Bible Study - Sabbath School Podcast

Read for This Week’s StudyEph. 1:15–23, Eph. 3:14–21, 1 Thess. 5:16–18, Deut. 9:29, 1 Cor. 15:20–22, Ps. 110:1.Memory Text:Through the Holy Spirit, believers may know “what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places” (Ep...

In Ephesians 1:13, 14, Paul tells in brief the conversion story of his readers. What are the steps in that story? In exploring the importance of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers, Paul uses two images, or metaphors, for the Spirit. He first pictures the Holy Spirit as a “seal,” identifying a sealing presence of the Spirit that occurs from the time of conversion. In ancient times, seals wer...

In Ephesians 1:13, 14, Paul tells in brief the conversion story of his readers. What are the steps in that story? In exploring the importance of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers, Paul uses two images, or metaphors, for the Spirit. He first pictures the Holy Spirit as a “seal,” identifying a sealing presence of the Spirit that occurs from the time of conversion. In ancient times, seals wer...

“In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory” (Eph. 1:11, 12, NKJV).The believers in Ephesus seem to have lost a clear sense of who they are as Christians, to have “lost heart” (see Eph. 3:13). In line with what he ha...

What is God’s “plan for the fullness of time,” and how extensive is its reach? Eph. 1:9, 10.Paul uses three labels for God’s plan. It is (1) “the mystery of his will,” (2) “his purpose,” and (3) “a plan for the fullness of time” (ESV). What is God’s ultimate, final plan? To unite everything, everywhere, in Jesus. The term that Paul uses to describe the plan is a picturesque one (Greek, anakephalai...

Sin had been a dark, dominating force in the lives of the members of Paul’s audience. Paul can describe them in their prior existence as the walking dead—“dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1, NKJV) yet “walking” or living as Satan commanded them (Eph. 2:1–3). Enslaved to sin and Satan, they had no ability to free themselves. They needed rescue. God has done so through His gracious actions in Ch...

A thank-you note usually includes a description of the gift or gifts received. Paul includes a long gift list in Ephesians 1:3–14 as he thanks God for the blessings of the gospel. Paul praises God for the fact that He has “blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing” (Eph. 1:3, ESV). That the blessings are spiritual (Greek, pneumatikos) suggests that they come through the Spirit (pneuma), p...

Read for This Week’s StudyEph. 1:3–14; Eph. 2:6; Eph. 3:10; Col. 1:13, 14; Deut. 9:29.Memory Text:“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 1:3, ESV).Twenty-five years after becoming the first person to walk on the moon, Neil Armstrong wrote a thank-you note to the creative team who designe...

The story of the exorcists misusing the names of Jesus and Paul (Acts 19:13–20; see Sunday’s study) helps explain why Paul uses so much language about power in Ephesians. Some new believers, under fresh conviction of the sovereignty of Jesus, throw their expensive magic manuals into the flames. Thanks to the discovery of some two hundred fifty papyri dealing with magic, as well as other finds, we...

How does Paul announce the theme of his letter? Eph. 1:9, 10.How can the message of Ephesians be summarized? From prison, Paul sets forth a vision of God’s Christ-centered plan for the fullness of time and the church’s role in it. God has acted in Christ to initiate His plan “to unite all things in him [Christ], things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph. 1:10, ESV), and He did so by creating the...

How does Paul begin and end his letter to the believers in Ephesus? What do we learn about his deepest desires for them? See Eph. 1:1, 2; Eph. 6:21–24.At the outset of the letter, Paul identifies himself as the author (Eph. 1:1). Near the middle of the letter, Paul again identifies himself by name, labeling himself “the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles” (Eph. 3:1, NKJV), which introduces...

Paul wrote Ephesians to be read aloud in the house churches of believers in greater Ephesus. In the intervening years since Paul’s departure, the Christian movement in Ephesus had grown, and the number of house churches had multiplied. For those early believers, it would have been an important event to have Tychicus, the personal representative of the founding apostle Paul, stand among them and sh...

Monday ↥ June 26 A Riot in the Amphitheater Read Acts 19:21-20:1. What lessons can we draw from this story? Paul’s witness in the large, sophisticated city of Ephesus was so effective that it impacted an important economic engine for the city, tourism focused on the Temple of Artemis. And what a temple it was! This magnificent structure was composed partly of 127 pillars, each 60 feet high, of Par...

Paul, Evangelist to Ephesus What does Paul do on his first visit to Ephesus, at the end of his second missionary journey? (Acts 18:18-21). Ephesus was one of the largest cities of the Roman Empire, with a population of about 250,000. It was the capital of one of the Empire’s richest provinces, the province of Asia, which covered much of what we know today as Asia Minor. In Paul’s day, the province...

bout the Ephesians themselves. Years after the exciting events of the early days of Christian mission in Ephesus, the Ephesians struggled with the significance of their Christian faith. Paul, once the troubler of the economy of this fourth-largest city in the Roman Empire, is now sidelined and imprisoned. Writing from prison, he worries that the believers in Ephesus may “lose heart,” forgetting an...

Sabbath Afternoon Read for This Week’s Study: Acts 18:18-21; Acts 19:13-20:1; Acts 20:17-38; Eph. 1:1, 2; Eph. 6:21-24; Eph. 3:13; Eph. 1:9, 10. Memory Text: “Making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:9, 10, ESV). When we write...

“Servants of God, with their faces lighted up and shining with holy consecration, will hasten from place to place to proclaim the message from heaven. By thousands of voices, all over the earth, the warning will be given. Miracles will be wrought, the sick will be healed, and signs and wonders will follow the believers. Satan also works, with lying wonders, even bringing down fire from heaven in t...

There are many symbols in Revelation, biblical symbols of importance; that is, a dragon in heaven (Rev. 12:3, 4, 7), angels flying in the midst of heaven (Rev. 14:6), a woman riding a scarlet beast (Rev. 17:3), and so forth. They are in the Word of God; the Holy Spirit inspired John to put them there, and they have important roles in revealing truth to those who read the words of this book and do...

Read Revelation 4:11, Revelation 5:12, Revelation 19:1, and Revelation 21:26. What words are associated with the glory of God that fills the earth as described in Revelation 18:1?The great controversy between good and evil in the universe also is about God’s honor or reputation. Satan, a rebel angel, has declared that God is unjust, that He demands worship but gives little in return. The evil one...

God has raised up a last-day people to stand on the shoulders of the great Reformers of the past with the Bible as their only creed, Christ alone as their only Source of salvation, the Holy Spirit as their only Source of strength, and the return of our Lord as the consummation of all their hopes. Truths long obscured by the darkness of error and tradition, including the true Bible Sabbath, will be...

Read John 7:17, John 8:32, and John 17:17. What promises does Jesus give regarding knowing truth and where is it found? God’s final appeal to His people is to flee the errors of Babylon and walk in the light of eternal truth found in His Word. The key to everything is the Bible. As long as people stick to the Bible and follow what it teaches, they will not be deceived in the final crisis, particul...

Read 1 Thessalonians 5:1–6. What admonition does the apostle Paul give us regarding the last days of human history? The apostle Paul urged the believers at Thessaloniki to “watch” and “be sober” in the context of the second coming of Christ. And if Paul would say that to believers then, what would he say to us today? He also declared that they were “children of light” (1 Thess. 5:5, NIV) and that...

Read for This Week’s Study1 Thess. 5:1–6; John 8:32; Rev. 18:1; Rev. 4:11; Exod. 33:18, 19; Rev. 5:6, 12; Rev. 13:8.Memory Text:“After these things I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was illuminated with his glory” (Revelation 18:1, NKJV).Sooner or later, final events will unfold. Exactly when, exactly how—we have not been told. But we have been told...

“When Protestantism shall stretch her hand across the gulf to grasp the hand of the Roman power, when she shall reach over the abyss to clasp hands with spiritualism, when, under the influence of this threefold union, our country [the United States] shall repudiate every principle of its Constitution as a Protestant and republican government, and shall make provision for the propagation of papal f...

Even now, perhaps, the stage is being set for this impending persecution. On June 6, 2012, Pope Benedict XVI made an urgent appeal to more than 15,000 people gathered in St. Peter’s Square in Rome that Sunday must be a day of rest for everyone, so people can be free to be with their families and with God. “By defending Sunday, one defends human freedom.” This isn’t, of course, the same thing as de...