Adult Bible Studies Summer 2023 Student

By Betsy Haas

A comprehensive Bible study plan and spiritual practices to deepen your relationship with God

Hundreds of thousands of people each week have transformative encounters with God through Adult Bible Studies—Bible-based, Christ-focused Sunday school lessons and midweek Bible studies endorsed by the Curriculum Resources Committee of The United Methodist Church.

Each week’s Student Book lesson lists background Scripture, features key verses, provides reliable and relevant biblical explanation and application, and more in a readable font size that is accessible to everyone. Included to help students go deeper into the lessons are :
-A comprehensive Bible study plan with more flexibility in terms of Scripture selection and topics
-Observation of the church seasons, including Advent and Lent
-Suggestions for developing spiritual practices (prayer, confession, worship, mindfulness, solitude, -community, hospitality, neighboring, service, and celebration)
-No printed Scripture text allows you to choose your own Bible translation

Additional information about Adult Bible Studies, Summer 2023
Inspired by God
This summer, our Bible lessons follow the theme “Inspired by God” and help us look at the careful design of Scripture and the art and poetry through which it touches our hearts and minds. They then move into a consideration of one of Scripture’s most practical categories, wisdom literature, followed by a look at some of Scripture’s heroes, who might surprise us. The writer of the student book is Betsy Haas; the teacher book writer is Stan Purdum.

The Rich Literature of the Bible
The lessons in this unit look at some of the different kinds of writings we find in Scripture and how God speaks to us through writings such as the Law, the prophets, visions, and the psalms. They invite us to dwell within Scripture’s reality rather than a reality of our own construction.
Scriptures: Deuteronomy 28:1-2, 14 | Matthew 5:17-20 | Malachi 2:1-4 | Ezekiel 37:1-10 | Ephesians 2:4-7 | Psalms 51 | Colossians 3:16-17
Spiritual Practice: Study

Wisdom
Living with wisdom affects how we think, speak, act/behave, relate to God, and relate to others. What constitutes wisdom according to the Bible is not conventional wisdom about how to stay safe and healthy or how to prosper in life. Conventional wisdom tells us not to give aid or comfort to an enemy, whereas biblical wisdom teaches us the opposite. Conventional wisdom tells us to store up our grain in barns for tomorrow, whereas biblical wisdom encourages us to share what we have with those whose need is for today.
Scriptures: James 1:2-8 | James 3:1-12 | James 3:13-18| 1 Corinthians 1:10-25 | Ecclesiasters 3:1-8
Spiritual Practice: Guidance | Spiritual Direction

Heroes and Anti-Heroes
The men and women of the Bible who “save the day” are not the typical heroes of Western mythology. They do not have superhuman powers; they are not mighty warriors; they are not descended from the gods. They are ordinary men and women who use their status and situation to serve God’s purpose or people in need. The people who tradition prefers to make into heroes of kings and warriors frequently disappoint us by using their power to serve themselves.
Scriptures: Joshua 2:1-14 | Kings 11:1-13 | Mark 7:24-30 | John 13:21-30
Spiritual Practice: Forgiveness

Other Adult Bible Study components, sold separately, include:
Teacher/Commentary Kit
The Kit includes a Teacher Book and a Concise Commentary that are both supplementary and complementary to the Adult Bible Studies student book

The Teacher Book provides small-group leaders, teachers, and facilitators with additional biblical background and exposition, and suggestions for guiding group discussion. Printed with a larger font for ease of reading. Included to help leaders prepare and lead each week:
As a comprehensive B

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cokesbury
• Release date: Apr 11, 2023
• ISBN: 9781791020590

Book preview

Unit 1

The Rich Literature of the Bible

Can you imagine what the Bible would be like if it had all been written as poetry or history or if each of the 66 books had been letters? Fortunately, we enjoy the rich diversity of many different genres of literature in the Bible. When we experience the directness of law, the beauty of song, the strangeness of apocalyptic visions, and the intimacy of personal letters all in one canon, our hearts and our minds are electrified on multiple levels of inspiration.

In this unit of lessons, we will explore what God is saying to us through the Law, the prophets, visions, and psalms. As we move through these next 13 weeks, think about what God reveals to you through these various styles of writing.

Why did God send the Law to the people of the Exodus, and how does that apply to us today? How do the prophets call every reader in every century back into a covenant relationship with God, pointing us toward justice and peace? As we read the dreams and illusions of the vision passages, can we see the veil around God lifting and thus be encouraged to commit to living according to God’s reality? And how do the psalms resonate with their harmonies of faith language in the face of things that challenge us?

All of Scripture follows a careful design that is intended not simply to inform us, but more importantly to transform us. Through the spiritual practice of study, we will discover how Scripture can change our hearts, minds, and lives. The more we open ourselves to this process, the more the Holy Spirit will work within us. Together, we join the psalmist in saying, Create a clean heart for me, God; put a new, faithful spirit deep inside me! (Psalm 51:10).

June 4

Lesson 1

Stay in Your Lane

Focal Passages: Deuteronomy 28:1-2, 14; Matthew 5:17-20

Background Texts: Deuteronomy 28:1-68; Matthew 5:17-26

Purpose Statement: To consider how covenantal law should function in Christian life in the twenty-first century

Deuteronomy 28:1-2, 14

¹Now if you really obey the Lord your God’s voice, by carefully keeping all his commandments that I am giving you right now, then the Lord your God will set you high above all nations on earth. ²All these blessings will come upon you and find you if you obey the Lord your God’s voice. ¹⁴Don’t deviate even a bit from any of these words that I’m commanding you right now by following other gods and serving them.

Matthew 5:17-20

¹⁷"Don’t even begin to think that I have come to do away with the Law and the Prophets. I haven’t come to do away with them but to fulfill them. ¹⁸I say to you very seriously that as long as heaven and earth exist, neither the smallest letter nor even the smallest stroke of a pen will be erased from the Law until everything there becomes a reality. ¹⁹Therefore, whoever ignores one of the least of these commands and teaches others to do the same will be called the lowest in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever keeps these commands and teaches people to keep them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. ²⁰I say to you that unless your righteousness is greater than the righteousness of the legal experts and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Key Verse: Don’t deviate even a bit from any of these words that I’m commanding you right now by following other gods and serving them (Deuteronomy 28:14).

I confess that I get annoyed when I am driving and have to deviate from my normal route. Last summer, the tiny, twisting, three-mile road that connects my neighborhood to the main bypass was under construction.

New utility poles were being erected, and we spent several weeks stopping and starting as we had to share one narrow lane for all the incoming and outgoing traffic to the island where I live. Even more confusing was the closure of the two turn lanes from the bypass onto this road. Am I allowed to turn right from the far-left lane? Or do I have to go through the intersection, turn right on the next road, and then backtrack? I just wanted to get home!

God understands that people need straightforward directions to follow, so God gave a list of ten direct commandments to Moses to convey to the people. These were intended to keep God’s people on the straight and narrow. If you can manage to stay in the lanes of these laws, God essentially said, Your life will be blessed. You will be keeping your part of the covenantal relationship that gives God the authority to be God, while you acknowledge that you are not God. Pretty simple, right?

The Encyclopedia of the Bible explains it this way: The Ten Commandments can be seen only, like the rest of the law, against the background of the Covenant; this in turn rests on the salvation-history of the Exodus. Other codes within the law are basically an expansion and application of these principles to various facets of life, rather as the NT epistles apply the truth of the Gospel. Thus the Commandments become the root of all subsequent Israelite morality as well as of religion.¹

But as the hymn writer says in Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, we are prone to wander and prone to leave the God we love. We deviate from all the good things that God has prepared for us every time we chase after temptations and thrills that are unholy and unsafe. We replace God with the gods of distraction, self-interest, pleasure, and lust. But as the key verse for this lesson says, Don’t deviate even a bit! (Deuteronomy 28:14). Could Moses have been any more straightforward than that?

To put this into context, this marked the third time that Moses had to address the people about their behavior. This took place in Moab, and his speech followed the standard Near Eastern treaty pattern between two parties. He outlined the blessings that would come if they obeyed and the curses that will follow if they don’t. The first time he addressed this was when God gave the Law at Mount Sinai (Exodus 23:20-33).

The second time was when the people rebelled against the covenant and Moses warned them of a divine judgment if they did not change their ways (Leviticus 26). And now he had to address them once again with warnings about following and serving other gods instead of the Lord.

While the Israelites struggled with the wood, stone, and metal-cast gods of the people around them, we struggle with different gods of our own making. The list is endless, and the truth is that anything that we make a priority over our relationship with God can become our god.

Social media and other internet options; sports, exercise, and fitness; wealth, material accumulation, and greed; relationships with family members and friends; career advancement; hobbies and leisure-time pursuits; community volunteer work—all can harm our relationship with God. These deviations make us skid into ditches and lead us down roads that are harmful and wrong.

Where is God calling you to align yourself once again with the heart of the covenant? Deviating from God’s Word will cause us to lose our way. How can we turn around when that happens?

Driving School

What did Jesus have to say about the Law? This passage in Matthew 5 comes from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, which John Wesley called the sum of all true religion.

Large crowds had been following Jesus, and he led them to a mountainside where he sat down to teach. In what we now call the Beatitudes, Jesus identified those who are blessed: the hopeless; those who grieve; the humble; those who hunger and thirst after righteousness; the merciful; those with pure hearts; those who are harassed because they are righteous (Matthew 5:3-12). No one expected Jesus to say these things. They represented a complete upheaval of the culture’s values and virtues and what constitutes devotion to God.

Then Jesus abruptly shifted gears and stated, Don’t even think that I have come to do away with the Law and the Prophets. I haven’t come to do away with them but to fulfill them (verse 17). Jesus’ statement was intended to combat the rumor that he had come to abolish the Law. For example, over time, Jewish religious leaders began to interpret the Law, Remember the Sabbath day and treat it as holy (Exodus 20:8), to say that work on the sabbath was prohibited. Then they strictly defined work. The Law under the Pharisees had become punitive and was eventually filled with the minutiae of 613 additional regulations.

Over the course of his ministry, Jesus regularly challenged their interpretations of the Law and these additions to the Law, so the Pharisees and other religious leaders constantly watched him closely. When on the sabbath he healed a man, Jesus asked the lawyers and Pharisees, ‘Does the Law allow healing on the Sabbath or not?’ But they said nothing. Then he said, Suppose your child or ox fell into a ditch on the Sabbath day. Wouldn’t you immediately pull it out?