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Pray for Yourself
Heavenly Father, I come to you humbly asking for Your grace and mercy so that I can be the Sunday school teacher You want me to be.
I need Your wisdom. Help me to understand what You are teaching us in Your Word. Help me to know how to relate it to the life experiences of my students. Help me to share Your Truth in a way that is real and practical to their lives. Holy Spirit, work through the lesson and the words that I say to encourage, challenge, and convict.
Father, I need Your strength. Help me to immerse myself in Your Word so that I do not become spiritually empty and dry. Fill me with a hunger and passion for Your Truth. Make the Bible come alive to me in fresh new ways each time I read it. Help me to express that love to my students in a way that creates in them a fresh desire for Your Word.
Thank you for Your loving care. I pray this in Jesus’ name, Amen.
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Justified by Faith
Lesson 2 - December 11, 2016
Focus Text: Romans 3:9-26
Central Truth: Salvation only comes by faith in Christ's atoning sacrifice.
Objective: By the end of this lesson my students should be able to explain in simple terms how a person may be saved.
Lesson Outline:
- The Sinner's Condition (Romans 3:9-12)
- The Sinner's Character (Romans 3:13-20)
- The Sinner's Cure (Romans 3:21-26)
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Introduction
During this Sunday School quarter, “Tips for Teachers” will have a different focus. If asked, we would probably all agree that prayer is essential, not just for every Christian, church, and Sunday school class, but also in the preparation of Sunday school lessons, etc.
The problem often is implementation. We say we believe in prayer and we know we should pray, but we don’t actually take time to do it. In an attempt to encourage his own prayer life, this writer has found it helpful to use a book of prayers as a prayer starter each day.
With that idea in mind, the “Tips for Teachers” in Lessons 2–12 of this quarter will be written as prayers that you could pray each day of the week for each particular lesson, or you could choose of these prayers, one or more to pray for each day of the week.
Heavenly Father, we pray for each teacher reading this text right now. Encourage them in their faith. Bless them in their teaching ministry. Help them to reflect You in everything they do, say, and think, so their students may find in them Christian role models to imitate, and thus grow in their faith. Amen.
Order your copy of Studies in Romans: Adult Teacher's Insights today!
The Depravity of Mankind
Lesson 1 - December 4, 2016
Focus Text: Romans 1:18-32
Central Truth: Mankind's sin results in an ever-deepening cycle of depravity and despair.
Objective: By the end of this lesson my students should be able to identify the characteristics of a sinful person.
Lesson Outline:
- The Wrath of God (Romans 1:18-23)
- The Wrong of Man (Romans 1:24-28)
- The Wickedness of Sin (Romans 1:29-32)
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Prayer – Lesson 13, Praising the Living God
Heavenly Father, help us to worship You with our lives. May You be pleased with every expression of praise, we pray. Amen.
Perfect Worship?
In "God's Word for Today" David Woods writes:
Psalm 145 is the last Psalm in the Psalter that cites David as its author. It is a praise Psalm, and is noted for being an acrostic. Each verse in this Psalm begins with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet. There is a problem with this, however. The Hebrew alphabet has twenty-two letters; this Psalm is comprised of only twenty-one verses. This Psalm is missing a verse beginning with the Hebrew letter nun. Interestingly, the Jewish transla-tors of the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament that Jesus and many of the New Testament writers quoted, added a verse to make up the missing nun. While well-intentioned, this probably should not have been done. (The KJV does not include this verse, but some newer translations do [verse 13b], with a marginal note. The English Standard Version renders this verse as: “[The Lord is faithful in all his words and kind in all his works],” but notes that these two lines are only in one Hebrew manuscript, the Septuagint, and the Syriac.) Commentators suggest the absence of one letter of the alphabet in this acrostic Psalm does not indicate a problem with God's Word, but rather was intentional. J. Vernon McGee writes: “From Psalm 145 to 150 we find that every one of them is a hallelujah Psalm. It is an increasing crescendo. Why would one verse be left out of Psalm 145? I think it speaks of the fact that our praise is imperfect.”
Source: Studies in the Psalms: Adult Teacher's Insights, page 77.