Weekly summary
Dear Truthseekers,
On April 21st, we discussed the sometimes challenging idea that Jesus is the only way to realize an eternal relationship with God. What about others who are devout followers of other religions? What about people who lived before Jesus? What about primitive man or people in cultures that are isolated (we talked about the super-remote Sentinelese people in the Indian Ocean)?
Many people today, especially in western culture, believe that it is ignorant or arrogant to think that only one form of religion is right and the others are misguided or wrong. They believe this way of thinking is simply a reflection of what our family or larger society believes…an indication that it is therefore wrong. We observed that these kinds of criticisms are not truly logical and are subject to the same flaws. The view that all religions lead to God (religious pluralism) is a belief that presumes that it is the correct way, and the other individual religions misguided or wrong. Ironically, religious pluralism itself is a culturally-dependent belief, primarily found in western culture.
But if Jesus is the only way to God, what does this say about the nature of God and his love for us? Unlike some monotheistic religions, Christians believe God loves all people and wants them all to be saved (John 3.16, 1Timothy 2:4, 2 Peter 3:9). We watched a video that addresses how we can reconcile what the Bible says about Jesus and what we know about the nature of God and his intent for people.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRyq6RwzlEM
Building on this we talked what this means for people who never heard about Jesus.
We finished discussing the possibilities of how we can understand the sentiment behind John 14.16 - Jesus saying “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me.” Some believe this, viewing it strictly through a human view of time (e.g., no one living before Jesus could be saved) and exposure to Christian teaching in this lifetime (e.g., if someone had never had a chance to learn about Jesus, they couldn’t be saved). Others believe it, but believe it doesn’t exclude the possibility that other religious teaching could also bring salvation apart from Jesus. And another group believes that Jesus is the only way to an eternal relationship with God but believe that could include those who preceded Jesus as well as others who have never heard of Jesus in this lifetime. We watched another short video that supported this perspective as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HORwhXSgelQ
Next week, we will discuss whether Jews, Muslims and Christians (and the gods of other religions) all worship the same God.
At the very end of class, someone asked the question: Are there colors we can’t see? Yes, there are! We discussed the fact that humans have 3 visual cones (red, green & blue) which allow for us to see 1 million color combinations, but birds and bees see things that we can’t. Bees have 3 cones like we do, but instead of a red cone, they have an ultraviolet cone, and birds have 4 cones – red, green, blue, and ultraviolet, which allow them to see 100 million color combinations! I promised to add a few videos that illustrate this concept to our weekly summary.
What bees see:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ8GRJp8bVg
What birds see:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pw3L-m55Orw
Have a great week,
Mike & Gina
Past letters from Gina & Mike:
On April 14, we continued our discussion about Jesus and tried to address the question “if God is all-powerful, why did Jesus have to be crucified? Couldn’t he have just forgiven everyone without sacrificing his son?”
We talked about the nature of sacrifice and forgiveness, covering some notable examples of forgiveness, including Corrie ten Boom.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WI3torV5BdE
We then reviewed the idea of atonement to try to connect God’s desire to have a relationship with us, reconciling our separation from him caused by our sin. It is a difficult concept, but this Bible Project video does a good job explaining.
https://bibleproject.com/explore/video/sacrifice-and-atonement/?utm_source=web_social_share&medium=shared_video
Next week we will discuss the question “how can Christianity be the only way to eternal life” and “what does that mean for Muslims, Jews, Buddhists and other faithful followers of religions?”
Have a great week!
Mike & Gina
On March 24th, we shifted our study to the historical Jesus. Most serious historians agree that Jesus was a real person who lived in 1st century Judea, whose life and teachings are the basis for the Christian faith and even that he was crucified under the decree of Pontius Pilate. We covered what we know about Jesus and where there are undisputed facts about his life, ministry and death and we discussed how Christians view Jesus as the fulfillment of the prophesies of a Messiah in the Old Testament. We watched a video which highlights that Jesus was a different kind of king than many expected and the salvation he was offering was universal and eternal.
Next week is Easter so we will not have Sunday School. When we return our next “big question” will be “did Jesus really rise from the dead?”
Finally, our class enjoyed a notable (if not profound) milestone, completely finishing our donut supply!
Have a blessed Holy Week!
Mike & Gina
On March 3rd, we continued to explore who God is. God describes himself in Exodus 34:6 - The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in loyal love and faithfulness. We reviewed God’s compassion and continued by learning more about his loyal love, or Khesed. To better understand this word and a concept that is unique to the Hebrew language, we watched a video, then listed other character traits of God that we learn about in the Bible and in creation around us.
While this isn’t an exhaustive list and some of the character traits overlap, it gives us a good start at understanding who God is. But is the God of the Old Testament the same as the God of the New Testament? (Spoiler alert – we believe he is!) We started to explore this question as we reviewed the teachings and actions of Jesus compared with the OT experiences the Israelites had with God (i.e., burning bush, Ark of the Covenant, Passover, pillar of smoke/fire in the wilderness, etc.). Next week we will continue to discuss this question as we look at the ways God interacted with other nations in the Old Testament.
Have a great week! See you on March 17th after spring break.
Mike & Gina
On Sunday, Feb. 25, we finished our discussion on how a good and all-powerful God could create a world that is now filled with pain and evil. God made us to have a relationship with him, yet he gave us free will, and people separate themselves from him through sin. We also discussed how God doesn’t cause bad things to happen to us when we are facing difficult times, he can make good come out of pain and suffering.
“God loves human beings. God loves the world. Not an ideal human, but humans as they are. Not an ideal world, but the real world. What we shrink back from with pain and hostility, this is for God, the ground of unfathomable love.” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer
We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. - Romans 8:28
We continued by exploring the nature of God. We took a stab at making a list of God’s attributes, then explored what the Bible says about God, starting with a verse from Exodus 34:6:
“The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.”
We finished the session watching a video on the first adjective from this verse, God’s compassion.
Next week we will finish our discussion on the nature of God, compare the OT and NT God, and the concern some people raise with the “genocides” represented in the OT.
Have a great week,
Mike & Gina
On Sunday, Feb. 18, we recapped the five arguments for the existence of God that we’ve been discussing this semester:
• Best explanation for why anything exists
• Best explanation for the beginning of the universe.
• The universe shows considerable evidence of design.
• God is the best explanation of objective morality.
• God can be personally known and experienced.
We reviewed last week’s argument, focusing on the idea espoused by St. Augustine, Pascal & many other Christians, of the existence of a “God-shaped hole” in each one of us that only Christ/God can fill. C.S. Lewis conveyed a similar idea, “If I find myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”
At the end of last week’s class, the students voted on the “big questions about God” that they’d most like to cover for the rest of the school year, and this week we started with the first question on the list: “How can a good God allow pain and evil in the world?”
The problem of reconciling how a good and all-powerful God can allow a world filled with pain and evil has been debated for centuries. We began the discussion by looking at the logical soundness of this idea, aided by a video. Even most atheists acknowledge that it is possible that a good and all-powerful God could have reasons for allowing pain/evil.
We reviewed analogies to try to illustrate that humans have limited perspective and understanding compared to an all-powerful God. For perspective, we looked at how small the Earth is in our solar system (over one million Earths could fit into our sun, and there are 10,000 stars for every grain of sand on the Earth)…it is possible that the creator of a universe as expansive as this could have intelligence and a view of goodness and time that we couldn’t fathom. If that’s true, it is also possible that things we think are bad, could actually be good for us…particularly in supporting an eternal relationship with God. For example, a dog owner won’t allow a puppy to eat chocolate or run unfettered off leash even though the puppy might think eating the chocolate or running unfettered would be good and being restricted with its food or its movement bad. We as owners know that these restrictions are really in the dog’s best interest. Similarly, while we don’t believe God has created evil or bad situations, we also showed how God’s plans can come from painful or even evil situations (e.g., the suffering/imprisonment of Christian martyrs such as the Apostle Paul and Dietrich Bonhoeffer).
Next week, we will finish discussing this topic and begin to explore the question: “What is God really like?”
Have a great week,
Mike & Gina
Many people today, especially in western culture, believe that it is ignorant or arrogant to think that only one form of religion is right and the others are misguided or wrong. They believe this way of thinking is simply a reflection of what our family or larger society believes…an indication that it is therefore wrong. We observed that these kinds of criticisms are not truly logical and are subject to the same flaws. The view that all religions lead to God (religious pluralism) is a belief that presumes that it is the correct way, and the other individual religions misguided or wrong. Ironically, religious pluralism itself is a culturally-dependent belief, primarily found in western culture.
But if Jesus is the only way to God, what does this say about the nature of God and his love for us? Unlike some monotheistic religions, Christians believe God loves all people and wants them all to be saved (John 3.16, 1Timothy 2:4, 2 Peter 3:9). We watched a video that addresses how we can reconcile what the Bible says about Jesus and what we know about the nature of God and his intent for people.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRyq6RwzlEM
Building on this we talked what this means for people who never heard about Jesus.
We finished discussing the possibilities of how we can understand the sentiment behind John 14.16 - Jesus saying “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me.” Some believe this, viewing it strictly through a human view of time (e.g., no one living before Jesus could be saved) and exposure to Christian teaching in this lifetime (e.g., if someone had never had a chance to learn about Jesus, they couldn’t be saved). Others believe it, but believe it doesn’t exclude the possibility that other religious teaching could also bring salvation apart from Jesus. And another group believes that Jesus is the only way to an eternal relationship with God but believe that could include those who preceded Jesus as well as others who have never heard of Jesus in this lifetime. We watched another short video that supported this perspective as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HORwhXSgelQ
Next week, we will discuss whether Jews, Muslims and Christians (and the gods of other religions) all worship the same God.
At the very end of class, someone asked the question: Are there colors we can’t see? Yes, there are! We discussed the fact that humans have 3 visual cones (red, green & blue) which allow for us to see 1 million color combinations, but birds and bees see things that we can’t. Bees have 3 cones like we do, but instead of a red cone, they have an ultraviolet cone, and birds have 4 cones – red, green, blue, and ultraviolet, which allow them to see 100 million color combinations! I promised to add a few videos that illustrate this concept to our weekly summary.
What bees see:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ8GRJp8bVg
What birds see:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pw3L-m55Orw
Have a great week,
Mike & Gina
Past letters from Gina & Mike:
On April 14, we continued our discussion about Jesus and tried to address the question “if God is all-powerful, why did Jesus have to be crucified? Couldn’t he have just forgiven everyone without sacrificing his son?”
We talked about the nature of sacrifice and forgiveness, covering some notable examples of forgiveness, including Corrie ten Boom.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WI3torV5BdE
We then reviewed the idea of atonement to try to connect God’s desire to have a relationship with us, reconciling our separation from him caused by our sin. It is a difficult concept, but this Bible Project video does a good job explaining.
https://bibleproject.com/explore/video/sacrifice-and-atonement/?utm_source=web_social_share&medium=shared_video
Next week we will discuss the question “how can Christianity be the only way to eternal life” and “what does that mean for Muslims, Jews, Buddhists and other faithful followers of religions?”
Have a great week!
Mike & Gina
On March 24th, we shifted our study to the historical Jesus. Most serious historians agree that Jesus was a real person who lived in 1st century Judea, whose life and teachings are the basis for the Christian faith and even that he was crucified under the decree of Pontius Pilate. We covered what we know about Jesus and where there are undisputed facts about his life, ministry and death and we discussed how Christians view Jesus as the fulfillment of the prophesies of a Messiah in the Old Testament. We watched a video which highlights that Jesus was a different kind of king than many expected and the salvation he was offering was universal and eternal.
Next week is Easter so we will not have Sunday School. When we return our next “big question” will be “did Jesus really rise from the dead?”
Finally, our class enjoyed a notable (if not profound) milestone, completely finishing our donut supply!
Have a blessed Holy Week!
Mike & Gina
On March 3rd, we continued to explore who God is. God describes himself in Exodus 34:6 - The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in loyal love and faithfulness. We reviewed God’s compassion and continued by learning more about his loyal love, or Khesed. To better understand this word and a concept that is unique to the Hebrew language, we watched a video, then listed other character traits of God that we learn about in the Bible and in creation around us.
While this isn’t an exhaustive list and some of the character traits overlap, it gives us a good start at understanding who God is. But is the God of the Old Testament the same as the God of the New Testament? (Spoiler alert – we believe he is!) We started to explore this question as we reviewed the teachings and actions of Jesus compared with the OT experiences the Israelites had with God (i.e., burning bush, Ark of the Covenant, Passover, pillar of smoke/fire in the wilderness, etc.). Next week we will continue to discuss this question as we look at the ways God interacted with other nations in the Old Testament.
Have a great week! See you on March 17th after spring break.
Mike & Gina
On Sunday, Feb. 25, we finished our discussion on how a good and all-powerful God could create a world that is now filled with pain and evil. God made us to have a relationship with him, yet he gave us free will, and people separate themselves from him through sin. We also discussed how God doesn’t cause bad things to happen to us when we are facing difficult times, he can make good come out of pain and suffering.
“God loves human beings. God loves the world. Not an ideal human, but humans as they are. Not an ideal world, but the real world. What we shrink back from with pain and hostility, this is for God, the ground of unfathomable love.” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer
We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. - Romans 8:28
We continued by exploring the nature of God. We took a stab at making a list of God’s attributes, then explored what the Bible says about God, starting with a verse from Exodus 34:6:
“The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.”
We finished the session watching a video on the first adjective from this verse, God’s compassion.
Next week we will finish our discussion on the nature of God, compare the OT and NT God, and the concern some people raise with the “genocides” represented in the OT.
Have a great week,
Mike & Gina
On Sunday, Feb. 18, we recapped the five arguments for the existence of God that we’ve been discussing this semester:
• Best explanation for why anything exists
• Best explanation for the beginning of the universe.
• The universe shows considerable evidence of design.
• God is the best explanation of objective morality.
• God can be personally known and experienced.
We reviewed last week’s argument, focusing on the idea espoused by St. Augustine, Pascal & many other Christians, of the existence of a “God-shaped hole” in each one of us that only Christ/God can fill. C.S. Lewis conveyed a similar idea, “If I find myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”
At the end of last week’s class, the students voted on the “big questions about God” that they’d most like to cover for the rest of the school year, and this week we started with the first question on the list: “How can a good God allow pain and evil in the world?”
The problem of reconciling how a good and all-powerful God can allow a world filled with pain and evil has been debated for centuries. We began the discussion by looking at the logical soundness of this idea, aided by a video. Even most atheists acknowledge that it is possible that a good and all-powerful God could have reasons for allowing pain/evil.
We reviewed analogies to try to illustrate that humans have limited perspective and understanding compared to an all-powerful God. For perspective, we looked at how small the Earth is in our solar system (over one million Earths could fit into our sun, and there are 10,000 stars for every grain of sand on the Earth)…it is possible that the creator of a universe as expansive as this could have intelligence and a view of goodness and time that we couldn’t fathom. If that’s true, it is also possible that things we think are bad, could actually be good for us…particularly in supporting an eternal relationship with God. For example, a dog owner won’t allow a puppy to eat chocolate or run unfettered off leash even though the puppy might think eating the chocolate or running unfettered would be good and being restricted with its food or its movement bad. We as owners know that these restrictions are really in the dog’s best interest. Similarly, while we don’t believe God has created evil or bad situations, we also showed how God’s plans can come from painful or even evil situations (e.g., the suffering/imprisonment of Christian martyrs such as the Apostle Paul and Dietrich Bonhoeffer).
Next week, we will finish discussing this topic and begin to explore the question: “What is God really like?”
Have a great week,
Mike & Gina
St. Thomas Episcopal Church
1200 Snell Isle Blvd NE St. Petersburg, FL 33704 727-896-9641 graces@stthomasstpete.org Sunday Worship Schedule 8:00am - Spoken Holy Eucharist, Rite II 10:00am - Choral Holy Eucharist, Rite II |