What We Are Teaching 10-9

Hey Parents, Students and Volunteers,

Here is what we will be teaching this Sunday in the student ministry:

What is a “quiet time”?

A “quiet time” is a time of direct contact between you and God through the Bible and prayer. It is a time of dedication, cleansing, instruction, strengthening and delight. This isn’t just for us either. God desires this as well. He wants to fellowship with us. It gives God joy to meet with us! (John 4:23)

Communication with God is something that must be daily.  Joshua 1:8,9.  The goal of this time is to know God. Not just to know about him, but to know Him.

How we pray, delight, and think on God is the only true measure of whether our relationship with Him is alive (John 15:4).

Even Abraham and Moses did not have access to God like we do!

The maintaining of a “quiet time” however is one of the hardest things for us to do. Its difficulty is a humble reminder to us of how sinful we are and how weak our commitment to him can sometimes be.

This Sunday we will look at the goals of a quiet time, things you should do during a quiet time and how to get started. 

What We Are Teaching October 2

Hey Parents and Students, here is a summary of what we will be talking about this coming Sunday in Sunday School.

See you there and don't forget to bring some shoe boxes!

The Main Idea – When I read the Old Testament the best way for me to read it is to:
1. Be Thankful. Many people have sacrificed so that you could read the Bible today.
2. Purchase. Get a good Bible with a translation that is accurate and easy to read.
3. Remember. Jesus prayed for you.
4. Practice. Practice the spiritual disciplines. They are God’s grace to you for change and growth.
5. Repent. While you read don’t ignore and look over your sin. Confess it and Repent.
6. Get involved. Be active in church by serving, learning and growing with others.

What We Are Teaching 9-25

Here is a preview for what we will be teaching this Sunday morning in Sunday School.

Our Big Question for this Sunday is "What is the main point of the Old Testament?"


The Main Point
When we start reading in Genesis chapter 1 we are very quickly introduced to the hero of the Bible. Our creator. God.


The following pages, filled with stories, letters, messages etc.... reveal who God is and what he is like through his words and actions. If we keep reading all the way through to the end of the New Testament it becomes clear that our hero is Jesus Christ. The New Testament makes it clear that the Old Testament was pointing to Jesus the whole time. If we are to understand the Old Testament we have to understand its about Jesus. Even Jesus himself told us that he is the fulfillment of the Old Testament. See John 5:39 and Luke 24:27.


It's All About Jesus
When we interpret the Old Testament correctly we begin to see all the promises made by God to have their "Yes" in Jesus. He is the object of our faith, the forgiver of sins, the giver of eternal life, and the one and true sacrifice.


There are lots of different ways that the Old Testament points to Jesus. He is revealed through prophecies, promises made, types of themes, and through different titles. There are hundreds of prophecies made in the Old Testament that were fulfilled when Jesus came. Also in the Old Testament we see that God was using people, institutions or events to point us to Jesus.


For example...

Adam, who foreshadows Jesus as the second Adam; 

The priesthood, which prefigures Jesus as our High Priest; 

David and other kings, who prefigure Jesus as the King of Kings; 

Moses and the prophets, who prefigure Jesus as our ultimate prophet. 

Animal sacrifices, which prefigure Jesus as the sinless Lamb of God slain for our sins; 

The temple, which prefigures God’s presence dwelling among us in Jesus; 

Judges, who foreshadow Jesus as the final judge of all people.

When Abraham left his father and home, he was doing the same thing that Jesus would do when he left heaven. 


Like Job, innocent Jesus suffered and was tormented by the Devil so that God might be glorified, while his dumb friends were no help or encouragement. 

When Hosea married an unfaithful prostitute wife whom he continued to pursue in love, he was showing us the heart of Jesus, who does the same for his unfaithful bride, the church. 

In the Exodus account of Passover, Moses met with the elders of Israel to instruct all the people to follow the Lord’s commands for the Passover Feast. They were to place blood over their doorframes with hyssop (a common herb bundled for cleaning), and no one was to leave home until the morning. By being marked with a lamb’s blood, death would not come to the home but would pass over. Paul says that we see Jesus in this because “we have now been justified by his [Jesus’] blood, much more shall we be saved by him [Jesus] from the wrath of God.”


Its About Jesus Not Just Good Examples to Follow. 
Jesus is the central theme of the Old Testament. Everything points to him in some way. He is the reason it unfolded as it did and the reason it was written and given to us.


If we go to the Old Testament, not to learn about Jesus, but just to learn some principles for good living then we have missed the point. If we only go to it to learn to follow David's example and avoid Saul's example then we are moralizing the Old Testament. We are turning it into a form of Aesop's fables: A good story with a moral point. This is not a Christian approach to the Old Testament. We must see it in light of Jesus. 


Here are a few of questions you can ask your student to further discussion:
1. Was there anything you heard in Sunday School today that jumped out at you? What stands out?


2. What was the main idea in Sunday School this morning?


3. Have you been reading any Scripture lately? Where at? If not, lets read a chapter in the Old Testament together and see what we can learn about Jesus. 

Some of this taken from "A Book You'll Actually Read on the Old Testament" by Mark Driscoll. 

What We Are Teaching 9-18

Hey Parents and Students,

Here is a preview of what we will be talking about this coming Sunday in Sunday School.

Many times when we begin reading the Old Testament (usually just randomly opening it and reading the first paragraph that sticks out) we just don't seem to get it. We don't see how it fits with the New Testament and we for sure do not see how it fits in our lives in the 21 century.

Over the next 4 weeks we will be looking at how the Old Testament fits in with God's story for us. How it works with the New Testament to tell this awesome story of how an awesome, holy God creates a world, chooses a people who because of sin need rescue and how this God promises to send a rescuer.

This week we will discuss the question "Who Wrote the Old Testament?". Here is a summary:

 - God wrote the Old Testament through human authors whom God the Holy Spirit inspired to perfectly pen his truth. People wrote it. God wrote it. 

 - “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for      training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16-17. 

          -The Old Testament is a series of promises that God makes and the New Testament is the fulfillment
              of those promises. 


Take some time after church this week to discuss with your kids what they learned and enjoy God's work in their lives.  

What We Are Teaching 9-11

Hey Parents and Students,

Here is a summary of what we will be talking about at the upcoming Crowded House this Sunday.

God Speaks. As a result we should...

1. Come to Scripture prayerfully. Before reading and studying we must pray for the Holy Spirit to teach   us his Word.

2. Come to Scripture in community. We should actively serve and participate in a local church to learn with and from other Christians.

3. Come to Scripture attentively. Listen to what Scripture is saying. 

4. Come to Scripture humbly. Understanding we need to have our beliefs, desires, and opinions changed to be in line with Scripture.

5. Come to Scripture devotedly. Memorizing scripture.

6. Come to Scripture meditatively. Filling our minds with deep thinking on the things of God.

7. Come to Scripture for life transformation, not mental transformation. Our goal should not be knowledge of change to be more like Jesus.

8. Come to Scripture for relational purposes. We want to read Scripture so that we might love and know Jesus not get something else from him.

9. Come to Scripture repentantly. We should come willing to change. 

10. Come to Scripture historically. People have gone before us. Learn from trusted Bible teachers.

Take a moment this week and talk about what we've talked about!

What is Repentance?

Charles Spurgeon writes:

Repentance is a discovery of the evil of sin, a mourning that we have committed it, a resolution to forsake it. It is, in fact, a change of mind of a very deep and practical character, which makes the man love what once he hated, and hate what once he loved.

J. I. Packer writes:

Repentance means turning from as much as you know of your sin to give as much as you know of yourself to as much as you know of your God, and as our knowledge grows at these three points so our practice of repentance has to be enlarged.

John Piper writes:

Repenting means experiencing a change of mind that now sees God as true and beautiful and worthy of all our praise and all our obedience.

*Taken from www.desiringgod.com blog.

What We Are Teaching 8-28

The Big Questions for this coming Sunday are:

How can we trust the New Testament?* We will look at how we can trust that what we have in the Bible are the words that were really written. We will study how the New Testament is more reliable than any other ancient manuscripts, most of which we take as genuine. We will also mention how many historians during the first and second centuries spoke about Jesus and how the internal evidence of the Bible, mostly prophecies in the Old Testament coming true in the New Testament, speak to the trustworthiness of Scripture.

What is the Central Point of the New Testament?*  We want the students to understand why the New Testament was written? What is its main point. The majority of the time we will study the difference between Religion and the Gospel of Jesus. Here is a snippet of what we will talk about:

Religion says that if we obey God, he will love us. The gospel says that it is because God has loved us through Jesus that we can obey. 

Religion says that the world is filled with good people and bad people. The gospel says that the world is filled with bad people who are either repentant or unrepentant. 

Religion says that you should trust in what you do as a good moral person. The gospel says that you should trust in the perfectly sinless life of Jesus because he alone is the only good and truly moral person who will ever live. 

*These questions are asked and answered in New Testament book by Mark Driscoll. 

What We Are Teaching 8-21

Can Books of the New Testament Be Written Today? 

Books of the Bible cannot be written today for a number of reasons. 

First, the Old Testament ended with the prophet Malachi promising that the next major event in redemptive history would be the coming of John the Baptist who would prepare 

the way for Jesus (Mal. 3:1).There were then four hundred years of silence during which no book of the Bible was written until John came as promised (Luke 1:11-17)

Likewise, the New Testament ends with its final book, Revelation, telling us that no other books of the Bible are to be written after it (Rev. 22:18-19) and that we will again have silence until Jesus comes for the second time. Rev. 22:20-21.

Today, we are like God’s people in the days between Malachi’s promise and Jesus’ coming. We are in a season of long silence where we know the future but are awaiting its coming. For this reason we do not need any more information but rather the fulfillment of the promises we have already received. 

In addition, the Bible tells us that Jesus is God’s final word to us (Heb 1:1-2) and that we should not add anything to the Bible (Dt 4:2). If someone were to claim to write a book of 

the Bible today, they would need to meet all of the criteria that the New Testament authors met, which includes 

     -either being an eyewitness or depending upon eyewitness testimony, 

     -writing without any error in absolute consistency with the rest of the Bible, 

     -and being inspired by the Holy Spirit in a miraculous way. 

Furthermore, we have no need for any new book of the Bible because we already have all we need for faith and godliness. If there were some knowledge that we desperately needed, God would certainly not have waited some two thousand years to reveal it while his people sat in the darkness of partial knowledge.

Does the New Testament Contain Any Errors or Contradictions? 

The Bible says that God cannot speak falsely (2 Sam. 7:28 Titus 1:2, Heb 6:18) and so all of the Bible is without any error or contradiction (Num 23:19, Ps 12:6, Pro. 30:5-6.) 

The Bible always tells the truth concerning everything that it talks about. 

But the Bible also teaches that, though it is perfect, sometimes our interpretation of it is not, for the following reasons: 

• God’s thoughts are much loftier than ours. Is. 55:9

• God has secrets that he has not revealed to anyone. Dt 29:29

• Sometimes we see the truth as if through a dirty and fogged window. 1 Cor. 13:12

• We are prone to resist God’s truth because it forces us to repent, and sometimes we are simply hard-hearted. Rom 1:18-19

• We know in part. 1 Cor. 13:9

• Some parts of the Bible are just hard to understand. 2 Peter 3:15-16

Therefore, if it appears that there is a contradiction in Scripture, we should first dig deeply into our Bible to see if what appears to be an error is, in fact, not an error 

once we have examined it more closely. In the end, it is perfectly reasonable to simply say that at this time we do not have an answer for every question we may 

have, though we may as we learn more, or when we get to heaven and get the final word on everything.  

How Were the New Testament Books Chosen as Scripture?

Canonization is the process by which some books were included in the New Testament while others were excluded. Canon is a word meaning “a measuring rod.” The 

canon is the standard that all scriptural books must meet. The books of the New Testament were authoritative and shared particular traits that distinguished them 

from other mere books:

1. They were written based upon eyewitness testimony to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

2. They told the truth about God and agreed with the rest of what Scripture teaches.

3. They were received by God’s people and showed God’s power in changing lives. 

Importantly, all but a few New Testament writers were eyewitnesses to the events they recorded. 

Though not eyewitnesses, Luke received his information from Paul and numerous eyewitnesses, while Mark received his information from Peter who was an eyewitness.

James and Jude were closely associated with the apostles in Jerusalem and were probably Jesus’ brothers, which would have also made them eyewitnesses. 

The fact of eyewitness testimony is indeed significant. In days when photos and videotape did not exist, the testimony of an eyewitness was the most powerful and 

trustworthy of all evidence. Because of this, the Bible is clear that events such as Jesus’ resurrection were witnessed by crowds of up to five hundred people at a time who

were willing to testify.The question persists, if we are not to trust the many eyewitness accounts of Jesus’ life and ministry, then who do we have that is more credible 

that we can trust?

Although all of the New Testament books were written by the end of the first century, were circulated among God’s people, and were accepted as God’s Word, 

there were still some people who questioned which books should be included in the New Testament canon. Some people wanted to go too far, and others did not want 

to go far enough in regards to the New Testament canon. 

Some wanted to add books to the New Testament. The Montanists wanted to elevate ongoing prophetic utterances to the same level of authority as the New Testament. Liars who were not eyewitnesses to or apostles of Jesus pretended to be. They wrote false gospels such as Peter, Thomas, and Andrew, along with the false Acts of 

Andrew, the false Acts of Paul and Thecla, and the false Apocalypse of Peter. The New Testament itself speaks of such false writings to warn God’s people against believing them.

Some people wanted to take books out of the New Testament. One such person was the heretic Marcion, who rejected all of the Gospels (except his highly edited 

version of Luke), and sought to remove many of the New Testament letters.

Without a central authority to resolve these issues, it is a testimony to the unity of God’s people and the leading of the Holy Spirit that despite geographic, cultural, and 

theological differences, Christians in the early New Testament church generally accepted all of the twenty-seven books that comprise our current New Testament. There 

was, admittedly, some debate about the place of books such as Hebrews, James, and Jude in the canon. Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, listed each of the twenty-seven 

books of our New Testament in his Easter letter of AD 367. The entire New Testament canon as we have it today was formally accepted at the Third Council of Carthage in 

AD 397, which was attended by Augustine. The Third Council of Carthage did not decide something that the church had not previously believed; rather, it confirmed the 

books that Christians had already embraced—since their writing—as divine Scripture. 

It was ultimately God the Holy Spirit who determined the New Testament canon. 

ADDITIONAL NOTES - 

Summarized Historical Timeline of Scripture - 

Old Testament 

• Prophets spoke, “Thus says the Lord.” 

• Some prophets wrote their books (Jeremiah 36; Josh. 24:26; Isa. 30:8; Ezek. 43:11; Hab. 2:2; Dan. 7:1–2; 2 Chron. 21:12).

• Some prophets had a scribe (Ex. 17:14; 34:28).

• Books were treated as sacred.

   • Placed in ark (Deut. 31:24–26).

   • Placed in sanctuary (Josh. 24:26).

   • Placed before God (1 Sam. 10:25).

• Books showed the power of God changing peoples’ lives (2 Kings 22–23; Ex. 24:7; Nehemiah 8).

• Old Testament books appeal to each other for authority as God’s Word:

   • Joshua 1:8 refers to the Pentateuch.

   • Daniel 9:2 refers to Jeremiah.

   • Ezekiel 14:14 refers to Noah, Daniel, and Job.

• Old Testament ends with the last prophet Malachi:

   • Promises that the next event will be Jesus coming to the Temple (Mal. 3:1).

   • Promises that the next prophet will be John the Baptizer (Mal. 4:4–6)

Intertestamental Period (400 years between Old and New Testaments)

- No New books of Scripture are given.

- The Old Testament canon is settled without any significant debates regarding certain books. 

-  Apocryphal (“hidden”) books are written as history, fiction, wisdom, and apocalyptic literature that become popular books but are never considered to be Scripture.

Life of Jesus - 0-4ish A.D. through 33 A.D.

 • Four hundred silent years end with John the Baptizer and Jesus (Matt. 3:1–17; 17:9–13; Luke 1:8–17).

New Testament - 45-95 A.D. 

• Jesus spoke of Old Testament history as existing from Abel (Genesis) to Zechariah (the time of Malachi) (Matt. 23:35; Luke 11:51).

• Jesus described the Old Testament as Law, Prophets, and Psalms (Luke 24:44).

• Jesus quoted the Old Testament freely for teaching.

• Jesus and the New Testament writers never quote any apocryphal books. They accepted the Old Testament as we have it.

• Jesus promised the Holy Spirit would inspire his disciples (John 14:26; 16:13).

• New Testament writers were nearly all eyewitnesses (e.g., 1 John 1:1–3).

• New Testament books claim to be Scripture (1 Cor. 14:37; 1 Thess. 2:13; 2 Thess. 2:15; Col 4:16; Rev. 1:3).

• New Testament authors claim works of other disciples were Scripture (2 Pet. 3:15–16).

• After all eyewitnesses died, some pseudepigraphal (pen named) books were written by people pretending to be apostles.

• Almost all New Testament books were accepted by the second century, and all were finalized by the fourth century.

• No apocryphal books were accepted until the Catholic Council of Trent in 1546.

  (side note. There are writings entitled the Psuedopigrapha. These writings have authors under pen names pretending to be eyewitnesses to 

                  Jesus and write various false gospels (e.g., the Gospel of Thomas).


(notes taken from "A Book You'll Actually Read on the New Testament" by Mark Driscoll

What We Are Teaching

Over the next 4 weeks we will be teaching the basics of the New Testament. We will be asking such questions as 

     - Who wrote the New Testament?

     - Can books of the New Testament be written today?

     - Does the New Testament contain any errors?

     - What is the main point of the New Testament (Why was it written)?

     - How should I come to the Scriptures?

     - and many others......

This coming Sunday our main topic will be:

    - General introduction into the Bible.

    - Who wrote the New Testament.

Here are some of the main points we will discuss so that you are aware of what we talked about and you can bring it up to them in conversation.

 

   1. All Scripture claims to be God-breathed or inspired.

   2. All of the prophetic writings of the Old Testament are divinely inspired and perfect, sacred Scripture.

   3. The New Testament also claims to be divinely inspired, perfect prophecy, just like the Old Testament.

   4. In the Old Testament we are repeatedly told that the “Word of God” will stand the test of time, unlike anything that has been or ever   will be written; it will last forever because it is from God. The New Testament speaks of itself as the Word of God. 

   5.  The writers of the New Testament said and showed that they believed they were writing divinely inspired Scripture.

   6.  The early church treated the apostles’ New Testament teaching as authoritative just like the Old Testament teaching of the prophets.

BIG IDEA - 

This is what we want the students to leave remembering.

God wrote the New Testament through human authors whom God the Holy Spirit inspired to perfectly pen his truth. Scripture is our highest authority. God wrote the NT because Jesus rose from death and proved himself to be God and the only way to eternal life.

I hope this is helpful to you and please let me know if you have any questions. 

Youth Camp 2011

Here are the details on Youth Camp 2011. We are going back to Panama City Beach, Florida!

We will be staying at the Laguna Beach Christian Retreat. Here are some other important details:

When:        We will leave Sunday, June 26 and get back Saturday, July 2.
Cost:          $260.
How:          We will be taking the bus and a couple of other vehicles for luggage.
Who:          All Students who are entering the 7th grade and up are invited to come.

We have 30 total spots for students and they are filling up quickly so sign up today by giving Justin your $100 non-refundable deposit. Any parents that wish to go are more than welcome to sign up at a discounted rate.

Once you sign up a Confirmation Packet along with other forms will be sent to you so that you will have all that you need to get ready for the best camp ever. See you at the beach!