Study: What was one of the main purposes of the Old Testament sanctuary?
Apply: What are ways that you experience God’s presence in your life?
Share: Your friend says that she feels separated from God because of her sinful lifestyle and wants to feel His presence again. What can you say to help your friend?
Read in Class: John 1:14-18. Define the main idea of this passage.
Study: What can you learn from Christ’s incarnation about God’s mission to us?
Apply: Think what it means that God’s love for us is so great that He would come to us in our own humanity. How should we respond to this love, especially in terms of mission to others?
Share: Your friend asks you why God had to become human in order to reconcile us back to Him? What do you tell your friend? See Jesus Died as me as Well as For me.
Study: How do you see God’s love and mission interacting here? What is the promise we can find in the Great Commission? How does it bring assurance for us as we get involved in God’s mission?
Apply: In what ways have you seen Jesus’ promise to be “with you always” being fulfilled in your own life as you are engaged in mission?
Share: Your friend asks, “If God is always with us why do bad things happen to us?” What do you tell your friend?
Read in Class: John 14:1-3. Define the main idea of this passage.
Study: In what ways is it connected with the end-time message found in the Scriptures?
Apply: How do Exodus 25:8 and John 14:1-3 compliment each other in helping us to understand the sanctuary message and Jesus’ work in preparing dwelling places so we can be with Him? How could this help explain why it is taking so long for Jesus to create rooms or mansions for us to dwell in? Are you allowing Jesus to make His home right in your heart so that where He is there you can be also?
Share: Can you pray for God to open the hearts of your friends and family to allow you to share God’s mission with them? Will you also pray for God to put someone new in your path who you can share God’s mission with?
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.
Do you picture God as just one Being who is a dictator, or do you picture God being a heavenly Trio made up of three persons creating a community of love? If we view God as a single dictator then it is highly likely our families and churches will fall under a dictatorship mentality. If we view God as three persons, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, each one creating a community of love, then it is more likely our families and churches will follow the same model.
1 John 4:8 tells us God is love. Love is being others centered. Even before another creature was ever created God was love, because God was three Persons, each one centered on the needs of the other. 1 Corinthians 13 describes love so it must also be describing God.
Love does not demand its own way. If God is love does He demand His own way? No. In Matthew 26:39 you have the Son submitting to the Father, saying, “not my will but your will be done.” Did the Son submit to the Father because the Father had to have His own way? No. when being arrested Jesus said in Matthew 26:53 He could have asked the Father to send him 12 legions of angels to rescue Him and the Father would have complied. What you have in Matthew 26 is a heavenly family submitting to each other, the way Paul says families should all submit to one another in Ephesians 5:21 as well as the rest of Ephesians 5. God is all powerful but God is not all controlling. God is not a tyrant calling all the shots. God is a community of love creating other communities of love.
Lucifer, on the other hand wanted to destroy God’s community of love and set up His own dictatorship. In Genesis 1:26 God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.” Notice how God did not speak as a lone dictator. God spoke as a community of love, using words like “us” and “ours.” Now notice how Lucifer spoke as he sought to destroy a community orientated government by attempting to set up his own dictatorship.
For you have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation On the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.’ Isaiah 14:13-14 NKJV
Notice instead of using words like “us” and “ours” Lucifer is using words like “I” and “my.” Instead of a government being operated by a community of love Lucifer is introducing himself as a lone dictator. Lucifer is also creating something God never intended- a hierarchy. Remember God is all powerful but not all controlling. Lucifer now wants to be the lone dictator with total control. This is something God never intended-ever. God created Adam and Eve as equal partners. Not the same of course but equal. When they sinned in Genesis 3 they were blaming everyone but themselves. By saying others should have been more responsible they were saying others have more responsibility which creates a hierarchy. So when the Lord tells Eve in Genesis 3:16 that your husband will rule over you, He was not creating a hierarchy as much as He was telling Eve by passing blame and responsibility they had just created a hierarchy.
In Ephesians 5:21 Paul tells us to submit to one another. In Ephesians 5 Paul is trying to destroy a hierarchy and tyrant model family, and replace it with a family like the heavenly Trio, which is a community of love model family. If we see God as just one person who is all controlling, then it is very likely our churches will fall under a hierarchy with one very controlling tyrannical “leader” calling all the shots. It is also very likely that our families will fall under a hierarchy with one person dominating the rest of the family.
This obviously is not God’s plan. God never created a hierarchy. He never created a dictatorship. He created a community of love. Years ago my church was having evangelistic meetings. One night I was clearing several baptismal candidates for baptism while the baptistry sprang a leak. Deacons were working all night to fix the leak so we could have the baptism the next day, while I cleared the candidates for baptism. We were working together. That night both our jobs were extremely important. The deacons and I were not the same. We had different functions, but we were equal. As the pastor on the church board, I have a multitude of counselors as Proverbs 15:22 suggests. God’s government is not a dictatorship and neither is my church family. I have worked with a church that changed its lead elder every year, but all the elders worked so well together they often forgot which one was the current lead elder. A community of love is like that. When teaching 1st graders I liked to play a game where one student stepped out of the room while a leader was chosen. When the student stepped back in, the class would be following the leader as the leader would pat her head or rub her stomach and then clap and so on. The others followed the leader mimicking the same motions so closely so that the student who was watching could not tell who the leader was. I believe our churches and families should be governed by a community of love, working so well and closely together that you can’t even tell who the leader is.
We destroy Lucifer’s tyrannical dictatorship and hierarchy system when we revert back to God’s plan of a government which is a community of love, just as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit create a community of love.
If you view God as being one single dictator, then chances are when you read Ephesians 5 you only see the part about the husband being the head and the wife is supposed to submit to the husband. But if you understand the heavenly trio, and understand the Godhead is one family where each one submits to and serves the other, then chances are when you read Ephesians 5 you see more than just the husband being the head and the wife submitting to him. You will also see Ephesians 5:21 where we are to submit to each other. You will also see the part where the husband loves the wife so much he would die for her the same way Christ died for the church. You will see the wife respecting the husband, not because of his power and authority but because of his self-sacrificing love for her.
Lucifer presents to our churches and families a government ruled by a lone tyrannical dictator. The heavenly Trio offers our churches and families a government ruled by community and self sacrificing love.
You may study this week’s Sabbath School lesson here.
Main Theme: Husbands and wives should be faithful and loving each other just as Christ is loving and faithful towards the church.
Read in Class: Ephesians 5:21-29. Discuss the main idea of this passage.
Study: As Paul, in Ephesians 5:25-27, 29, shapes his wedding-marriage metaphor for the church and its relationship with Christ, he draws creatively on the customs and roles of an ancient wedding. In relationship to the church as bride, Christ is the divine Bridegroom who:
Loves the church as bride(Eph. 5:25). We must never forget that this is heart work for Jesus. He loves us!
Gives Himself as the bride price. In the context of ancient wedding arrangements, the bridegroom would “purchase” the bride with the “bride price,” which was usually a large sum of money and valuables, so large that ancient village economies depended upon the custom. Christ pays the ultimate price for the church as His bride since He “gave Himself for her” (Eph. 5:25, NKJV). In the Incarnation and at the cross, He gives Himself as the bride price.
Bathes His bride. The preparation of the bride was an important part of the ancient wedding festivities. As is also true today, it was the bridesmaids and female relatives of the bride who prepared her for the ceremony. Paul, though, imagines the divine Bridegroom preparing His bride for the wedding! It is He who sanctifies and cleanses her “by the washing of water” (Eph. 5:26, ESV), a probable reference to baptism.
Speaks the word of promise. This cleansing is performed “with the word” (Eph. 5:26, ESV), pointing to the word of promise that the divine Bridegroom speaks to His bride, perhaps in the context of the betrothal ceremony (compare Eph. 1:3-14, Eph. 2:1-10, noting God’s promises to believers at the time of their conversion). Betrothal was the ancient version of modern engagement, but was a much more serious set of negotiations, which included a written agreement about the bride price (from the husband) and the dowry (assets the bride would bring to the marriage from her family).
Prepares and adorns the bride. When the bride is finally presented to her Groom, she is fabulously beautiful, appearing in flawless splendor (Eph. 5:27). Christ not only bathes the bride; He prepares and adorns her as well.
Apply: How do these verses help us understand the way Christ feels about us? Why should we find this so comforting?
Share: Your friend says that she is enduring her husband’s abusive behavior in hopes that her submission and example will finally lead him to Christ. What do you tell your friend?
Study: How does Paul use elements of the ancient wedding in appealing to Christians in Corinth? When does the presentation occur?
Apply: How does this imagery show you how much Christ cares for you?
Share: Your friend says the Bible is not inspired because it teaches the authority of the husband, which not how our society operates now. What do you tell your friend?
Read in Class: Ephesians 5:28-30. Discuss the main idea of this passage.
Study: What new argument does Paul use to encourage husbands to practice tender love toward their wives?
Apply: Paul cites the example of Jesus to both wives and husbands. What can you learn from Jesus about loving those in your own family circle?
Share: Your friend asks how the Godhead can be one but still have three members? How does the imagery of a husband and wife being one help you answer the question?
Read in Class:Genesis 2:15-25. Define the main idea of this passage.
Study: What happens in the story before the statement concerning a husband and wife being “one flesh” (Gen. 2:24)?
Apply: In what ways does Ephesians 5:33 serve as a concise summary of Paul’s counsel in Ephesians 5:21-32? If married, how can you seek to more fully implement these principles in your marriage?
Share: Can you think of a married couple who’s relationship expresses the love of God? Can you reach out to them and commend them for their Christian example?
In Light of The Cross 