The unknowability of God, and God's character

It's all about character.

Back when I taught teen Sunday school, at one point I used coins as an illustration. It's only really necessary to have two coins for the illustration: pennies and quarters are useful since the images on them are more readily recognized. 

If I hold up a penny, ask someone to look closely at the image, then ask "Who is that?", the answer comes back: Abraham Lincoln. If I do the same with a quarter, the answer comes back: George Washington. And with decent likenesses, we can answer questions from looking at them. "Who had a beard: Washington or Lincoln?" We can see that it's Lincoln. "One of them had a wig with a long strand of hair in back. Which one?" We can see that it's Washington.  

And then: I place the quarter on my thumb, flip the coin so that it spins in the air many times before I catch it, slap it face-down on my other arm in traditional coin-toss fashion, and with the coin still covered I ask one question: "Is George Washington dizzy?"

At which point they laugh but they get the point. You can tell a lot from an image. The better the image, the more you can tell. But the image is separate from the original. We could use the same quarter in a coin-toss all day, and it would never make George Washington dizzy. 

The word "character" is originally a Greek word, used in engraving and in minting coins which were made by stamping an impression. In this sense, "character" is used in a famous passage in the New Testament, discussing Jesus' relationship to God: "Who being a reflection of his glory and an impression of his substance" -- or in the words of a more familiar translation, "Who being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person ..." (Hebrews 1:3). 

If you have ever spoken to someone who is not used to the ideas of Christianity, sooner or later we are called to explain what we mean about Jesus and God. "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father," Jesus told his disciples. And yet when Jesus died on the cross, God did not cease to exist. Much like, when I tossed the coin, George Washington was not dizzy. The analogy is imperfect but it makes its point.

We can look at the image and learn about things unseen. It is often the purpose of an image: to make known or make present things that are not seen. The better the image, the more clearly we see what we could not otherwise see. Jesus was born in a certain time and place in human history; there was a time before he existed. Much like the coins were minted long after the time of the persons represented. Yet it is a key part of Jesus' essence: whoever has seen him has seen the Father. 

That is my two cents' worth for the day.

Teenage Sunday School: Introduction to Revelation

How do you introduce teens to a book like Revelation? We covered things like:

Basic orientation

1. There is not complete agreement on what the book of Revelation means. There may never be complete agreement on what it means during the course of human history. 
2. The book of Revelation was not accepted in the earliest days of the church. One reason was its use by various "doomsday" groups. It's necessary to take peoples' predictions of the end times with a grain of salt. 
3. It is symbolic, and to some extent mysterious. It is presented as a vision, and not everything in that vision is explained. 
4. It is a very visual book. (After like the third time that a keen insight had been offered by one or the other of the two brothers in my class who are manga artists, and a similar number of "puzzled" episodes from the verbal-thinkers, I pointed out: because the book is largely filled with images and imagery, the visual thinkers have the edge here over the verbal thinkers. That their usual roles in class may be reversed while we study such a visual book, as the people who think in pictures may well understand faster than the people who think in words.)

Introduction to Number Symbols

Asked them to name symbolic numbers in the Bible. We discussed 3, 7, 12, and 40. (We'll get around to 4 and 10 later; this is was meant as an introduction to the idea of symbolic numbers.)

• Examples of 3: Trinity, "Holy, Holy, Holy": 3 as symbolic of God and holiness. 
• Examples of 7: Sabbath. (Also: sabbath year, Jubilee, 70x70 of the wait for the Messiah; 70x7 of Jesus' forgiveness). The theme of blessing, rest, forgiveness. Also the sevenfold Spirit of God. 
• Examples of 12: Twelve tribes of Israel. Twelve apostles. The basic idea is the people of God. 
• Examples of 40: 40 days and nights of rain, 40 years in the wilderness (Israelites), 40 days in the wilderness (Jesus). The theme of purification, judgment, repentance, dedication. 

Mentioned to them that some things were also in numeric code. They were all familiar with the simple children's code where 1=A, 2=B, 3=C and so forth. Mentioned that there were parts where a similar code seemed to be in use for the identity of the big villain of the piece, whose number was 666. That there was a "letters for numbers" scheme in Hebrew, and in Greek, and in Latin -- which makes it even trickier to figure out what the "666" may have originally meant.


Exercise: The Letters to the Churches

Because we had done an awful lot of talking, we did something participatory next, which meant not taking the text completely in order. Each student was assigned one of the letters to the 7 churches to read silently, and as they read the letter, they were to look for two things:

1. How is Jesus described in the letter? Look at the beginning of the letter where it describes who it is from. 
2. What is promised to the people who hang in there through the hardships and overcome? Look towards the end of the letter where it says, "To him who overcomes, I will ...". 

We then went around the room twice: first, each person said how Jesus was described in their letter. Mention that the way Jesus is introduced in each letter is related to the message that each individual church is receiving. (For instance, in one letter where Jesus is described as more angry-looking than others, the text of the letter includes that the church needs some serious correction, kind of a "kicking-tail-and-taking-names" kind of letter.)

Next, each person related the promise that was given in their letter. Afterwards, asked for comments about peoples' favorite promise.


Images and Concepts from the Letters

We spent some time discussing the images and concepts from the readings:

• manna (God's providence, lasting food, Jesus as bread of heaven)
• tree of life (eternal life)
• being blotted out of the book of life (judgment)
• double-edged sword (usually refers to God's word. Sword as a defense for the good and a danger for the evil -- both between people and within ourselves)
• Hades (Greek origins and borrowed here, land of the dead where people were waiting for the end of time)
• Second Death (wait on that one, don't want too many spoilers for the end of the book)

Here the keen contributions from the visual thinkers were the plainest. We also talked about how images can mean more than one thing, that in some ways images can carry more meanings than words. With words, sometimes we try to be precise and mean exactly one thing. With images -- and the images used here all have a long and rich history -- they'll find that one image carries all the meanings of the thing itself, and all the histories where it has ever appeared, along with it. The use of images gives the book multiple layers of meanings from the same verses. Just because you have found one meaning in an image, you may not have found them all.

Introduction to the Vision

We went back to the earlier part of the book and read the introduction to the vision. They all picked up on how many things mentioned in the introduction had also been brought up again in the letters. Some discussion of the "angels of the churches" and different ways that could be understood. How a lot of the imagery -- like the robe and the sash and the lamps -- went back to Moses and the tabernacle. How, as the lessons continue, they will often see images that have come up before in other places in the Bible.

Teenagers and some thoughts about "Honor your father and mother"

My regular readers will know that I teach a teenage Sunday school class. Today's main consideration was "what the law of God is really for" -- where God so loved the world and we join him in loving the world; where God does not ask us to bow down to him (rather than the idols) but asks us to do right by our neighbors; where we are called to build a good life, build a loving family, build a community that is secure and supportive and stable; where God gives us the pattern that enables us to do that.

But in a class of teens, the call to "honor your parents" deserved a moment's consideration. Younger children can have a very deep trust in their parents, and a deep dependence. As teenagers, that's changing. The class is full of people who are either young adults or within a short time will become young adults. I asked for a show of hands how many of the teenagers could name one thing -- anything -- that they now did better than their parents. As I kept naming the hobbies and interests of my students, and began including things like working electronics, soon every hand in the room was raised. And I mentioned that by now, all of them had seen their parents make mistakes; it's human, and everybody makes mistakes. (I should add, by now I expect everyone has asked their parents a question to which they don't actually know the answer.)

So with the naive trust of a child now ruled out, a teenager is going to look at their parents as more human, closer to equal. (It does help to look at them as equal, and not give into the temptation to dismiss them as worthless simply because they're imperfect. We are all imperfect too.) So these  teenagers still living at home may need some thought about why to trust their parents' judgment. We considered experience: that the teenagers may be young adults, but they're newbies, and newbies make mistakes. We considered that parents have had years and years to see how certain things work out in the real world, and do have a better idea about how some things work out in real life. And if they're trying to teach you something, it's because they want to spare you learning it the hard way.

Teenage Sunday School: Different ways of thinking about right and wrong: The Pharisees v Jesus

In this week's Sunday school lesson, the teens class considered different ways of thinking about right and wrong, tracing some classic examples of the Pharisees v Jesus, from handwashing before meals through to the Parable of the Good Samaritan. This lesson was designed for a 45-minute time slot.

Introduction: Ways "Morality" can go wrong

 We're used to thinking of "morality" as something good. It's meant to be good. The whole point of "morality" is to be good. But it can go wrong sometimes. I'm going to name some ways in which people try to act "good" in a way that is not really all that good. Can you spot the problem with:

* Tattle-tales
* Goody-two-shoes/teachers' pets
* One-upping other people
* Games of "Gotcha", waiting for other people to make a mistake

Allow around 10 minutes for class discussion on that, and guide as needed. Let the students figure out on their own as much as they can. (Are the people involved trying to be good? To look good? To look better than someone else? To use rules as a way to make other people look bad?)

Application (about 5 minutes)

We've talked about some different ways that people abuse the whole idea of morality.

1. Which ones annoy you the most when people do them to you? (I had everyone in the room answer that one. Got a variety of answers on it.)
2. Which one is the most natural trap for you to fall into yourself, if you're willing to say? (I let them keep it private, though asked them to give it some thought so that they knew the answer themselves, even if they didn't care to share.) Those with siblings sometimes admitted to doing the tattle-tale thing.

Mentioned that these are the thing that give morality a bad name. Asked if they had ever met someone who distrusted the whole idea of morals, of right and wrong, because of problems like that. (Generally the younger teens had not met someone like that, but the older teens had.) Pointed out that it was a real problem, that there are people who distrust the whole idea of right and wrong because of how people abuse it.

Bible readings: The Pharisees

Assign each of these Bible readings to a student, and tell them: the same question will be asked about each reading, and the question is: What's wrong with the way the person is trying to use morality?

• Mark 7:2-5 (The Pharisees against Jesus on his disciples and handwashing before meals)
• Luke 6:1-2 (The Pharisees against Jesus on his disciples picking some grains as they walked past, on the Sabbath)
• Luke 6:7-11 (The Pharisees against Jesus for healing a crippled man on the Sabbath)
• Luke 8:9-14 (The Pharisee thanking God that he's not like other men)
• Matthew 23:23-24 (Jesus on the Pharisees tithing their mint and dill while neglecting the big picture; straining gnats and swallowing camels)

I had each person read out loud and then answer about their own reading (what was wrong about the way they were using morality?) in order to get fuller participation.

Notice that when God shows up, it's the people playing the morality games -- generally the more "religious" people -- who objected and had a problem with him.

General questions for the class. They were defining morality in terms of washing hands, counting mint-sprigs and dill seeds, things like that.

1. Why would they focus on such piddly things?
2. Even if you did that kind of thing perfectly, would it ever help anyone?

What Jesus says is most important

Matthew 22:35-40: Jesus answers a question about what's most important in the law

But if someone is the type to count their dill-seeds to make themselves right with God, what would they do with "Love your neighbor"? We actually find out, Luke recorded it for us.

Luke 10:25-37 Parable of the Good Samaritan

• Who were the different kinds of 'bad' people in the story?
• Who was the good one?
• At the end, Jesus asked: "Which one was the neighbor?" Looking back at the reading, what answer was given to Jesus' question?
• Did this kind of "morality" make a difference in someone's life?

Teenage Sunday School: David, Bathsheba, and the commandment nobody takes seriously

This lesson worked out well in a classroom containing early teenagers and late pre-teens. They were already familiar with the ten commandments, and with the story of David and Bathsheba.

Opener: The Ten Commandments

The class should be well familiar with the ten commandments by now. At the leader's discretion, either start by seeing how many they can remember without looking, and/or turn to Exodus 20 and read them together briefly. List them on the board for future reference during the lesson. Try to keep this portion of the lesson to 10-15 minutes.

David and Bathsheba

Tell the class that, while reading the next story, they should look for how many of the ten commandments are broken. Read through the story of David and Bathsheba together as a class (2 Samuel 11).

Questions and discussion

1. Which of the ten commandments were broken? Name as many as you can. (Make sure they notice at least coveting the neighbor's wife, adultery, and murder. Let them figure out as much as they can on their own. Before moving on to the next question, point out how the commandments that were broken got more and more serious as the story progressed, and the chain of events kept going from bad to worse.)
2. At the beginning of the story, what was the very first commandment that was broken? 
3. If David had not coveted his neighbor's wife, would the other commandments have been broken?
4. After David and Bathsheba committed adultery, what would it have taken to stop things before taking a life? 
5. Backing up one: before David and Bathsheba committed adultery, what would it have taken to stop the whole horrible chain of events from starting? 
6. So, when was the easiest time to have stopped that whole disaster?

Make sure they either reach the conclusion themselves or help them along as needed: We may not always see "do not covet" as a serious commandment because it seems like a small thing. But "coveting" is where adultery starts, "coveting" is where stealing starts. And in David's case, it didn't stop there. All kinds of evil came from not stopping a thing when it was small enough to stop.

Teenage Sunday School on Jesus as the Good Shepherd

It has been awhile since I posted any individual Sunday school lessons. This one in particular worked well with a class that is currently a mix of young teens and late pre-teens.This lesson is designed for Good Shepherd Sunday, but could be used at any time.

Opener: Game

Explain that the class will start with a game. Everyone will close their eyes. The teacher will move around the room quietly, and touch someone on the shoulder. That person will say "Good morning" (or choose any phrase that seems good), and the other students will raise their hands if they know whose voice it was. The teacher will call on someone who raised a hand to see if they can correctly identify whose voice they heard. The first time the teacher taps your shoulder you must use your own natural voice. After that, you may try to fool your classmates with other voices. (Do one example with everyone's eyes open to start the game.)

First Bible reading

Read John 10:1-5.

Ask the class to explain how that is like our game of recognizing voices. 

Recognizing Jesus' Voice

Explain that you are going to read a series of sayings, and most of them are things that Jesus said, but one is not. After each saying, the class should raise their hands if they think the words are from Jesus, and not raise their hands if they think someone else said the words.

Sample sayings:

"Love one another as I have loved you." (Jesus, though you don't tell the class that until they have raised their hands or not)

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." (Jesus)

"If the scholar is not grave, he will not call forth any veneration, and his learning will not be solid." (Confucius)

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God." (Jesus)

Second Bible reading: Good Shepherd

Jesus calls himself the shepherd, and calls us his sheep. Have the class read Psalm 23 and tell them in advance they should look at what Jesus was saying when he called himself our shepherd. Work with the class on their understanding of Jesus as the one who restores our souls, provides for us even when we have enemies around us, guides us in the right way, and takes us safely through death.

"The LORD" in the era of the internet: what's with ALL CAPS

I discovered something that needed explaining to my Sunday school class. When the Bible says LORD in all caps, the "all caps" does not stand for shouting. That is what they have known basically their whole lives: WHEN YOU TYPE IN ALL CAPS IT MEANS YOU ARE SHOUTING. Just a note of things that need explaining, to people who grew up in the internet era. Back before "all caps" meant "shouting", LORD (in all caps) meant that God's actual name was used, but was considered too holy to write or pronounce. Not shouting.

Overview of the Bible

I suggested this overview of the Bible to my Sunday school class. While there are individual variations within each section, I think it captures the big picture:

Section	Theme
Old Testament	How did we get into this mess? Does God care? Will he help us out of it?
Gospels	Four biographies of Jesus. God's response to the questions "Does God care?" and "Will he help us?"
Acts	What did Jesus' followers do to carry out his work?
Epistles	What just happened with Jesus? What does it mean?
Revelation	The grand finale, bringing together "Does God care?", "Will he help us out of it?", and what Jesus really means to the world.

Teenage Sunday school

I teach a teenage Sunday school class, and I wanted to share a few of the best insights I've learned from my students over the last couple of years. I'll also pass along one that was not exactly insightful, but was too good to keep to myself. You'll know which one ...

---

Q. Can you think of any reasons why God may have chosen Mary to be Jesus' mother?
A. She's humble.
Q. How do you know?
A. Well, anyone else would have said, "Why, thank you, of course you chose me." But she was like, "Why me?"

---

Q. So Satan was just baiting Jesus with the "If you really are God's son" bit. Did Jesus ever prove to Satan that he was God's son?
A. Yes.
Q. When? How?
A. When he didn't take the bait.

---

When learning by memory where to find certain key Bible passages, in case they ever want to look up the passage for reference -- a student comes up with an interesting memory device.
The Ten Commandments is in Exodus 20. That's the second book of the Bible (2), it's the Ten Commandments (10), 2 x 10 = 20, so it's in Exodus 20.

---

Q. What is God like?
A. Omnipotent.
A. Omniscient.
A. Omnivorous.

I kid you not, that was one of the answers I got, and the kid wasn't kidding, he was just having a vocabulary-challenged moment where all the 75-cent words sounded alike to him. I actually didn't like the first two answers much better, being far too canned to have been their own thoughts. ;)

John the Baptist, the tax collectors, and the soldiers: on a mission from God

Today's Sunday School lesson was on John the Baptist -- not on the baptism of Christ, but on preparing the way (Luke 3). Tax collectors and soldiers were among those who came to John to be baptized. He told the tax collectors not to collect more than required, told the soldiers not to extort money but to be content with their pay. He told all the people who had extra to share with those in need.

So here is the question I put to my Sunday School class: Of all the people we read about today (John the Baptist, all the people who came to him, the tax collectors, the soldiers), who was on a mission from God?

First answer out was of course John the Baptist. True, of course. But after the other people talked to John, they were on a mission from God too. They were sent into the world with instructions and a purpose that would change the world. (What, you don't think honest soldiers and tax collectors and repairmen would change the world? Then tell me where you live.)

We're all on a mission from God. Not to downplay John the Baptist or any preacher of the word: part of his mission from God was to help everyone else see their mission from God.

Teenage Sunday School and the Psalms (Week 2)

Thinking about a Life-Time of Bible Study
Opening question: go around the room and have everyone name a movie they have watched more than once (more than twice ... well, ok, far too often). Ask them if, the later times, they had noticed anything in the movie that they had missed before. Everybody said yes. (The Star Wars fans tell me that in Star Wars III, E.T. makes a brief appearance in the council-hall scene ... I'll have to watch that again.)

Ask for a show of hands for how many people have figured out why that's the opening question. Several hands are raised. Yes, they figured it out correctly: when you re-read parts of the Bible you've read before, you notice things you didn't notice before.

Studying a Book of the Bible
Ask for a show of hands: Who knows who C.S. Lewis is? All the hands are up; everybody has read at least one of the Narnia books, two have read all the Narnia books, and all have seen the first of the Narnia movies.

Mention that C.S. Lewis wrote books for grown-ups also, and he's still a good writer on that level too. I've brought some samples: Reflection on the Psalms which is a Bible study book he wrote on the book of Psalms, and Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer. I also showed them two study books on Psalms that our pastor keeps in his library and allows people to borrow. I just want them to be aware that, if they ever want to get into more in-depth studies on their own, there are some materials out there they might want to consider.

Selected Psalms
Split up the reading around the classroom and have them read the following Psalms.

Psalm 51: Ask who knows the back-story about David, Bathsheba, and Uriah. Most of them do, but we go over it to make sure the details are fresh: David had slept with another man's wife, gotten her pregnant, then killed her husband. You can't go too much lower. Ask for a show of hands who has ever done something they wish they could take back. Everybody's hands are up, some more slowly than others. We read Psalm 51. They recognized various parts of it, especially "Create in me a clean heart" which we sing fairly regularly in church. This is a psalm to read through and pray through when you've done something you're ashamed of doing.

Psalm 119:94-105: After this set of verses is read (and after I get them to stop singing that Amy Grant song based on verse 105), mention that I really admire the psalmist's dedication to God's word, and that this section is a prayer for when it feels like someone is out to get you, just won't leave you in peace. A few of them know what that's like by now.

Psalm 127: After this one is read, mention that the most-remembered and most-quoted part is how if God's not on our side, if we ever find ourselves working against God or ignoring God, it doesn't help us how clever and careful our plans are.

Psalm 22: After this one has been read, one of the students has picked up on this being a prophetic psalm already. Mention that this psalm works on a couple of levels. First, for our own use, it's good for times when we feel that life is horrible and God doesn't care. Ask for a show of hands who has been there. Most of the hands go up. Interestingly, one of the students who usually pretends things are fine comes clean first on this one. He recently had a grandfather die.

Next had the students stay on Psalm 22 while I read from Matthew 27 so they could see how it worked on a prophetic level.

Psalm 150: This one is for celebrating, and I wanted to end on a high note.

Teenage Sunday School Starts the Psalms

Bible: Information or Life-Line?
Start by mentioning to the class that there are different ways to read the Bible and different reasons to read the Bible, and that we're going to talk about a couple of those today. Divide the board into two sections; title the left side "Information" and the right side "Life-line".

Call out the following examples and ask the class whether each uses the Bible for information or as a life-line.

1. You want to find out how old Melchizedek lived to be. What kind of use of the Bible is that? Information.
2. Everything has been going really horribly in your life lately and you want to know if there is any reason to hope. What kind of use of the Bible is that? Lifeline
3. You want to know the names of the tribes of Israel. Information
4. You've done something awful and you can't believe you've done it. You aren't sure if God can ever forgive you, or whether things can ever be right again. Lifeline

Basic Introduction to Psalms
Psalms is more of a life-line book, not an information book. It has prayers for all kinds of occasions and situations.

Psalms is one of the easiest books in the Bible to find. If you open your Bible to the exact middle, you'll usually open it to Psalms. Everyone tries it. Most get Psalms on the first try, everyone had it by the second try.

The books of Psalms was like our hymnals or song-books. Have various people open to the following Psalms and read not the Psalm itself but the note below the title.

• Psalm 5: For the director of music. For flutes. A psalm of David.
• Psalm 22: For the director of music. To the tune of "The Doe of the Morning." A psalm of David.
• Psalm 30: A psalm. A song. For the dedication of the temple. Of David.
• Psalm 45: For the director of music. To the tune of "Lilies." Of the Sons of Korah. A maskil. A wedding song.
• Psalm 56: For the director of music. To the tune of "A Dove on Distant Oaks." Of David. A miktam. When the Philistines had seized him in Gath.
• Psalm 57: For the director of music. To the tune of "Do Not Destroy." Of David. A miktam. When he had fled from Saul into the cave.

Questions from the class:

Do we know the tunes? No, the tunes have been lost. Some of these are 3,000 years old; the tunes have been forgotten. All we have left are the words.
Did they rhyme? No, the Hebrews weren't into rhyming poetry. They liked parallelism and imagery as their main poetic devices.

Overview of some more poetic devices

• Turn to Psalm 136. This one has a line repeated over and over. That's called a ... Refrain
• Ask if their teachers in school have ever given them assignments where they have to write sentences or poems where the first line starts with A, the next line starts with B, the next with C, and so forth through the alphabet. They had all had assignments like that. That kind of poem is called an "acrostic", where there's a special pattern in the first letter. Have them turn to Psalm 119. Point out the sections labeled Aleph, Beth, Gimel, and so forth. These are the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Originally this psalm was an acrostic, the first letter of each section was each letter of the Hebrew alphabet in turn.

First Sample Psalm
I know most of the students are probably tired of Psalm 23 by now, so I want to start them with something good that they haven't heard before. Turn to Psalm 19 and split up the verses so the class takes turns reading it.

We'll go into some of the other well-known psalms next week.

Teenage Sunday School: The Law of Moses and Gentile Christians

Start the class by getting the 10 Commandments on the board using any needed combination of memory and referring to Exodus 20.
Starting with Exodus 20, have the class flip through the next few chapters and review the types of laws recorded. If needed, point out a few: how to handle thefts, how to handle accidental injuries, how to handle property damage.

Question: What is the most important commandment in the Law?

I expected this one to be a no-brainer, but somehow these young folks had gotten to be teenagers in the church without knowing the answer to that by heart. So after they had pondered that awhile, we flipped over and read ...

The Greatest Commandments

Read Matthew 22:34-40

Questions

1. Name the two most important commandments.
2. What do they have in common?
3. Jesus said (v.40) that all of the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments. If you loved God with all your heart and loved your neighbor as yourself, would it be possible to break the 10 Commandments? They agreed that loving God wholly and loving our neighbors as ourselves would prevent any wrongdoing. (If they had wanted to discuss the Sabbath in more depth, Matthew 12:1-14 is suitable; but there were no detailed questions on the Sabbath.)

Read Romans 13:9-10.

It's fairly obvious how it connects, it simply reinforces the point. If there is need for more emphasis, James 2:8 also makes the same point.

Read Galatians 5:14-23.

Questions

1. Looking at verses 19-21: Are the actions condemned by the Law of Moses still considered wrong?
2. If someone loves God and neighbor, will he do those things?
3. Looking at verses 22-23, there is a focus not on bad things to avoid, but on good things that come God's Spirit, which shows itself in love of God and neighbor. When a person acts in that way, are they breaking God's law?

The Gentile Christians and the Law of Moses

The Law of Moses contained many other commands about ceremonies and special observances which the nation of Israel had observed for many hundreds of years. While all the early Christians were Jews, Christ sent his followers to all nations (not just Israel) and soon there were non-Jews mixed in with the Jews in the church. One of the earliest controversies in the church was whether the non-Jews had to observe the Jewish rituals and festivals in addition to love of God and neighbor. The discussion is summarized in Acts 15. In the end, they sent the following letter to the non-Jewish ("Gentile") Christians.

Read Acts 15:23-29

Questions

1. Are we required to observe the rituals and ceremonies described by Moses?
2. What kinds of things are required?
3. What is the greatest commandment? This is just to make sure that talking about other things hasn't made them forget where we started the lesson.

Teenage Sunday School: The Temple and how it was rebuilt in three days

Read 2 Chronicles 5:1-14 (whole chapter)

We're starting a list on the board of things that are in the Temple or things that happen in the Temple. So far we have:

• the covenant is kept here
• the most holy place is here
• the presence of God is here

Read 2 Chronicles 6:18-21

More things in the Temple or things that happen in the Temple

• God hears prayers directed here
• Believers direct their prayers here
• God's Name dwells here
• God forgives sins here

Read 2 Chronicles 7:1

More things in the Temple or things that happen in the Temple

• God receives sacrifices here

Review from previous weeks:
The Israelites were commanded to "appear before the LORD" at certain festivals each year. To fulfill the command to "appear before the LORD", where did they go?

More things in the Temple or things that happen in the Temple

• Coming here is coming before the LORD

Read John 2:19-21
When Jesus speaks of the Temple here, what does everyone think he's talking about?
The building.
What was Jesus really speaking about?
Himself.

There are all kinds of ways to prophesy being destroyed and returning on the third day. Here he is also transferring the title of "Temple" away from a building in Jerusalem and taking that title for himself. Looking back at the board here, which of the items that we've listed about the Temple can be said about Jesus?

• the covenant is kept here
• the most holy place is here
• the presence of God is here
• God hears prayers directed here
• God's Name dwells here
• God forgives sins here
• Believers direct their prayers here
• Coming here is coming before the LORD

Teenage Sunday School: The Tabernacle and the Shadow of Heaven

I'm catching up on Sunday school lesson blogging. This is from several weeks ago. We had been studying the law of Moses and the uses of the law. Now we're turning to the bigger picture. Part of this lesson is to let the description of the Tabernacle do its job of whetting the appetite for the holy and beautiful, building desire for heaven, building the Christian desire to show some part of heaven on earth. Part of it is for enough background that they can understand the main theme of the letter to the Hebrews.
Read Exodus 25:31-40
Questions
1. Can you picture what is being described?

The lampstand for the tabernacle looked like a tree of gold with blossoms of flame. Let them think about how it looked for awhile until it's impressed on their mind. Got some comments about how lame and pathetic our church looks in comparison. Under the circumstances that's a welcome comment. Mention that we've been trying to encourage some of the artists in the church to contribute paintings or stained glasswork. Got some more comments -- a fairly savvy bunch of teenagers here -- about how our church was built by contractors for money and not by members for any better reason. I'm trying to lead them along towards considering how their talents are useful in service to God in the real world.

2. We've just talked about how beautiful it looked. Why was it built like this? Where did the idea come from?

The class is still learning that the answer to the questions is often found right in the text. I have them go re-read verse 40. This is made after a pattern shown to Moses by God.

3. If this is a pattern God showed Moses, then what does it look like, and what's it supposed to remind us of?

Heaven. (A few more gripes about how our church looks like a barn.

Read Exodus 26:30-37. Have them look for similarities between this and what was just read.

They picked up that beauty is in there again, and the pattern shown by God is there again.

Question: Some people say that the Bible is against artwork because of the Ten Commandments. Is God against artwork?

They pick up quickly that God is not against all artwork since some is commanded here, but that he is against making idols.

Read Exodus 30:22-38.

They were starting to appreciate that beauty and holiness are things to desire, things to want, things that are good. When we got to the part in 30:29 about whatever touches it would be made holy, one of the teenagers commented that he wanted some.

Read Hebrews 8:5-7, Hebrews 9:11-12, Hebrews 9:23-24, Hebrews 10:1-2

Spent the remainder of the available time reviewing how the Tabernacle and furnishings and ceremonies of the Law of Moses were a shadow of the realities to come, of Christ, the true fulfillment. This theme will be picked up in fuller strength in the next lesson on the Temple.

Teenage Sunday School Considers Uses of the Law

This is last week's lesson. It introduced them to the idea that the Ten Commandments and the Law in general have a purpose. The week previous, we had reviewed the benefits of the Law and the praise heaped on the Law by Paul and even by Christ. This week, moving on, it may come as a surprise that obedience is not the only purpose of the Law, according to the Bible.

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Review

• Ask them where in the Bible they can read the Ten Commandments. (Since we haven't gotten to Deuteronomy yet, they're supposed to say Exodus 20 at this point.)
• Ask them to remember the Ten Commandments as best they can and get them on the board. Allowed to open to Exodus 20 and look if memory fails. Have the students take turns with the board, each writing a few of the commandments as their their classmates recall them.
• Have someone draw our split-personality person on the board with the face showing half good and half evil to represent the part of us that is receptive toward God and the part of us that is hostile toward God.

Purpose of the Law: Restraining Sin and Its Damage
Read 1 Timothy 1:8-11.

1. According to this passage, who is the Law for? Lawbreakers and rebels.
   
2. (Indicate drawing of ourselves with our two natures.) If the Law is for the immoral, then which part of us is the Law for, according to this passage? The part that's opposed to God.
   
3. What is the main message of the Law about all these things listed? "Stop it."

Purpose of the Law: Consciousness of Sin
Read Romans 3:19-20. List the purposes of the law that Paul names here.

1. The Law silences us before God.
2. The Law holds us accountable to God.
3. The Law makes us conscious of our sin.

(It takes them some practice to actually focus on what the text says instead of inventing answers out of what they think they ought to be saying. They're still learning how to get answers from the text. It takes some concentrated work of guiding them to stick with the text before they get there.)

Introduce the illustration of the Law as a mirror. Ask them when and how they use a mirror. Examples they offered: when they first get up, when they think there's something stuck in their teeth, maybe after being in a strong wind. The point: the mirror shows them where they need to clean up.

Purpose of The Law: A Tutor that Schools Us in Our Need for Christ
Read Galatians 3:23-25.
Introduces the idea of the Law as a prison ... and time us up. Will pick up there next week.

Teenage Sunday School Starts the Ten Commandments

In the past few weeks we've made it all the way over to Exodus, hitting the highlights such as the Passover along the way. This week the students met the Ten Commandments for the first time since they were outright children. I hope to build in them both an appreciation for the law, a sense of its place in salvation history and in Christian life, and an immunization against legalism. All that will take a few weeks. Here's the first installment.

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Read Exodus 20:1-17.

• Have the class list the commandments on the board.
  
• Discuss different numbering schemes used for the commandments, the fact that they didn't come numbered so different opinions are ok on the numbering system, and not to be shocked if they see another group number the commandments differently at times.
  
• Made sure everyone knew what adultery and coveting were. Everybody understood that adultery involved mating with someone when you shouldn't, and that coveting meant wanting something that was someone else's.

Questions

1. What would the world be like if people followed this? Much better.
2. Does anyone remember where the Ten Commandments were kept? (Which wasn't a fair question since we hadn't covered it, but I was fairly sure someone would know.) In the Ark of the Covenant. (Short discussion of Raiders of the Lost Ark is inevitable at this point, so I give it a minute or two.)
3. Does anyone remember what the Ark of the Covenant looked like and what it was made of? It was a box covered with gold and it had angels on the top facing each other.
4. When I taught the Ten Commandments to the preschoolers a couple of years ago, I brought in a jewelry box. They swarmed it. What do you know about a jewelry box? It has something cool inside.
5. My jewelry box is wood with some mother-of-pearl inlays ... is it a safe bet that whatever's inside a jewelry box is worth more than the box? Yep.
6. What does it say about the Ten Commandments that the box they made for it was covered in gold? (Mostly raised eyebrows and hey/wow type comments, but they got the point: the Ten Commandments were considered to be worth more than gold.)
7. Is this the first time we've seen laws or commands in the Bible, where God says that we must or must not do something? No, we also saw them in Genesis, "You must not eat of the tree."
8. How did we do with that previous command? Not very well.
9. How do we do with this set of commands? Not very well.

At this point we stopped and reviewed the idea of our being divided within ourselves, with a side drawn towards God and a side still resentful and distrustful towards God. Had a volunteer draw someone on the board with a split face to show a good side and an evil side, representing us as we are. With reference to the picture, a few more questions:

1. What does the good side of us think about the commandments? "Yep, sure, I'll do that."
2. What does the bad side of us think about the commandments? "Forget that!"

Start a section on the board for good reactions to the commandments. Have the class listen for these during the next readings.

Read Matthew 5:17-19
Read Romans 2:17-20

Make list on board of good things said about the commandments in these passages.
Our list included

• keeping the commandments and teaching others to keep them is counted praiseworthy by Christ
• relationship to God
• know God's will
• approve of what is good
• being instructed
• being guided
• being able to instruct and guide others
• having the embodiment of knowledge and truth

Referring back to the two-faced drawing of ourselves, explain how the good things about the commandments interest the better side of us. Then point out that the bad side of us reacts differently. Have the class listen for these during the next reading.
Read Romans 7:7-8 and 7:11.
Start a section on the board for bad reactions to the commandments. Our list included

• Rules are meant to be broken
• So that's what God wants me to do? I'll do the opposite.

And that'll do for this week. Final exam for today's work: in what chapter of the Bible did we read the Ten Commandments? Exodus 20.

Teenage Sunday School and Abraham's Sacrifice

Actually today we did a lot of Abraham -- a brief review of God's covenant, and of his rescue of Lot. But we spent the most time on the near-sacrifice of Isaac.

Challenge for the class: during the reading, listen for the answers to these two things:

1. Where did all this happen?
2. What's the promise associated with the place?

Read Genesis 22:1-14.

1. Where did all this happen? Moriah
   
2. Who picked the place? God did
   
3. What's the promise associated with the place? God will provide the sacrifice. (We also did a brief review of the fact that "God will provide" is what "Moriah" means.)
   
4. Sometimes authors draw on the Bible for inspiration, particularly Christian writers. Can anybody think of a book or movie with a place called "Moriah" in it? Not enough Lord Of The Rings fans in class today, only one got the reference to the mines of Moriah, and to Gandalf's sacrificing himself to save the fellowship there.
   
5. Does anyone know whether, in later times, sacrifice was important to Abraham's descendants in Israel? Yes, it was.
   
6. Does anyone know where they made the sacrifices? At the temple.
   
7. Does anyone know where they built the temple? On a mountain. In Jerusalem.
   

Read 2 Chronicles 3:1

Then Solomon began to build the temple of the LORD in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the LORD had appeared to his father David. It was on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite, the place provided by David.

1. Where exactly did they build the temple? Mt. Moriah. The same place Abraham went to sacrifice Isaac.
   
2. Who picked the place? God.
   
3. What was the promise that goes with the name "Moriah"? God will provide the sacrifice. (Which was a giveaway, it was still on the board, but I wanted them to see the connection.)
   
4. When it says "God will provide the sacrifice," what is the ultimate promise about? Jesus
   

Teenage Sunday School Finishes Genesis 3

Last week, due to a teen retreat, we had a different lesson for those who came. This week we were back to Genesis 3.

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Review

1. Before the fall, what were relations like between God and man? Good.
2. What were relations like between male and female? Good.
3. What was the main temptation that led to the fall? Being like God.
4. Is God perfect? Yes
5. If we want to be like God, how do we want to see ourselves? Argument followed. Do we see ourselves as perfect or not perfect? Does it offend us if we're not perfect? Everyone agreed we want to be seen as good and praiseworthy.

New Material

Read Genesis 3:8-10

1. After the people had done something wrong, what was their first reaction to God? Hide.
2. After we've done something wrong, how typical is that, to either hide from what we did, or hide what we did, or hide from the person who might not like what we did? (Stayed with it til some examples had been volunteered of times we've tried to hide what we've done in our own lives.)

Read Genesis 3:11-13

1. When God confronted them with their problems, what was their reaction? Excuses. Debate over whether the excuses amounted to lies, but everyone's agreed they were excuses.
2. How typical are excuses when we've done something wrong? (Kicked off with an example from my own life and stayed with it until some examples had been volunteered from the class.)
3. Get them to think about this: how much are the excuses because we don't want someone else to blame us, and how much are the excuses because we can't handle the fact that we did something wrong? Does the fact that we want to be as praiseworthy as God have any effect on whether we can handle the fact that we did something wrong? If we admit we did something wrong, what does that do to our idea that we're as praiseworthy as we like to think? Class looks like it doesn't want to be hearing this. Which, considering the topic, is ok. Made sure they got the point but then stopped before it was overdone.
4. What are things now like between God and man? Not so good.
5. What about between male and female? (Boys in the class spend a lot of time blaming girls. No girls in attendance this week. [Teachers obviously don't count, being semi-alien creatures anyway.] The boys knew they were being goofballs and I knew what the next section had to say about the blame game, so I just saved the response for next section ... )

Read Genesis 3:14-24

1. So when they were caught doing wrong, their first reaction was excuses and blaming each other. Was God buying it? No.

And out of time. Will have to work in the promise of redemption as a review point in the future lessons on redemption.

Teenage Sunday School Starts Genesis 3

Read Genesis 2:8-17 (using it for both a brief review of last week and for an introduction to this week).

1. Is creation good?
   
2. Is God good?

Read Genesis 3:1-7.

1. How did the serpent plant doubt? About what God really said.
   
2. How typical is that, when we want to do something wrong, for us to start there, by asking whether it really says it's wrong? Typical.
   
3. What did the serpent say that made Eve really want the fruit? You'll be like God. (This was a plant for a later question that we wouldn't get to this week because of the surprises the class had for me on some later questions.)
   
4. What the serpent said: true or false? Neither, exactly.
   
5. C.S. Lewis said the most powerful lies are at least partly true. Discuss. Examples taken from stories told to parents about how things got broken, where they really were the other afternoon, etc.
   
6. Is it possible for us to be better than God at something? See below.
   
7. Is it possible to sin without assuming that we are better than God? See below.

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The big surprise this week? One of the kids really wanted to argue that he could be better than God at some things (like fishing ... when Jesus one-upped Peter with the fish he was cheating by using that miracle stuff), and that it was possible to sin without assuming we're better than God (so sin is not really arrogant and foolish). I'd expected those questions to be no-brainers and we would move past those pretty quickly into the next questions.

At first I was amazed at the direction the conversation was going. But then I realized that instead of understanding the serpent's trick, at least one person in the class was openly showing that he had fallen for it on a very deep level. (Don't we all, on some level?)

So that's where we'll pick up next week.