Notes from 5/30/2012

Hi Everyone,

My apologies for the delay in the post.  Without further ado, here are the notes from Wednesday along with the homework.  (Oh, and I blatantly used notes from House Church for this lesson.  Thanks, Ryan for doing all of my work this week.)

We are in the book of Romans, chapter 4.  The night's discussion was "The Example of Abraham."  We had a quick discussion about Abraham, and who he was, and when he lived, before we went into Romans.  Here are the notes on that section.

Abraham is held in high regard by Jews and Christians.  He is first mentioned in Genesis.  Abraham was the first real patriarch/leader in Genesis.  Abraham lived before Moses, and therefore, he lived before the Ten Commandments.

With that background in mind, we read Romans 4:1-8.  After reading that section, here are the questions I asked the Youth Group.

Q: How was Abraham justified to God?  If Abraham lived before the arrival of the Ten Commandments, how can Abraham be justified?
A: Abraham was not justified by works.  By believing in God and having faith in God's promise to him, Abraham was justified.

Q: What does justification mean?
A: To be blameless, absolved of guilt, in God's eyes

Q: Who did the work in justifying Abraham?
A: God.  It is important to remember that no amount of "Good" works by humans can ever come close to erasing our sins. It is only by faith that we can be saved.  Abraham had faith in God's promise to him, but it was God that did all of the work.

Q: How did Abraham demonstrate his faith? (read Genesis 15: 1-6)(note: at this point, Abraham was still called Abram.)
A: Abraham believed God.  Even though Abraham did not have a son at this point, when God said that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars, Abraham still believed.

We had lots of good side discussions based upon these questions.  It is really amazing to see the Youth Group engage with the word like this.

HOMEWORK!!!!!
That's right.  I assigned homework.  This is a little bit of a trivia hunt.  There are multiple parts to this assignment, but it's not all that long.  It took me about 30 minutes to complete it.  Here is homework:

Jesus Christ talks about all Ten Commandments during his ministry.  He validates 9 out of the 10.  Your homework has multiple parts.  First, what are the Ten Commandments?  Second, what commandment does Jesus not validate, and where?  Lastly, where does Jesus validate the remaining nine commandments?

I did receive some questions on this assignment.  For clarification, the Ten Commandments are located in Exodus 20.  Also, I am referring to the four Gospels as the ministry of Jesus.  Lastly, Jesus specifically says the commandment in some form.  For example, if someone asked Jesus if they should not steal, and Jesus said "yes," and nothing else, then that does NOT count.  Keep searching.

I did make a promise that next time I came to Youth Group on June 13, I would have Marshmallow shooters for the Youth Group members that correctly answer the questions.  (One girl is the exception.  She requested $1.00 lip gloss instead).  Good Luck!

-Michael

"Other than the name of a tank, who was Abram?"
-me, asking the Youth Group