Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Good Morning!

I'm going to try again to get books to those who need them. Since I'll be out on this Sunday, I'm just going to leave our extra copies in our Sunday School room.

The new unit for this week is Unit 13, Preventing Grace

Focus Scripture for the Week: Acts 2:17

I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh.

Today's Scripture: John 16:1-15

Today's Discussion:

-- verse 2 of today's passage is chilling in the light of the daily news -- "a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God." -- while Jesus is talking to his disciples there, it could be for any Christians today who are in danger from misinformed zealots of other faiths.

-- the main thrust of the passage for us is verses 5-15. This are some of Jesus' last moments with his disciples before Judas's betrayal and the beginning of the Good Friday drama. In general, Jesus is talking about the coming of the Holy Spirit. In verses 8-11, Jesus outlines the main tasks of the Holy Spirit, as noted by the commentary from my Bible -- (1) "convicting" the world of its sin and calling to repentance, (2) revealing God's standard of righteousness and (3) demonstrating Christ's judgment over Satan.

-- then in verse 13, Jesus talks of the Spirit guiding us into truth.

-- so, how have we experienced the Holy Spirit? We tend not to think of it in these terms, but think back to your conversion experience, or the times when you "knew" that you had done something wrong OR knew that doing something was the wrong thing to do. Those are feelings that we often attribute to "our" conscience, which is the conventional wisdom. But that power to know what is right and wrong, or the power to know what the right thing to do is doesn't come from us, it comes from God. And the idea of prevenient grace is all about that -- that spark that God supplies to let us know --even those who are not Christians -- what is right and wrong.

-- it goes back to the idea that some people have that "people are basically good". I think that what this unit is teaching us is that people are basically good only because God's prevenient grace is acting in everyone, and giving them the impulse to tend to do the right thing.

Question for Sunday:

What is your experience and view of the world? Are people basically good?

Today's prayer request: Shuttle astronauts and their families

The space shuttle is going to make another go at a launch today. We need to pray for their safety, and for courage for them and their families as they face this exciting yet very dangerous work.

Today's class member prayer:

Brad Douglas

Have a great day.

Jay