July 8, 2012 "The Bible is God's Message for Me" -- Session 1, continued

This week we continue the presentation of the extra Bible Curriculum Summer session materials for 5th graders.   Today the Lesson is "The Bible is God's Message for Me", finishing last week’s presentation on “God”, and continuing with this week’s material on “Man”.    The “Man” lesson covers creation, and the unique and special aspects of the creation of Man, made in the image of God.   We also covered Adam and Eve and God’s establishing of the Marriage relationship, “the 5 Commandments” overview, and began to introduce The Fall of Mankind as sin enters the world.  

These are the other key points made in the July 8^th class:

We repeated a point emphasized last week, “The spiritual realm is real.” 

We also repeated that we are teaching the Biblical viewpoint, Creation by God Almighty, and we oppose the atheist viewpoint, Naturalism and evolution of mankind from monkeys or fish.

Man, like God, is a being having three parts – body soul, and spirit.   The animals do not have the spirit, and they were not formed by a direct physical action of God, they came into existence just by the power of God’s spoken Word.   Man wasn’t spoken into existence; he was formed by a creative miracle of God, who started with topsoil that already had been created and produced the human body (like ours) including all the internal organs, nerves, and blood.   Then God took out from Himself part of His divine Life and put this Life into Adam (described in the Bible as “breathed into him”), and he came alive, made in the image of God.  

We began to cover teaching that addresses the question “What was man created for?”  Several of the topics to be presented in future classes will continue to address this question.  For today, our key verse was 1Corinthians 10: 31, “When you eat or drink, or do anything else, always do it to honor God.” [CEV]   We taught that man’s purpose was first, to Honor God.  Then, we discussed these other purposes, being in fellowship (a close relationship with God–friendship), following the 5 Commandments, and being holy.     We mentioned the Fall of Mankind as Adam and Eve sinned.    This is where the July 8^th class ended; we will begin from here next week.

Next week we will conclude the Summer Session, finishing the “Man” lesson, which will also transition into the Fall Session lessons, in September, on Sin, Salvation, and Jesus, our Savior.

Then the Winter Session will present the expanded teaching on the 5 Commandments, and begin the teaching on “The Kingdom of God”.   [Both the Fall and Winter sessions incorporate teaching from ‘On the Right Path’ into the lesson.]

Homework was assigned this week:  study the Scripture passages about God, using the faith steps handout. Students should read the handout; parents should be prepared to GIVE YOUR CHILD HELP studying this handout. Then, on July 15^th, there will be an extra-credit opportunity, to write a "reflection" -- a reader-response paragraph on one of those Scripture passages, for extra achievement points. 

The Memory Verse assigned this week is Psalm 19: 1, but using the CEV text, printed on the top of the July 1 ClassNotes (not the New King James Version).  This is the verse:

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.    -   Psalm 19:1