Good Morning - Thursday, September 8, 2005

Good Morning! 

 

Couple of notes.  I will definitely be there on Sunday.  Also, we need to have some discussion about our next lesson/study idea.  Any suggestions/ideas/thoughts on that?

 

Don't forget that you can find all of the back issues of the daily email on the web at www.leapclass.blogspot.com.  

 

The new unit for this week is Unit  19 Justifying Grace  

 

Focus Scripture for the Week:   Titus 2:11  

 

 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all. 

 

Today's Scriptures:    Acts 15:1-11     

 

Today's Discussion:   

 

--  this chapter is a variation on the theme/topic in yesterday's scripture.

 

-- note that Galatians, the book from which we read yesterday, as probably written prior to the church conference written about here in Acts, since the subject that Paul was writing on in Galatians was resolved at the church conference discussed in today's reading.

 

-- the way the question was really framed in this scripture was -- did you have to be Jewish before you became a Christian?  And the general impetus for that thought was the number of former Pharisees who had converted to Christianity, but still had that legalistic/law approach to faith.

 

-- I think there is something very neat and interesting about this whole episode - sending delegates to a conference, having discussion, agreeing on a solution and sending out a note regarding the decision of the conference, the way that this is reported and detailed and it's similarity to the way we would do things 2,000 years later is just an interesting thing to me.

 

-- Wesley, as you can tell from his writings, was originally in the "works" camp.  He was like the Pharisees in this chapter of Acts that he just felt that their had to be some requirement, some major effort on the part of the person seeking salvation, in order to receive it.  But he eventually was convinced of the nature of justifying grace, which, once he began preaching, put him at odds with the Church of England, and forced him into a path that eventually led to his founding of the Methodist church.

 

Question for Sunday:   

 

-- so, what do you think about this topic?  One of the best examples of the conflict that this approach causes is the idea of deathbed confessions of faith?  Wesley, for a long time, believed that their could not be any such thing, since no works could take place -- what is your thought?

 

Today's prayer request:   Hurricane Katrina survivors

 

They are spread all over the country, and wondering what to do next.  Rachel got a new student, Desmond, in her class yesterday whose family is living here, in Bessemer, in a hotel.  There are hundreds of thousands of families in the same predicament as Desmond's.  We need to remember all of them in our prayers.

 

Today's class member prayer: 

 

Michelle Ray

 

Have a great day.

 

Jay