What The Bible Teaches

Lesson1
Introduction: Life’s Most Important Questions

What are the questions of life?  You know, the ones everyone asks at some point.  Like,

What is my purpose in life?

Is there meaning to life?

Is there a God?

Can I have some more chocolate?

Well, ok, maybe the last one doesn’t count.

With this lesson we start a new series about doctrines of the Bible – in doing so we will consider three of life’s most important questions.

Who is God?

Who am I?

Is there life after death?

For the teachers

The materials for this series are different from most of the courses we have taught recently.  Within your teachers manual you have the page outlines of part of the student books.  There are four sections for the students to complete each Sunday.  On page 9 of the teacher’s manual, you will find the first page of lesson 1 of the student book.  This shows their introduction and part 1, Getting Attention.  This section calls your student’s attention to the main focus of the week’s lesson and peaks their interest. 

Part 2, Knowing and Understanding the Bible, will be two pages of fill-in the blanks.  This is where you will outline the week’s lesson and your students can take notes.  Your teacher’s manuals not only have a picture of these pages but also have full page versions of these pages.  Note there is a portion entitled “The Bible teaches” for notes from your lectures.

Part 3 is entitled “Applying the Bible” and asks questions designed to help your students apply what they have learned.  I would suggest you design other questions besides those offered in the book, questions calculated with your individual classes in mind. 

Part 4, entitled “Practicing the Bible,” is more personal in nature, calling upon the individual students to assess their own positions relative to the lessons.  For example week 1 asks the students to assess how important to them personally are the Bible’s answers to life’s most important questions.

I would hope that it goes without saying that knowing the Bible’s teaching is not the end of the lesson.  Each student must make an appropriate response in truth.  In mid-August Barna Research released a survey that indicates only 60%-70% of evangelical Christians make decisions based upon biblical teachings.  Barna has, in the past, estimated that evangelicals comprise only about a third of the Christian community.  According to the August survey, only about 25% of the balance of the Christian community uses the Bible for the basis of its decisions.  This means that only about 36% of all Christians have a biblical world view. 

36% of your class uses the Bible to make their decisions.  The purpose of your teaching is to get the other 64% to change their ways!!!!!

Lesson Outline

This study is about parts of three doctrines with others mixed in.  The three doctrines are Theology Proper, the study of God, anthropology, the study of man, and eschatology, the study of end times.  The first several lessons are on the study of God and answer the question Who is God? 

Who is God?

I believe it is important to point out to the students that each of them is a theologian.  The word theologian simply means one who studies God.  Each of your students is studying God.  They have no other reason for being in Sunday school.  As such, they are always, in one form or another, studying and learning to apply doctrine.  This study will be no different, except that the doctrines are more clearly stated and, at times, application may be more difficult to define.

The lesson books use a funeral as the introduction to the series materials.  Will you ever see the loved one again?  This raises the entire sequence of life’s questions.  These are questions people frequently address in times of grave illness or danger, as well as times of death.  Perhaps you have a personal testimony or example you could use. 

I know in my own life, I reached a point of “no return” when I did not believe in God and was at a place where life was beyond me.  Nothing mattered and I went off into the woods to, as I saw it, save my loved ones from a deep pile of trouble.  The method chosen was to commit suicide.  In the middle of this I ran head first into the questions of this study and came face to face with Jesus.  The encounter resulted in my salvation. 

Most people’s encounters may not be as dramatic, but there may be others in your class who were saved in the midst of asking life’s questions.  Give them a chance to respond.

The book uses John 11:25 as the key verse:

John 11:25 (NKJV)
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.

This verse clearly points us to God and Jesus.  It suggests the three questions of life.

Who is God?  God is the one Who controls life, death, and resurrection.

Who am I?  Man is God’s creation.  Man dreams about the existence of God and life after death.  Man asks the questions.

Is there life after death?  The concept of a resurrection certainly points to a life after death.

All of these questions presuppose the existence of a God who controls the events of life, a God who cares about His creation.  Many, indeed, perhaps, most of mankind do not believe in this God. 

An Atheist does not believe in God.  They say there is no God.  In reality very few people are atheists.  Most, ultimately, believe in some form of god, or at least believe there could be a god but that god’s existence cannot be proven.  These people are agnostics.  Gnostic in the Greek means knowledge.  In the Greek, the addition of an “a” negates a word, so (a)gnostic means no knowledge.

At the opposite end of the spectrum are the polytheists, those who believe in many gods.  The ancient Greeks and Romans had many gods.  These are the gods of mythology.  Mormonism is a modern example since they believe that each “saved” man will become a minor god.

Most Americans fit one of the next two categories.

Pantheists believe that the universe equals god.  In this view, all of creation is god, be it an animate or an inanimate object.  Today’s Hindus and Buddhists fit this category.  While one popular Buddhist sect has over 60,000 gods (a form of polytheism), they believe that all is one!  This is an impersonal force.  Closely related is Panentheism which believes that all is in god.  This is like a hand in a glove or water in a bucket where the hand and water represent creation.  There is but a slight difference between the pantheism and panentheism.  A pantheist believes that matter equals god while the panentheist believes that all matter is part of god.  In practice it is frequently difficult to distinguish between these two positions.  The force of Star Wars is an example of panentheism.  The key technical difference between these two similar positions is that the panentheist sees God as finite but growing, just as the force grows every time a “good” person dies.

A theist believes in a single God who is the Creator.  This is monotheism, meaning one God.  There are three monotheistic religions in the world today – Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. 

There are several degrees to theism.  Deism, for example, believes in a Creator who made the world and then left it to fend for itself.  Others believe that God is not all-powerful or all-knowing.  For example, there is a group of Christians who practice what is known as Open Theism who believe that God is not all-knowing, that is, He does not know all of the future.

Then, there are those who see God as being an all-powerful, all-knowing, ever present personal God who is involved, in one form or another, with His creation.  Each theist claims to believe in one God, the God of the “Bible.”  Judaism, of course, stops at the end of the Old Testament and does not recognize the New Testament.  Islam gives a place to the Bible, but then adds a new book to interpret what the Bible “truly teaches.”  This new book is the Qu’ran (sometimes spelled Koran).  This is contrary to what Paul teaches in Galatians, where he tells us faith equals Jesus plus or minus nothing.  It is also contrary to Revelation 22:18-19:

18 For I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book; 19 and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the Book of Life, from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.

What the Bible teaches . . .

The Bible clearly teaches there is but one God, the Creator of the entire universe, a God who loves His creation and desires the best for them. 

There is but one God - Deut 6:4

Jesus is God in the flesh – John 1:1; 1:14

Those who see Jesus have seen the God the Father – John 14:9

Jesus came as a servant – Mark 10:45

Those who believe in Jesus will have ever lasting life with God – John 3:16

Jesus will return as conquering King – Rev 19:11ff

There are many pictures of God in the pages of the Bible.  All of these pictures must be carefully balanced, as they are in Scripture.  God is love (1 John 4:16), but God is also one who hates evil and punishes sin (Psalm 34:16).  Without the complete picture of God, a person will never be able to fully answer questions about God’s existence, communication, Trinitarian nature, power, and trustworthiness.

One of the prime problems of today’s world is that the non-believers do not believe in God and Christians do not hold God in the majesty He is entitled.  Nonetheless, God remains faithful to His purposes and Words.

Psalm 8 (NKJV)
1 O Lord, our Lord, How excellent is Your name in all the earth, Who have set Your glory above the heavens! 2 Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants You have ordained strength, Because of Your enemies, That You may silence the enemy and the avenger. 3 When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained, 4 What is man that You are mindful of him, And the son of man that You visit him? 5 For You have made him a little lower than the angels, And You have crowned him with glory and honor. 6 You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet, 7 All sheep and oxen— Even the beasts of the field, 8 The birds of the air, And the fish of the sea That pass through the paths of the seas. 9 O Lord, our Lord, How excellent is Your name in all the earth!

Who am I?

What is man?  Why is God mindful of us?  Why did the son of Man visit us?

According to the Psalm man is but a “little lower than the angels” yet he is “crowned with glory and honor.”  This is an amazing tribute to the position of mankind within God’s plan of Creation. 

According to the Psalm, man has dominion over all of Creation.  Man is in control.  This dominion is suppose to bring honor and glory to God!  Mankind has taken this glory upon himself.  This may explain why the world is in such a terrible state.  Mankind has lost the sense of God’s glory, majesty, honor, and position.  Mankind has taken all of this upon himself.  As Paul writes in Romans,

Romans 1:20-24 (NKJV)
20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, 21 because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23 and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. 24 Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves,

Mankind was to represent God as viceroys over His creation.  Mankind has taken over as though he were creator. 

What the Bible teaches . . .

The New Testament applies this Psalm to Jesus.

Hebrews 2:6 (NKJV)
6 But one testified in a certain place, saying: “What is man that You are mindful of him, Or the son of man that You take care of him?

Jesus came to undo all that Adam and original sin has done to mankind and to creation.  Jesus will one day rule over all things in the restoration of God’s original plan.  As such, man’s ultimate destiny is directly connected to the original Creation and God’s plans.  We must carefully study all of Scripture to best understand the answer to the question Who am I?

If man plays such an important position in God’s plans, this naturally leads to the final key question.

Is there life after death?

What is man’s ultimate destiny?  The panentheist would have us believe we are to merge with all of creation while the pantheist would go further and say this merger is with God.  Is this the hope of mankind? 

The hope of the heart is that death is not the end.  The hope is that death is just a step along the path of whatever waits ahead.  To a great extent, Satan’s attack over the past hundred years has been to either eliminate this hope or to focus it upon false ends.  Compare this to . . .

What the Bible teaches . . .

The shortest verse in the Bible is John 11:35 – “Jesus wept.” 

Jesus wept over Lazarus.  Perhaps, Christ was weeping over His friend’s death, but more likely His anger was directed at sin and its ultimate manifestation in the world – death.  After all Jesus “groaned in the spirit, and was troubled” (11:33).  God hates sin and evil.  In fact, Scripture teaches that we are to do the same (Psalm 97:10; Amos 5:15; Romans 12:9).  The future is found is Jesus.  This is the focus of the key verse for today’s lesson.

John 11:25 (NKJV)
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live.

This speaks to the answer to the life question.  Resurrection implies life after death.  This life is in Jesus, for those who believe in Him.  Jesus’ proof for this statement was the raising of Lazarus from the dead (John 11:43-44).  Jesus Himself became the firstborn of the resurrection (1 Cor 15:23).  Someday we will all be raised with Christ. 

There is life after death.

Three Questions; One Hope

We have briefly considered three of life’s most important questions.  Who is God is answered by the episode recorded in John where Lazarus is raised from the dead.  God is Creator Who is actively involved in the life of His Creation.  He possesses the power of life and death. 

The fact that Jesus cried over Lazarus and raised him from the dead shows that God cares about His Creation.  After all, God made man in His own image (Gen 1:27).  This helps provide an answer to the question Who am I.  That answer is found in the third question, Is there life after death.  Jesus answered this in the affirmative by demonstrating that He is the resurrection and the life.  The answer to this question, therefore, depends upon one’s position in Christ.

Applying the Bible

How do these three questions relate to your life?  Do you believe in Jesus?  Do you trust the Words of Scripture?  Do you do devotions, study the Bible, and pray to God?  Do you make your decisions based upon God’s Word?  Should you be studying What the Bible Teaches?

Teachers: The lesson plan suggests that you allow time for your students to answer and discuss the Applying the Bible questions.  The same is true for the section, Practicing the Bible.  This week, I believe the first question in this fourth section represents the most practical question of this week’s lesson.  How important are the Bible’s answers to life’s most important questions?  I would add a “why” to this question.  Or, perhaps, it should be rephrased.  Why didn’t each of you [the students] answer 5-very important to this question?