Sabbath School From Home

The second half of Ephesians 4 looks at some practical ways to pursue the unity that has formed a substantial theme of the book so far. There's an interesting comment on anger, but we end up spending most of our time exploring the admonition to "watch the way you talk". The bar of "saying only what helps" is a very lofty goal, and has direct relevance to the way we interact online in modern societ...

The theme of unity is again in the foreground. This chapter starts with an exploration of the reason for and mechanism of unity: love. This emphasis is expressed explicitly through some wonderful verses, and also poetically through a pattern of 7 that culminates with God our father of all, "who is over all, in all, and living through all." We are intrigued by the role that teaching and doctrine pl...

Ephesians 3 continues Paul's effervescent enthusiasm for a gospel of inclusion. Even while taking some diversions to obliquely reference his own calling and situation, Paul sticks with the tone and theme that he has developed in the previous chapters. A few key metaphors and images jump out at us, including "mystery", "prisoner", and inclusive unity.

The New Testament claims Jesus broke down walls of hostility that divide us as people - what walls might still exist today? We continue our steady meander through Ephesians, which this week is up to the second part of chapter 2. There are a range of meaningful metaphors here describing the inclusion of Gentiles into God's plan, culminating in sanctuary imagery that speaks of the unity God seeks to...

Ephesians 2 opens with a succinct but thorough outline of the gracious gift of salvation. This is such a clear description of the idea that God saves us by his grace and because of his love (not as a reward for our actions or attitudes) that it is hard to work out how some Christians have seen things differently. We are particularly intrigued and puzzled by a few phrases Paul uses here, such as "c...

Paul turns to prayer as he continues to introduce this epistle. There are two prayer sections in Ephesians (1:15-23 and 3:14-21), and we notice they have a lot in common. Even though they're positive and uplifting, we are vaguely uncomfortable because of hearing numerous didactic and disciplinary prayers in the past. Thinking about various "cultures of praying" turns into somewhat of a mirror in w...

Ephesians opens with an encouraging summary of Christian hope. Paul seems keen to introduce themes of unity, redemption, Spirit, and inheritance. Each of these are likely to be developed further in the epistle, but even in the first 14 verses there is a range of rich ideas worth pondering. In particular, the unity described as God's plan is astoundingly wide-ranging.

Acts 19 tells a 3rd-party perspective to prepare us for studying Paul's letter to the Ephesians. There are a number of anecdotes recorded about Paul in the city of Ephesus, and most of them seem to highlight the prominence of his activity. It seems he regularly "went viral" in the society of the day, and stayed there for some years having significant impact. 

We turn to the end of Revelation to wrap up this season. Exploring (nominally) the "3 angels messages" of Revelation 14 has been hard work at times this season, and we approach this final episode with a slight sense of exhaustion. We certainly haven't resolved all the questions that arise from these chapters! However, there is a hope and peace that seems central to the book, and comes more promine...

What if the mark of the beast is something that we might have in varying degrees? Thinking about "marks" in general leads us to wonder what it might mean for somebody to be Graffitied by the Beast. It is remarkable to find that Peter is declared by Jesus as the rock of the church and also decried as "Satan" within only a few verses of Matthew 16. We suspect there is room for considerable humility...

Sparked by a midweek conversation, we explore the book of Job as apocalyptic literature. There are a surprising number of connections and similarities between Job and the more recognisably apocalyptic writings of Daniel and Revelation. There are scenes in heaven, and even beasts from the land and the sea!

Language like "Satan's deceptions" often implies that salvation is somehow about expertise or technical knowledge. The lesson jumps straight into some well-worn Adventist slippers: the State of dead (which we mostly skip over), and the 7th-day Sabbath (which we focus on a little more closely). It is interesting to observe that Adventists in practice often end up loving Catholics while excoriating...

Babylon was already archaic by the time Revelation was written, so how do we understand it today? It is interesting that Babylon is invoked in Revelation to represent great evil. A number of pretty terrible regimes intersect with the Old Testament stories, and taking another look at Babylon leaves us feeling that it might not have even been the worst. We discuss the different approaches to life th...

Sabbath, Creation, and the End seem to deserve a bit of untangling. The lesson this week sets out to discuss Sabbath and issues of worship in the End Times described by Revelation. It quickly stumbles into a bit of a creation rut, which is a topic we already discussed in the previous episode. Taking some of the rhetorical questions at legitimate face value turns out to be a productive line of conv...

Does worshiping "Him who made the heavens and earth" require a particular understanding of how creation happened? There is a wide variety of Christian pictures of the "how" of creation, and some of these are explicitly repudiated in this week's SDA Sabbath School lesson. Certainly there are some questions that arise from some of these understandings, but it seems that such questions are not simply...

Does prophetic time have room for measurement uncertainty? The Adventist church has a deep penchant for timekeeping, most vividly on display in our 7th day Sabbath focus. The second most prominent example is an obsession with time periods in the prophetic visions of Daniel. It is fascinating to ponder Time as the Temple of God, especially in the light of eschatology. How should we live now in the...

How "infinite, minute, exact, and detailed" really are the heavenly records of Judgement? This combination of adjectives is striking, and goes straight to the core of a traditional Adventist understanding of the final judgement. The lesson seems to squirm a little when trying to explain how this is good news, and we agree that there's often a tension here. Perhaps judgement makes more sense as goo...

What does it mean to "fear God" when so many angelic messages start with "do not be afraid"? The angel in Revelation 14 who shouts "fear God" is unique in the Bible, because no other angel is recorded with this message. In fact, the phrase "fear God" is not all that common in the Bible. However, plenty of angels come with the message "do not be afraid", and we turn to some of these examples to sti...

We finally reach the core "Three Angel's Messages"! This section of Revelation 14 has seemed fairly scary to many throughout history, but the Adventist Sabbath School lesson goes out of its way to argue for reading a narrative of grace. We discuss the text in the context of these two different approaches.

How many angels are there in Revelation 14? While this passage is often referred to as the "Three Angels' Messages", we're looking at the second half of the chapter which only starts after those three messages have been described. Additional angels continue to feature, with further messages! It does seem strange to be working backwards through Revelation 14, but there's a valuable discussion about...

Messages from angels are not proof of superiority. This season will focus on the Angels Messages in Revelation 14, and we begin by acknowledging a few reservations about the way this topic has often been delivered. Revelation has so much poetic power to stimulate conversation and thought, but particular interpretations have occasionally been used as tests to declare people "in" or "out" of communi...

Thinking about the "Rewards of Faithfulness" leads to an exploration of motivation. At first, "rewards" seems to be difficult to isolate from a merit-based picture of our relationship with God. In fact, the words of Jesus in Revelation 22:12 seem to exacerbate this conundrum! The key question here in the context of stewardship seems to be motivation, and we discuss a few ways to think about this t...

Tough times call us to seek our own survival, but also to lean on the Lord. We turn to the story of Nehemiah rebuilding Jerusalem after the exile, which presents a fascinating case study of holding these two elements in combination. Nehemiah both prays to God for protection  and arms the builders. The surprising observation is that we are also capable of this blurring, and health turns out to be a...

We can't take wealth with us after death, so where should it go? Yet again we find a tension between "responsible financial planning" (ie saving for retirement) and "good spiritual stewardship" (ie living generously without worry for tomorrow). In Luke 12 Jesus tells a parable about a rich fool, who stored up the proceeds of a fantastic harvest only to die before enjoying any benefits. In a societ...

Beware of covetousness - and watch out for genocide? Coveting is called out in the Ten Commandments, and certainly fits in the broader theme of stewardship for this season. We try to focus on a few biblical examples of covetousness, but they're invariably not very nice stories. It proves difficult for us to look past the culturally inaccessible punishments and consequences that arise from the cove...