Bible Study - Sabbath School Podcast

Under the umbrella of God’s mercy and mediation, God takes pleasure in even the smallest positive response to His love. Through the One who alone is worthy of love and is Himself perfectly righteous, each one of us can be counted righteous and counted among God’s beloved who will live with Him in perfect love for eternity. This is the great hope of the redemption, which involves Christ’s work for...

How is it that we, as fallen, sinful beings, can be pleasing to a holy God? Read  Romans 8:1 and Romans 5:8 . What do these texts teach about our standing before God? God bestows grace on people prior to any human response. Before anything we say or do, God reaches out to us and gives us the opportunity to accept or reject His love. As  Romans 5:8  puts it, “God demonstrates His own love toward us...

How could it be that the God of the universe takes delight in mere humans, fleeting blobs of protoplasm on one tiny planet amid what is probably an infinite universe? How could it be possible that humans could matter so much to the Supreme Being, who is all-powerful and who needs nothing? These questions can be parsed into two aspects. First, how could God Himself be delighted? Second, how could h...

Hard as it is for us to imagine, God considers each person of incalculable value, which is why He rejoices over the salvation of even one soul. Read  Zephaniah 3:17 . How does this verse shed light on the parable of the prodigal son? Zephaniah 3:17  emphatically displays the delight of God over His redeemed people. Just about every word for joy and delight in the Hebrew language is packed into thi...

As we saw in an earlier lesson, there is no one—even the worst sinner or worst evildoer—whom God does not love. And because God values people more than we could possibly imagine, He is displeased by sin because He loves us and knows what sin does to us, as well. Read  Luke 15:11–32 . What does the parable of the prodigal son reveal about God’s compassion and love? What warning does it provide for...

Read for This Week’s Study Luke 15:11–32, Zeph. 3:17, Eph. 5:25–28, Isa. 43:4, Rom. 8:1, Rom. 5:8, Mark 9:17–29 . Memory Text: Imagine the following scenario: a five-year-old child comes to his father with a poorly wrapped gift on Father’s Day. Excitedly, he hands the gift to his father. Imagine that the father says, “Son, I do not care about your gift. After all, there is nothing you could give m...

Read Ellen G. White, “The Privilege of Prayer,” pp. 93–104, in Steps to Christ. “Keep your wants, your joys, your sorrows, your cares, and your fears before God. You cannot burden Him; you cannot weary Him. He who numbers the hairs of your head is not indifferent to the wants of His children. ‘The Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.’  James 5:11 . His heart of love is touched by our sorrows...

Just as the servant could never repay his debt to his master, we can never repay God. We could never earn or merit God’s love. “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” ( Rom. 5:8, NKJV ). What amazing love! As  1 John 3:1  puts it, “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!” (NKJV)....

God’s love is everlasting and always unmerited. However, humans can reject it. We have the opportunity to accept or reject that love, but only because God freely loves us with His perfect, everlasting love prior to anything we do ( Jer. 31:3 ). Our love for God is a response to what has already been given to us even before we asked for it. Read  1 John 4:7–20 , with specific emphasis on verses 7 a...

God calls and invites every person into an intimate love relationship with Him (see  Matt. 22:1–14 ). Responding appropriately to this call involves obeying God’s command to love God and to love others (see  Matt. 22:37–39 ). Whether one enjoys the benefits of this relationship with God depends on whether one freely decides to accept or reject His love. Read  Hosea 9:15, Jeremiah 16:5, Romans 11:2...

The Bible often depicts God’s special love relationship with us by using family or kinship metaphors, particularly metaphors of the love between a husband and wife or of a good mother for her child. These metaphors are used particularly to depict the special relationship between God and His covenant people. This is a relationship of covenantal love, which involves not only God’s love for His peopl...

Scripture is clear: God loves everyone. The most famous verse of Scripture,  John 3:16 , proclaims this truth: “ ‘For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life’ ” (NKJV). Read  Psalm 33:5 and Psalm 145:9 . What do these verses teach about how far God’s loving-kindness, compassion, and mercy extend? Some might...

Read for This Week’s Study 2 Pet. 3:9, Deut. 7:6–9, Rom. 11:22, 1 John 4:7–20, John 15:12, 1 John 3:16 . Memory Text: Many have been taught that the Greek word agape refers to a love that is unique to God, while other terms for love, such as phileo, refer to different kinds of love, more deficient than agape. Some claim, too, that agape refers to unilateral love, a love that only gives but never r...

Further Thought: Read Ellen G. White, “ ‘To Meet the Bridegroom,’ ” pp. 405–421, in Christ’s Object Lessons. “It is the darkness of misapprehension of God that is enshrouding the world. Men are losing their knowledge of His character. It has been misunderstood and misinterpreted. At this time a message from God is to be proclaimed, a message illuminating in its influence and saving in its power. H...

God invites everyone into a love relationship with Him, but only those who freely accept the invitation enjoy the eternal results. As seen in the parable of the wedding banquet, many whom the king called “ ‘were not willing to come’ ” (Matt. 22:3, NKJV). Accordingly, shortly before His crucifixion, Christ lamented: “  ‘O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are...

God not only loves people of His own free will, but He also invites them to love Him in return. That God grants them the ability to freely choose whether they will accept or reject His love is apparent in (among other places) Christ’s parable of the wedding banquet. Read Matthew 22:1–14. What is the meaning of this parable? ________________________________________________________ _________________...

God not only continued to bestow His love freely on Israel, despite repeated rebellions, but God also continues to bestow love freely upon us, even while we are sinners. We do not deserve God’s love, and we could never earn it. Conversely, God does not need us. The God of the Bible does not need anything (Acts 17:25). God’s love for you and for me and for all persons is entirely of His own volitio...

God’s striking instance of His love for fallen humanity is found in the story of Hosea. God commanded the prophet Hosea, “ ‘Go, take yourself a wife of harlotry and children of harlotry, for the land has committed great harlotry by departing from the Lord’  ” (Hos. 1:2, NKJV). Hosea and his unfaithful wife were to be a living object lesson of God’s love for His people, even despite Israel’s unfait...

God not only asks us, “Do you love Me,” but God Himself loves each person, and does so freely. Indeed, He freely loves you and me and every other person more than we could possibly imagine. And we know this love by the way He has acted in the history of His people. Read Exodus 33:15–22 and consider the context of these verses and the narrative in which they appear. What does this passage, especial...

Read for This Week’s Study: Exod. 33:15–22; Hosea 14:1– 4; Rev. 4:11; John 17:24; Matt. 22:1–14; John 10:17, 18. Memory Text: “ ‘I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely, for My anger has turned away from him’ ” (Hosea 14:4, NKJV). Though Peter had denied Jesus three times, just as Jesus had predicted (Matt. 26:34), these denials were not the end of the story. After the Resurrection,...

God is love. So says 1 John 4:8 and verse 16. The entirety of the Bible testifies to this fact. The Christian faith is centered on God’s character of love. Love is at the core of who God is, at the core of everything that we believe, and should be at the core of everything we do. Accordingly, the way we understand love affects the entirety of our faith and practice. If, for example, one believes t...

God’s perspective is vastly different from that of humans. God shares His perspective with us through His Word, the Bible, under the power of the Holy Spirit. It is our choice whether we wish to walk in darkness or accept the light coming from Jesus Christ as revealed in the Word. Integral to this choice is our own personal surrender to Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Redeemer of humanity. Th...

Read  John 12:32 . In what ways does this striking statement describe the authority of Jesus Christ? As we have seen throughout this quarter’s lessons, the Gospel of John draws us to Jesus, but only if we are willing to know God and to do His will. Throughout John’s Gospel, people who encounter Jesus either accept the light and grow or reject the light and become blind. Nicodemus, the woman at the...

Read  John 4:46–54 . What problem brought the official to Jesus, and what was the real underlying issue here? This man came to Jesus, the Light of the world, but he had made up his mind to believe only if Jesus healed his child. We could say this man’s theology was a “theology from below.” Theology from below sets rules and standards for God and His Word. Human ideas, as flawed and as limited and...

Read  John 1:4–10; John 3:19–21; John 5:35; John 8:12; John 9:5; John 11:9, 10; and John 12:35 . What great contrast is present here, and why is this contrast so foundational to understanding truth? The world is in darkness; it shuns the light and cannot, on its own, find its way to the true God, the personal God of Creation, revelation, and Redemption. “Never can humanity, of itself, attain to a...