In the July 15th class, we completed study of the Summer session of "The Bible is God's Message for Me". There were eight visitors in the class, so some extra time was spent reviewing both of the lessons taught already, on the topics "God" and "Man". Then we began discussing the Fall of Mankind into sin, and God's continuing love for Man, and God's promise of a Redeemer.
These points were emphasized in the review:
1. We believe and teach Creation, not evolution.
2. God's pattern for Marriage was established at Creation -- Adam and Eve, husband and wife, and they would become parents, of all the human race.
3. God Almighty, whose Name is revealed in Scripture as Yahweh, is one God who has revealed that He exists in three functional representations, using the names Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Church has adopted the terms "Trinity" and "Persons" to describe God, so we say that we believe in One God, who is a Trinity, with three co-equal Persons, completely unified and in-agreement with each other.
4. Man was created as a being like God, different from and higher-in-order from the animals, with a Body, Soul, and Spirit; God then took from Himself some of His divine life and put it into Adam (and later, into Eve). So man was now united with God by having His Life within himself/herself.
5. We again made a brief review of The Five Commandments from Genesis 1:28. Later in the lesson, there was also mention of The Ten Commandments, briefly. Both of these topics will be revisited as the year progresses.
6. The review concluded with comments on 1 Corinthians 10:31, about honoring God in everything we do.
Then the class presentation of The Fall of Mankind began. Eve did not have experience with lies, or with creatures that did not love and honor God like she did. She was in fellowship with God, but she did not realize that the serpent was an enemy of God who was lying to her. Instead of taking dominion over the serpent and rebuking it for the statement that God had lied to her, and was holding back something from her (which she and Adam had the right to do) she came into agreement with the serpent and she, and Adam, became sinners.
As God had said, when they ate that fruit, they died, because they had sinned. The Life of God that had been put into them left, and their own human spirits were damaged. The "Father of Lies", satan, had attacked and damaged their own human spirits with a spirit of deception and stirred up pride and self-assertiveness in them. They now had what we call the sinful human nature. Although their bodies lived-on, for over 900 years, before death, as children of God, they had died. There was additional punishment for their sin, and satan took the dominion over the earth, which God had given to Adam and Eve. But, God still loved them and promised them that He would send a Redeemer.
The Redeemer is the Son of God, Jesus Christ. Romans 5:8 and John 3:16 were Scriptures presented in class discussion about God's love and His plan for salvation, for everyone who will Come to Jesus.
In the Fall session of lessons, Jesus and the plan of salvation are major topics of study.
The written Homework assignment was postponed, to next week. We are continuing with the same Memory Verse, Psalm 19: 1, using the text from the New International version (NIV).
No comments:
Post a Comment