Curriculum Order Due

If you haven't already done so, please turn in your curriculum order this Sunday.  If you can't find me on Sunday, place your sheet in your folder, or better yet send me an email with your requests.

Paul's Passion for God's People - Philippians 3:18

Paul's passion for Christ and for His people are apparent in many of his writings.

In Philippians 3:18, Paul wrote with tears as he warned the people of those who walked as "enemies of the cross of Christ." Many times Paul and other human authors of the Scriptures expressed their passion for God and for people.


This led me to ask myself this question (perhaps a good discussion question for your class to consider):

 

Can we be a good minister of the gospel, or for that matter a good Christian, if we don't have some level of anguish over lost people or those we serve?

What other Scriptures speak of "tears" or "weeping"?

• Psalmist's distress that people were not keeping God's law - Ps 119:136
• Jeremiah weeps over his people - Je 9:1, Je 13:17
• Jesus' weeps over Jerusalem - Luke 19:41
• Paul speaks to the Ephesian elders - Acts 20:19, Acts 20:31
• Paul's great desire for his people to come to know Christ - Rom 9:2
• Paul expresses his desire to not cause pain, but to show his love - 2 Cor 2:4

Three Questions for Every Lesson

I was thinking the other day of what marks a good Life Group lesson. Student participation and laughter are always marks of a "good" class session.  Many times a lack of participation, laughter or general "fun" points to a need for outside fellowship so that class members can become more comfortable with each other.

Additionally, here are three questions to ask ourselves, on behalf of our learners, early on in our lesson preparation.


1.  Why should I be here?  (Give them a reason!)
2.  What am I going to learn?
3.  What have I learned that will help me be more like Christ tomorrow?

Remember Paul's goal as stated in Colossians 1:28-29:

"28 Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. 29 For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me." (ESV)

Yes, lesson preparation is at times a toil and we struggle as we wrestle with the Scriptures seeking God's words, but the goal is to be able present our learners as mature in Christ as God works within us!  How can we (with the Holy Spirit's help) present life transforming lessons so that our students may become more and more like Christ?

As we seek to encourage each other to become better teachers feel free to share the questions you ask yourself as you prepare your lessons.

April Quarterly Team Huddle Slides with Notes

Here are the updated slides with notes.  Please let me know if I missed something.

Great attendance guys and ladies!  Keep up the good work!

April 2010 Teacher-Coordinator Meeting with Notes

April Quarterly Team Huddle Slides

Here are the slides that we will go through at this Saturday's Quarterly Team Huddle. Do let me know of anything additional you would like to add!

See you Saturday at 4pm!

April 2010 Teacher-Coordinator Meeting

Treasury of Scripture Knowledge - Php 2:12 "work out your salvation"

I was reminded once again this week of a valuable resource freely available on the web for Bible study.  The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge provides a huge number of cross references for the majority (if not all?) the verses in the Bible.

With Sunday night free, the kids, Mindy and I had a chance to read through the Scripture for this coming Sunday's lesson (Philippians 2:12-18).  I wanted us to dig in a bit deeper into what Paul (inspired by the Holy Spirit) meant when he wrote that we are to "work out our own salvation" (Php 2:12).  Through using a resource very similar to this one we were able to find some cross references to study.

TSK is in the public domain, so I've copied it here so you can easily hover over the verses and have the Scripture pop up if you are viewing this from the Blog site.

work
Philippians 3:13 Philippians 3:14 Proverbs 10:16 ; 13:4 Matthew 11:12 Matthew 11:29 ; Luke 13:23 Luke 13:24 ; John 6:27-29
Romans 2:7 ; 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 ; 15:58 Galatians 6:7-9 ; 1 Thessalonians 1:3 ; Hebrews 4:11 ; Hebrews 6:10 Hebrews 6:11
Hebrews 12:1 ; 2 Peter 1:5-10 ; 3:18

It made for some great evening family Bible study and will prove helpful in my preparation for this Sunday!

Part of our job as teachers is to inspire our students to learn to love and study the Scriptures for themselves.  This free resource can be a great way to equip our students to do just this.

Helpful Sermon in Understanding the Context of Galatians 2:17-21

I really like Piper's "Ladder of Legalism" analogy in explaining the Judaizers point of view.  Check it out here.

I'm trying to decide if I have enough time on Sunday to bring in a ladder and "railroad track"...  Maybe not this week, but good to store away for future classes...

Keep it in Context

One of the nice things about studying and teaching through the Scriptures verse by verse is that it can be easier to keep the passage in its context.

This week we are in Galatians 2:17-21 (instead of Philippians), so we will need to spend a bit of extra time this week understanding the passage's context.

Here are some of my background notes.  We would all greatly benefit if you could share yours as well  (just hit the comment link below, if you are reading this on email you will need to go to http://lifegroups-teacher.blogspot.com/ first):

• Paul's earliest letter (around 49AD)
• Written to address the false doctrine of the Judaizers
• "Like Romans, it explores the relationship of the Mosaic Law to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and, like Romans, concludes that Law was temporary." (The Teacher's Commentary)