Patterns of Discipleship . . .OR . . . Being Seen and Seeing Differently

Sabbath School Class—A Life of Discovery
March 29, 2008
Larry R Evans

Class notes will be posted on Friday


Quiz for Reflection

1. Christ’s compassion knew no bounds. [Mt 14:14; 6:34; Lk 7:13] True or False?

2. The heart full of compassion forgives. [Eph 4:32] True or False?

3. Christ reversed the culture of His day by marginalizing the rich rather than the poor. [Lk 16:19-31; 18:9] True or False?

4. It is wrong to have national pride? [Acts 17:26] True or False?

5. Despite the gifts of the Holy Spirit, training for works of service is still needed. [Eph 4:11-13] True or False?

6. The closer one comes to God the less time one needs to spend in “formal” prayer. [Lk 5:15,16; 6:12,13] True or False?

7. Disciple-making impacts more than beliefs and behavior. [Jn 5:39-42; 12:1-7; 4:27-30] True or False? (If this is true then what else could it be?)

Reflective Review

A whole quarter about discipleship! What should we remember? What should we do? What should we be like? Who called us? How shall we respond? Does our response have any impact on others? Does our discipleship bring us hope or do we sense, first of all, a burden of responsibility? Do others have more hope or less hope because of our discipleship? Who is Jesus?

“’Don’t the Bible say we must love everybody?’

‘O, the Bible! To be sure, it says a great many things; but, then, nobody ever thinks of doing them’” – Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

A theologian, Helmut Thielicke, wrote:

“Jesus gained the power to love harlots, bullies, and ruffians . . . he was able to do this only because he saw through the filth and crust of degeneration because his eye caught the divine original which is hidden in every way—in every man!. . . First and foremost he gives us new eyes . . .

When Jesus loved a guilt-laden person and helped him, he saw in him an erring child of God. He ssaw in him a human being whom his Father loved and grieved over because he was going wrong. He saw him as God originally designed and meant him to be, and therefore he saw through the surface layer of grime and dirt to the real man underneath. Jesus did not identify the person with his sin, but rather saw in this sin something alien, something that really did not belong to him, something that merely chained and mastered him and from which he would free him and bring himback to his real self. Jesus was able to love men because he loved them right through the layer of mud.” – Quoted in What’s So Amazing About Grace? by Philip Yancey, p.175.

Discipleship! Perhaps one summary of what we have studied this quarter is our response to being seen differently by Christ in a better light than we deserve and seeing others in the same way.


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