Main Theme: Along the journey to Canaan, God had to teach Israel over and over to trust and obey.
Read in Class:Exodus 15:22-27. Ask the class to identify the main idea in this passage.
Study: After crossing the Red Sea, what was the background to the first miracle performed?
Apply: What trials and struggles have you brought upon yourself? What comfort can you get in knowing that God will still work on your behalf if you cooperate with Him?
Share: Your friend asks, what was the significance of the branch that made the water sweet? What do you tell your friend? Hint: See A Tree Makes a Bitter Life Sweet Again.
Read in Class:Exodus 16:1-15, 26, 35. Ask the class to identify the main idea of this passage.
Study: What was the cause of the Israelites’ grumbling, and what followed?
Apply: People like to eat. We were created to like to eat. The rich abundance of food, growing out of the ground (our original diet), reveals not only that God wants us to eat, but that we are to like what we eat, too. How, though, can this wonderful gift, that of food (and our liking to eat it), be abused?
Share: Your friend says that her pastor told her the sabbath was never observed by God’s people until the law was given on Mt. Sinai. What do you tell your friend?
Study: What major steps in the history of the nation took place here?
Apply: Moses could have just brushed off the old man and told him to mind his own business. He didn’t. What important lessons can we learn from his willingness to listen to this person who wasn’t even a Hebrew?
Share: Your friend, who is the head elder of his church, says he would like to delegate more of his responsibilities to others, but is afraid others may not do as good a job as he does, or may do things totally different from what he is used to. What do you tell your friend?
Main Theme: God had to send some strong persuasions for Pharaoh to let God’s people go.
Read in Class:Exodus 7:8-15, 22. Ask the class to identify the main idea of this passage.
Study: What lessons are here in this first confrontation between the God of the Hebrews and the gods of Egypt?
Apply: How can we allow the Lord to have sovereignty over any of the “gods” seeking supremacy in our lives?
Share: Your friend asks you how to make sure we do not harden our own hearts against doing God’s will and prepare yourself to make right choices. What do you tell your friend?
Read in Class: Exodus 7:14-8:19. Ask the class to identify the main idea of this passage.
Study: What happened in these plagues?
Apply: Think how hard Pharaoh’s heart was. Repeated rejection of God’s prompting only made it worse. What lessons are here for each of us about the constant rejection of the Lord’s prompting?
Share: Your friend asks you why God kept hardening Pharaoh’s heart. What do you tell your friend? For a hint see Redemption in Romans.
Read in Class: Exodus 8:20-9:12. Ask the class to identify the main idea of this passage.
Study: What does this account teach about however great may be the manifestations of God’s power and glory, humanity still has freedom to reject Him?
Apply: Pharaoh’s problem wasn’t intellectual; he had enough rational evidence to make the right choice. Instead, it was a problem of his heart. What should this tell us about why we must guard our hearts?
Share: Your friend asks how do we know when something bad is happening because it is a judgment from God or if it is just a part of life? What do you tell your friend?
Read in Class: Exodus 9:13-10:29. Ask the class to summarize this passage.
Study: How successful are these plagues in getting Pharaoh to change his mind?
Apply: How can we guard against the pride Pharaoh exhibited? What portions of Scripture encourage us to be humble and teachable?
Share: Your friend says that if God just performed more modern-day miracles everyone would believe. How do we know that is not so? What do you tell your friend?
Main Theme: God is establishing His own people right here on earth, who will stand out from all other nations.
Read in Class:Genesis 12:1-10. Ask the class to identify the main idea of this passage.
Study: This is where the Bible introduces a number of key political players found throughout the rest of the Bible, including Nineveh and Babylon. Given what we know about the roles of those cities later on, what can we deduce from these texts?
Apply: Why is the sin of rebellion against God more subtle than we might readily realize? How can we protect ourselves against this very human trait?
Share: Your friend says, “Even Christians are just a product of their ancestors and culture. How do we know if we are really born-again Christians following the Spirit, or just following our family’s and culture’s customs in the name of Christianity?” What do you tell your friend?
Read in Class: Genesis 12:1-9. Ask the class to identify the main idea of this passage.
Study: Why did God call Abram (later Abraham) out from his country of origin?
Apply: Read Deuteronomy 4:5-9. What was the Lord telling the children of Abraham, the nation that had become a fulfillment of the promise God had made to Abraham?
Share: Your friend says that what makes Christians different is not only what they believe but also how they behave and treat others. What do you tell your friend?
Read in Class: 1 Samuel 8:4-18. Ask the class to identify the main idea of this passage.
Study: Why do you suppose the elders found the idea of a king appealing? In what ways do we fall prey to similar temptations?
Apply: Back then, or even today, all human governments share one thing in common: sinners governing other sinners. What possibly could go wrong?
Share: Your friend says we do not need church leaders today. We should just be following Jesus. After all, Israel’s problem was that they wanted a human leader instead of God leading them. What do you tell your friend?
Read in Class: Matthew 20:25-28. Ask the class to share the main idea of this passage
Study: What error did Jesus warn His disciples to avoid in establishing the work of the Christian church?
Apply: In your own culture, your own society, what are the ways in which these same temptations can jeopardize the integrity of our faith?
Share: Read Revelation 18:1-4. In light of Matthew 20:25-28, how might the church people are called to join be different than the church they are in now, besides a different day of worship and beliefs on the state of the dead, etc.? Do we have more to share than just doctrine? What about a different way of how the church operates?
Main Theme: Many atheists identify the problem of evil as the reason that they are atheists. But as we will see in this week and in coming weeks, the God of the Bible is entirely good, and we can trust Him—even despite the evil that so infects our fallen world.
Read in Class: Job 38:1-12. Have the class identify the main idea of this passage.
Study: How does God’s answer to Job shed light on the problem of evil? How much do we know and not know about what might be going on behind the scenes?
Apply: Read Job 42:3. How does Job’s response illuminate what we should recognize about our own position?
Share: Your friend asks why God has allowed others to suffer if He is a God of love? What experiences of your own can you share about prospering from suffering? Or what experiences can you share from your parenting? For example why would a good parent allow their child to receive a painful shot at the doctor’s office?
Study: How does the psalmist approach the evil and injustice around him? What does he see that puts his understanding in a different perspective?
Apply: How can the Adventist understanding of the judgment and the sanctuary doctrine shed light on the problem of evil? Is it helpful to you to know that, while we have many questions now, the details of history and God’s righteous judgments will be revealed in the end?
Share: Your friend asks, how can we have hope when there is so much corruption everywhere? Everyone is so greedy for money and power? There is no integrity anywhere? What do you tell your friend?
Read in Class: Genesis 2:16-17. Ask the class what is the main idea of this passage?
Study: How do these verses display the moral freedom granted to Adam and Eve?
Apply: Sony Corporation has created a robot dog, called Aibo. It will not get sick, not get fleas, not bite, not need shots, and not shed fur. Would you trade your flesh and blood dog for an Aibo? If not, how might your choice help you better understand why God created us as He did, with free will—despite the risks?
Share: Your friend asks, how do you encourage someone who keeps reaping the consequences of their continual bad choices?What do you tell your friend?
Study: How can these texts give us confidence to trust in God’s goodness, despite all the evil in our world?
Apply: How does keeping in mind the fact that God grants us free will help protect us from thinking that everything that happens is God’s will?
Share:Romans 2:4 tells us it is the goodness of God that leads us to repentance. Can you think of someone who has been the vicitm of their own sin and suffering? What are some practical things you can do for them this week so they can see God’s goodness and be lead to repentance?
Main Theme: This week’s lesson looks at three of the greatest signs of Jesus’ divinity. What is striking is that, in every case, some people did not believe the miracle or perceive its significance. For some, it was a time of turning away from Jesus; for others, a time for deepening blindness; and for others, a time to plot Jesus’ death. And for others—a time to believe that Jesus was the Messiah.
Read in Class: John 6:1-14. Ask the class the summarize this passage.
Study: What parallels can be found here between Jesus and Moses? That is, what did Jesus do here that should have reminded the people of the deliverance that their ancestors had received through the ministry of Moses?
Apply: Read Isaiah 53:4-6 and 1 Peter 2:24. What great truth do these texts teach about Jesus as the Lamb of God? How does His divinity tie into this truth, and why is this truth the most important truth we can ever know?
Share: Your friend asks, you how God has provided for you in a way that helped you see His miraculous power? What do you tell your friend?
Read in Class:John 6:26-36. Ask Class to summarize this passage.
Study: How did the people respond to Jesus’ miracle of feeding the multitude, and how did Jesus use this to try to teach them who He was?
Apply: How can we avoid getting caught up in material things at the expense of the spiritual?
Share: Your friend from church complains that some people only come to church when there is fellowship lunch and they don’t even bring anything. All some people come to church for is the socials and food. What do you tell your friend?
Read in Class: John 19:1-16. Ask clas to summarize this passage.
Study: What did the disciples think was the cause of this man’s blindness, and how did Jesus correct their false beliefs?
Apply: What should this story tell us about the dangers of being so blinded by our own beliefs and traditions that we can miss important truths right before our own eyes?
Share: Your friend says there seems to a lot of division in our world today. How can we tell if someone is a good person or not when we keep hearing rumors all the time? How do we know what to believe about people? What do you tell your friend?
Read in Class: John 11:38-44. Ask the class to define the main point of this passage.
Study: What did Jesus do that supported His claim?
Apply: What hope does the divinity of Christ give you concerning death? Why are both his humanity and divinity so crucial in validating your hope?
Share: Your friend says he is sure Jesus was a good man, but He was not God? What do you tell your friend?
I must admit, while I hated Covid and everything about it, there were some things I rather enjoyed about the temporary shutdown.
I enjoyed giving Bible studies at home on the phone in my pajamas. I enjoyed Sabbath mornings, relaxing with my Bible and having a nice big breakfast before meeting everyone on Zoom for church. I enjoyed the fact that while we did church on Zoom, old friends from around the world could join us. I even got to speak at my old church in Texas on Zoom, and a retired pastor in Texas who used to be at one of my current churches in Florida, got to be our guest speaker on Zoom.
I even learned I knew how to cook. However, when the restaurants opened back up, I seemed to have forgotten I knew how to cook. I enjoyed all the miles I saved on my car, working from home. Being an introvert, (My friends find this hard to believe but yes, I am an introvert.) I enjoyed having more time to read and write and just think and ponder life. I actually would not mind another shutdown every now and then, just without the Covid!
But as introverted as I may be, I missed people! A single friend who lives alone like I do, mentioned to me on the phone how long it had been since she had been hugged. She said at least people stuck at home with their families can touch and hug each other. For her, though, there was no human touch. For me neither. Human touch is important. As a matter of fact, I believe that is why Satan has so masterfully made inappropriate touching such a problem today. Now people are scared to touch someone even appropriately, and by this Satan has a double win. Bad people are touching others inappropriately and good people aren’t even touching others appropriately, for fear their motives will be misconstrued. But appropriate touch is still so vitally important. Take the story of Jesus healing the leper for example.
Now a leper came to Him, imploring Him, kneeling down to Him and saying to Him, “If You are willing, You can make me clean.” Then Jesus, moved with compassion, stretched out His hand and touched him, and said to him, “I am willing; be cleansed.” As soon as He had spoken, immediately the leprosy left him, and he was cleansed. Mark 1:40-42 NKJV
We all know in the Bible leprosy can be symbolic of sin. I love the fact that while some of our prayers may seem to have a delay in being answered not so the prayer to be made clean. As soon as the request was made for being cleansed, the leper was immediately cleansed. This tells me that when I ask for forgiveness and the moral cleansing referred to in 1 John 1:9 that there is no delay. I am immediately forgiven and cleansed.
But back to my point about how important appropriate touch is. Mark tells us Jesus touched the leper. Why? After all, He healed him with the words, “be cleansed,” so why did Jesus have to touch him? Because, while Jesus cleansed the leprosy with His words, He healed the loneliness with His hand. This man had been an outcast from society and even his own home. He needed more than just physical healing. He needed emotional healing. He needed to be healed from loneliness. Words can heal leprosy, but human touch cures loneliness.
When it comes to sharing the Gospel, many people want to drop a piece of literature on someone’s doorstep and run away before the person opens the door, so they don’t have to talk to them. But the Gospel heals us completely. The Gospel not only gives us amazing facts, but it also gives us amazing relationships. The Gospel takes away our sins, but it also takes away our loneliness. This means mingling with people instead of just throwing Bible facts at them and running away. And get this, while some people complain some Bible study groups and even Sabbath school classes have too much food and refreshments instead of just studying the Bible, the complete Gospel provides both spiritual food and physical food. The complete Gospel fills the mind, the heart and the stomach! The complete Gospel makes us complete spiritually, physically and emotionally. This is why many Bible study growth groups have refreshments after the deep Bible study. This gives the teacher the opportunity to teach and fellowship with the group so he/she can get to bond with everyone.
A while back a friend from Florida moved to another state for a couple of years and then moved back to Florida. When she came back, I asked how she liked where she just moved from. She said, “Everyone was friendly, but nobody wanted to be your friend.” I thought wow, that could describe some of our churches. Everyone smiles at you but as soon as church is over, they all want to run home to be alone. I have often said, you can’t tell how friendly a church is on Sabbath. You can tell how friendly a church is during the week. Smiles and greetings on Sabbath mean absolutely nothing if we ignore each other during the week. That is why its only during the week that you can tell how friendly a church or Sabbath school class is. Our Sabbath Schools classes and Bible study groups are designed to do way more than present a Gospel that just saves you from sin. If that were the case we could all just study our Bible alone and have church by ourselves at home. Our Sabbath School classes and Bible study groups are to present a Gospel that saves the sinner from sin and loneliness.
In the story of Jesus healing the leper, we see that the Gospel cleanses us and makes us whole, spiritually, physically and emotionally.
You may study this week’s Sabbath School lesson here.
In Light of The Cross 