Several books on my bookshelves wrestle with the idea of “a hidden God.” My Amazon wish list contains a few as well. So here we will put the big question earlier than normal: Question How can we understand the character of God, who is both the single most important character in the Hebrew Bible and yet absent from the majority of it? As we read Scripture, we note that God often uses stand-ins for Himself. Why? Stand-Ins for God: Angels Humans Judges Kings Prophets Humans speak about God: God’s friends God’s foes Narrator Nature Animate Inanimate Absence Additional Questions How many of these stand-ins are created, sin-damaged, or sin-traumatized? The reliability of their witness for/about God is what ...

The Bible tells us that our world is infected with evil. Where did evil come from? Why did sin arise in the first place, and why has it continued to exist for so long? Matt. 13:24-27 Here is another story Jesus told: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a farmer who planted good seed in his field. 25 But that night as the workers slept, his enemy came and planted weeds among the wheat, then slipped away. 26 When the crop began to grow and produce grain, the weeds also grew. 27 “The farmer’s workers went to him and said, ...

Memory Text: “In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thessalonians 5:18, NKJV). INTRO:As we arrive at this final lesson in our Good Word study series on how Christ “unites” heaven and earth, we address one final important aspect of the unity Christ longs for among his followers. As believers learn to treasure and defend their love for God and their life with one another their unity grows. This final lesson is entitled, “Standing All in the Will of God.” Memory Text: “In everything give thanks; for this is the will ...

Memory Text: “Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one” (Colossians 4:6, NKJV). INTRO: Last week’s Good Word lesson focused on our new life in Christ. This week we focus “living with others,” which seems to include many and different challenges from our life in Christ. While baptism alone does not perfect our characters, Paul describes how followers of Jesus and “clothe” themselves with the “new self” received in Christ. Colossians 3:1-17 clearly describes these changes which we are to “put away” and other with which we ...

Memory Verse: “Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” (Colossians 3:14, NRSVue). INTRO: Admittedly, there is much in the Christian life that defies explanation. How can a person really “die” and be “raised to life” when, to all appearances, he or she is the same person and has had no such physical life-and-death experience? How can a growing believer effectively explain to someone how a living person dies spiritually and why “spiritual death” is essential to receiving and living an “eternal life?” Q: What is the connection between “love” and “death” that Paul speaks so ...

Memory Verse: “So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ” (Colossians 2:16, 17, NKJV). INTRO: Let’s begin our Bible lesson discussion this week on the Good Word program about what “completeness” in Christ means. Often, Bible Sabbath-keepers are confronted by well-meaning Sunday keepers with the idea that seventh-day Sabbath worship of Jesus Christ is perpetuating Jewish ceremonial practices. Would you agree or disagree? How can Bible Sabbath keepers, like Adventists and Seventh-day Baptists, ...

Memory Verse: “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). INTRO: There is an unsurpassable greatness the “gospel” of Jesus, which Paul describes as a “mystery.” Notice in chapter 1 of Colossians, beginning at verse 26 and concluding in verse 28. Let’s read this passage and see how it connects to our memory verse this week. (READ from Bible, Colossians 1:26-28). Paul talks to believers about “the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations.” Q: What is this ...

Memory Verse: “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist” (Colossians 1:15–17, NKJV). INTRO: As we welcome our listeners to this week’s Bible lesson discussion, we turn our attention to a term used by Bible scholars called “the preeminence (or supremacy) of Christ,” a term which ...

Memory Verse: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” (Philippians 4:6, NRSVue). INTRO: Paul has repeated admonished believers in Philippi not to be anxious. Despite Paul’s imprisonment and pending court hearing, despite the difficulties those followers of Jesus may be facing where they live, Paul strongly encourages them not to be anxious in Phil. 4:6 which is this week’s memory verse. Memory Verse: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known ...

Memory Verse: “That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead” (Philippians 3:10, 11, NKJV). INTRO: There are many believers that remain reluctant about salvation in Christ by “faith alone,” apart from the “works of the law.” For some reason, we seem to confuse obedience to Christ with works of the law as if it could ensure our salvation. Let’s begin our discussion today with question about the difference between “salvation by works” and ...

Memory Verse: “Do all things without complaining and disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world” (Philippians 2:14, 15, NKJV). INTRO: This week’s Bible lesson focuses on how the members of the Philippian church were to conduct themselves as followers of Jesus. It seems clear that their reputation in the community was an important component of their witness to the power of Jesus Christ in contrast to the corrupt “generation” surrounding them, including both the citizens of ...