians 6:14, I Peter 4:1, 5:8. Define the main idea of this passage. Study: How does Paul’s imagine believers preparing for the battle against evil? Apply: In what ways have you experienced the idea that goodness, holiness, and truth can be a protection? Share: Your friend says working for peace if futile in a world where we know there will aways be wars and rumors of wars. What do you tell your friend?
Read in Class:Ephesians 1:2, 2:14,15,17. Define the main idea of this passage. Study: Why does Paul use detailed military imagery when he is so interested in peace? Apply: How does the following text help us understand what Paul’s military imagery should mean in our lives as believers? “God calls upon us to put on the armor. We do not want Saul’s armor, but the whole armor of God. Then we can go forth to the work with hearts full of Christ-like tenderness, compassion, and love.” — Ellen G. White, [Australasian] Union Conference Record, July 28, 1899. Share: Your friend asks, what is the difference between the peace God gives and the peace the world gives? What do you tell your friend?
Read in Class: Ephesians 6:16,17. Define the main idea of this passage. Study: When and how should believers as combatants use the shield, the helmet, and the sword? Apply: Does the military images teach us just how literal the great controversy really is and how seriously we should take it? Share: Your friend asks, “How does the shield of faith protect you from the fiery darts hurled in your direction by others?” What do you tell your friend?
Read in Class: Philippians 4:6, Colossians 4:2, I Thessalonians 5:16-18.. Study: Review the calls to prayer. Which one inspires you the most? Why? Apply: How can we conduct prayer ministry based on these messages?
Share: Is there something in this week’s lesson that a friend needs to hear? How can you plan to share it with them this week?
Have you ever felt like you were a victim of circumstances? Due to lack of education or money you have missed opportunities? Maybe if you had not married right out of high school you could have explored the world instead of getting tied down. Now you are sacrificing your own dreams in order to create a better life for your family. Meanwhile others wish they had married so they could be experiencing a family. Now those are examples of being a victim of our own choices and not necessarily circumstances beyond our own control. Others feel like they were born victims.
Some blame the location of where they were born on how their lives turned out. Several years ago a friend came to visit me from South America. We were stopped at an intersection where a man was begging. My friend was amazed that there were poor people in the United States. She thought all Americans were wealthy because America is known as the land of opportunity. It seems that, no matter where people come from or what their lot is in life, they can see them selves as victims of circumstances.
While I enjoy my freedom of being single, there are times I miss having a family. I was talking to a friend the other day about one of the things I miss about not having my own family. I miss having someone with whom to share my stories. I don’t have a wife with whom I can share my school yearbook and tell her my high school and college stories. I don’t have any children to whom I can tell my “when I was a kid” stories. Then again, I know married people who don’t have anyone in their family who wants to hear their story either. 1
My friend then made an amazing comparison. She told me while I have no family with whom to share my stories, I share them with my church family and extended family through blogging. She told me Paul was the same way. Maybe that is why he wrote so much and loved his church so much. Having no immediate family, the church was his love and passion, and he shared his story and testimony with them through his letters. Maybe that is why he wrote so much!
Now I have no doubt Paul wrote because God told him to, and it got me to thinking about Paul’s circumstances and one thing I have always noticed: While being persecuted and in prison Paul never thought of himself as a victim of circumstances. He never even though of himself as a victim of the Jews or Romans while in prison. Paul writes,
For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles.. Ephesians 3:1
I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you… Ephesians 4:1
Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner:2 Timothy 1:8
Paul never refers to being a prisoner of the Romans or Jews. Even while in prison Paul saw himself as a prisoner of the Lord! He knew he was exactly where God wanted him to be. Paul did most of his writing from prison. If he had been free to travel and talk to people in person, he would not have written so much, and we would not have had all of his writings preserved in the New Testament that we have today.
Paul was well aware of how an angel freed Peter from prison. Paul was well aware of how Philip just disappeared from one place and appeared in another. Paul knew that the iron bars and soldiers were not really holding him there. He knew he was right where God needed him to be, so he calls himself a prisoner of the Lord instead of a prisoner of man or circumstances.
I have a friend who recently took a job for which she was over-qualified. Based on her education and degree, she should be somewhere else making much more money. She may have even faced ridicule from her friends and family for “lowering” herself to take this job, but where she is living, and based on other “circumstances” this is the best she can do for now. She never complains. Instead she tells me of the people she meets there who need Jesus, people she never would have been able to reach out to if she was not working with them. They never would have come to her church. She never would have met them working any place else. She is glad she is where she is because she is being used by God to reach people who need Him! And really isn’t that where we all should be?
No matter where we are born and raised and work, our real home is in heaven and we are just missionaries to this world, sent from God to share the good news with others. Some of us may be missionaries in places of poverty. Some of us may be missionaries in our families, or if we have no immediate family then in our church family and communities. Some of us may be missionaries in difficult work places, and some of us may be missionaries in literal prisons. Either way we are not prisoners of circumstances. If we love God and have chosen to serve Him, we are only prisoners of the Lord.
By the way, just because I am happy being single does not mean I have chosen to remain single. I am just happy being single until God brings me the right woman. I am not desperate. I am happily content. ↩
You may study this week’s Sabbath School lesson here.
Main Theme: In composing Ephesians 6:10-20, Paul prays for an enhanced vision for believers so that they will be able to see the full reality of the great controversy and to draw hope from what it reveals to them.
Read in Class:Ephesians 6:10-20. Define the key thought in this passage.
Study: What does Paul’s battle cry mean to us today, as combatants in the great controversy?
Apply: What should Paul’s warning that we fight not against flesh and blood but against supernatural enemies teach us about where our only hope of victory is?
Share: Your friend asks, how can we be praying always? What do you tell your friend?
Read in Class: Romans 13:11-14. Define the main idea of this passage.
Apply: What are some of the ways that you personally have experienced the reality not only of this cosmic conflict, but of the victory we can claim for ourselves in Jesus? Why is understanding His victory for us so foundational to our hope and experience?
Share: Your friend tells you he is trying to stop smoking, but keeps a cigarette in the cabinet “just in case.” How might Romans 13:14 help you answer your friend?
Study: Out of all the armor mentioned in Ephesians 6:10-20, why do you think Paul chooses to repeat breastplate and helmet here? Are they more important than the other pieces of armor?
Apply: How do you apply verse 6 not to sleep as others do? Don’t we all need sleep?
Share: Your friend asks, ” how does putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation keep us sober?” What do you tell your friend?
Study: What does it mean that we walk in the flesh but do not war according to the flesh? How might Ephesians 6:12 help us answer this question?
Apply: What are some of the arguments in the great controversy, and how do you cast them down and make them obedient to Christ?
Share: Can you think of a friend who would be encouraged by something in this week’s lesson? What you can you do to plan to share it with them this week?
Prepared by William Earnhardt for Sabbath School class, September 9, 2023.
Main Theme: Honoring our parents helps us to be well rounded, successful family members and individuals.
Read in Class: Ephesians 6:1-3. Define the main idea of this passage.
Study: What advice does Paul give to children, and how does he support that counsel from the Old Testament?
Apply: How do these verses reinforce how important family relationships are?
Share: Your friend says he was abused by his parents as a child. Today he appreciates God as his loving heavenly Father, but says there is no way he can ever honor his earthly parents. He says, “Surely God does not expect me to honor my parents.” What do you tell your friend?
Study:What motivation does Colossians 3:21 provide for avoiding irritating one’s children?
Apply: Though the context of the lesson here deals with parents and children, what principles can be taken from these texts that should impact how we should deal with all other people?
Share: A friend tells you she know she has needlessly provoked her children in the past, but doesn’t think she should say she is sorry, because authoritarians should never have to say they are sorry. What do you tell your friend?
Read in Class: Ephesians 6:5-8. Define the main idea of this passage.
Study: What does Paul require of Christian slaves in his detailed instructions to them?
Apply: However much we might wish that Scripture had openly condemned this horrible practice, it doesn’t. Nevertheless, what principles can we draw from Paul’s words in this context about how we relate to people we work with in our own context?
Share: Your friend says that the Bible is tone deaf towards slavery and other social issues of the day like how women should be treated or even homosexuals for that matter. What do you tell your friend?
Read in Class:Ephesians 6:9. Define the main idea of this passage.
Study: Assuming that you are a Christian slave master who is listening to Ephesians being read out in your house church, how might you react to this counsel, offered in the presence of your slaves?
Apply: Even though we do not own slaves, how should Ephesians 6:9 help guide us in the way we treat our employees or those under our “command?”
Share: How can you show your appreciation this week for your employees or someone in a servant position?
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother,” which is the first commandment with promise: 3 “that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.” Ephesians 6:1-2
My Family with my Grandmother Ruth Holzkamper at her 100th birthday party.
One summer when I was ten years old I spent a week with my grandmother in Arkansas, just a couple hours from where I lived in Oklahoma. At the end of the week my mother came to pick me up. As we were all visiting my mother said something, and I responded with a rude comment. My grandmother told me, “You don’t talk that way to your mother!” I thought she was going to say, because she is the boss of me or bigger than me or something like that, but what my grandmother said next took me by surprise and I have never forgotten. She finished by saying, “You don’t talk that way to someone who would die for you!” My grandmother was right, Of course we obey those in authority because they do know best. We respect them because of their wisdom, experience and guidance, but we should always honor our parents because they love us so much they would give their life for us.
This does not mean we cannot have disagreements, but those disagreements should always be respectful disagreements, keeping in mind the person we are disagreeing with loves us so much he or she would give their life for us. This also goes for school teachers. How many tragic school shooting stories have included a teacher dying while protecting her students, even though those students may have been very disrespectful to her? It also goes for law enforcement officers who put their lives on the line. Just earlier this summer I read about an off duty police officer who intentionally got in the path of a wrong way driver and gave his life, to save others who would have been hit. Before cursing the stranger who took the parking space we were aiming for, remember you don’t know their story. Maybe they have risked their lives to save another life. Maybe they were the ones who donated the blood that saved your uncle’s life. Maybe they would take a bullet for you too, you never know. Strangers have taken bullets for other strangers before.
“You don’t talk that way to someone who would die for you.” Twelve simple but profound words, I heard uttered one time almost 50 years ago, that have changed the entire way I look at life and other people.
You may study this week’s Sabbath School lesson here.
In Light of The Cross 