Thursday, August 4, 2005

Good Morning!

The new unit for this week is Unit 14 -- Forgiveness

Focus Scripture for the Week: Luke 24:45-47

Then he opened his minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them "Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations"

Today's Scripture: Colossians 2:8-15

Today's Discussion:

-- a new passage to me -- hadn't read this particular one before.

-- in the spirit of the lesson topic, this scripture is a restatement and a reassurance to us that God can forgive our sins and that that forgiveness comes to us through Jesus' sacrifice on the cross.

-- though we may not think that reassurance that God can and will forgive our sins is important -- we all may be completely comfortable about that -- not everyone is completely convinced that God can do that. Even Wesley -- as we can see from his writings -- had a hard time and wasn't completely reassured until his Aldersgate experience.

-- though it is off-topic a bit, verse 8 of our reading I think is particularly interesting in light of our daily news -- "See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world, rather than on Christ". Think about that scripture in light of all the Tom Cruise publicity over Scientology, or other celebrities who have adopted certain belief systems. For whatever reason, so many celebrities adopt these "hollow and deceptive philosophies", and many average members of the public follow them to these belief systems. In Paul's day, there was the worship of idols and other "gods", and there were those who lived by certain philosophies that had no deity attached to them, they were just teachings of some gifted but misguided philosophers. In that respect, nothing much has changed in 2,000 years.

Question for Sunday:

-- do you know anyone who has, or is currently, living their life based on something like Scientology?

Today's prayer request: Our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan

Once Jay Michael came home, I sort of lost focus on our troops overseas. But there still are thousands of soldiers still there, and all of them are in danger every day. We need to pray for the safety of all of these, and for victory over their enemies who seek to harm them.

Today's class member prayer:

Christie Peebles

Have a great day.

Jay