Tag / Practicing Supreme Loyalty to Christ

by In Light Of The Cross

11: Practicing Supreme Loyalty to Christ-Sabbath School Lesson Teaching Plan

Photo by August de Richelieu on Pexels.com

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?

Read in Class: Ephesians 6:4 and Colossians 3:21. Define the main idea of these passages.

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?

by In Light Of The Cross

12 Simple Words That Changed How I Look at Life and People

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.