Foundations

A while back I said I would post my weekly Sunday school lesson as a means of sharing with you some of my thoughts on our relationship with God. I haven't done so for a while because I was away and then -- well look at the last 2 posts -- if you don't know my excuses for being delinquent with this.

In my September 28 posting titled “Heritage” (click HERE and scroll down a little bit ) I included the "Introduction" to a series of lessons I’m (currently) calling “Foundations of Faith".

In that class (held September 23) I asked “What questions would you want to ask someone to establish where they were in their relationship with God?” .

To-day I present the answers given by this group of long-time Christians --

1. Who is Jesus? And what do you think about him? (we digressed to remind ourselves that, based on what Jesus said & did in the gospels we must conclude he is either who he says he was (Lord) or he was out of touch with reality (a lunatic) or he was simply trying to deceive (a liar). No other logically consistent possibility exists)
2. Do you believe in God?
3. Do you believe in the Bible?
4. Have you read the Bible and when?
5. Do you believe in an afterlife? (Is this all there is - we die and that’s the end or ??
6. Do you believe in good & evil?
7. Is the Bible important to how you live?
8. Do you believe in prayer?
9. If the answer to 2, 3, 5, 6 or 8 is no – Why don’t you believe?
10. What do you think will be the consequences of the way you live and what you believe? (or are there any consequences?)
11. Do you understand the covenants? (some thought this was too advanced for an initial conversation)

Note: There is no "ordering" of which questions to ask 1st, 2nd, 3rd and so on and I'm not sure that any such order exists? - Beliefs are a complex set of interelated thoughts -- not a "recipe" that has "steps 1 through n"

These are good questions -- and I think if we got through a session where we just listened to the answers and understood what was being said -- we would have a good idea of where we would want to start in terms of the “gaps” between their beliefs and yours (or maybe more precisely) what you understand the Bible to be saying about these things.

Next lesson, I will ask a different question --

“What are the things you would say to someone that covers -- as briefly as possible --what you believe is sufficient for you to have confidence that you have and maintain a “saving” relationship with God?


God Bless
Charlie