Gideon

Adult Sunday School Part 9:  Gideon 

How do you go from rejection, bitterness, accusations and humiliation to arrogant and steadfast faith? How can any man go from the one extreme to the other? 

Just ask Gideon. 

For me he is an example of what can be done if you are touched by God - more than once. Many of us are touched by God and it stays a touch - and even soon disappears.

The Lamb of God

Adult Sunday School - Part 15 - Revised for Easter

The story of Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God runs through the whole bible. It is not as if God suddenly realised he made a mistake by making man, and now he has to redeem him. He made plans for the redemption of man when Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. I will therefore talk very little about the manifestation of the Lamb in the New Testament and take the prophecies in the Old Testament to turn your eyes on the Lamb of God.

The Lamb of God

Adult Sunday School - Part 15- The Lamb of God 

The story of Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God runs through the whole Bible. It is not as if God suddenly realised he made a mistake by making man, and now he has to redeem him. He made plans for the redemption of man when Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. I will therefore talk very little about the manifestation of the Lamb in the New Testament and take the prophecies in the Old Testament to turn your eyes on the Lamb of God.

However, we start with the New Testament.

The Last Judgment

Adult Sunday School - Part 14: The Last Judgement

This used to send shivers up my spine, but not anymore - and you can prepare yourself for this to take the sting out of it. But sure as we live, there will be a Final or Last Judgement of the World. It will be like a court case for individuals and nations, and it is easiest to think of it in terms of a court case on earth, as what we have on earth is based on a justice system instituted by God for Israel.

The basis for any such a court case is the presence of a judge (Jesus Christ), an accuser (Satan), an accused (me and you), witnesses (anyone we wish to call), and the Law (Mosaic Law and the Bible). We all know the procedures which will be followed. Satan will bring in an accusation against us, we will plead guilty or not, and if we plead innocence, we will need to defend ourselves with suitably prepared witnesses and arguments in terms of the Law (and the rest of the Bible).

The Rapture and The Bride

Adult Sunday School - Part 13 - The Rapture and The Bride

The rapture refers to a group of Christians, known as the Bride of Christ, leaving the earth, in their transformed, bodies, whilst alive, to go to Heaven, in order to  be the bride at the Marriage of the Lamb.

It is not spelled out in detail in the Bible, but we have quite a few scriptures which hints at it, and there are many stories and prophecies out of which we can learn about it.

Absalom

Adult Sunday School - Part 12 -  Absalom

We looked previously as Joseph as a type for Jesus Christ, and we find the same type of story repeated in another form with another person named Absalom.

It starts strikingly in form of Absalom was the son of David. 2 Sa 13:1  And it came to pass after this, that Absalom the son of David ... Compare this with : Mark 10:48  And many charged him that he should hold his peace: but he cried the more a great deal, Thou Son of David, have mercy on me. So they both were sons of David prophetically speaking.

Let my people go

Adult Sunday School - Part 11 - Let my people go 

by P.K.Odendaal - August 2012

Now that we have learnt what a type is and how one story is mapped to another, we can look at Exodus and Revelation, in which Exodus is mapped to Revelation. Both have the central theme of releasing God's people from bondage into bliss.

To understand this story we must start with what belongs to whom.

God has made the earth and it belonged to Him, but He decided to give dominion over it, without any strings attached, to Adam and Eve, to dress and to keep: Gen 1:26  And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Revenge

Adult Sunday School - Part 9 : Revenge

We have seen that the law had to come, and that minimised but partly legitimised revenge, although it was not meant to. It was meant to give redress only.

But, despite this, mankind persisted in revenge on a grand scale, and we have only to look as Samson to see this. Samson is out type for revenge, because that is more or less what his life consisted of. And the sad part was that he was such a man of God called a Nazarite.

Joseph as a type for (of) Jesus

Adult Sunday School - Part 8 - Joseph as a type for (of) Jesus

- by P.K.Odendaal - August 2012

We find the story of Joseph in Genesis chapters 30 to 50, and nowhere else in the Bible has one man gotten so much coverage as Joseph, except Jesus Christ, and the point is that it is a very important story. Not so important as a story of Joseph, but much more importantly, as a foreshadow of the story of Jesus Christ.

The story of Joseph contains numerous intrigues, prophecies, examples and lessons interspersed with the best mankind has in terms of courage, long-suffering, forgiveness and love - characteristics we find in Jesus Christ himself. So we are not going to read this story as a story of Joseph. We are going to delve deeper into it and regard it as a story of the life and times of Jesus Christ.

Adult Sunday School #6: The Law

The Law 

We find ourselves in the beginning of the world. Adam and Eve, who knew God personally, may have died already. What do we find? Violence, revenge, war, aggression - and people in bondage, even slavery. And this despite God's will that we be kind to each other and enjoy His creation.

How did this transpire then? It is because we could sin with impunity. There was no law. God wanted us to be free and not subject to any laws other than the one forbidding us to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil.

Adult Sunday School - #5:The earth is shaken for a last time

The earth is shaken for a last time.

Whilst we are busy with the destruction of the earth and the subsequent reconstruction and replenishment on many occasions, it will be prudent to take it to its final conclusion. What we know is that in most of these cases only the earth was shaken, but in the end of times, the heaven will be shaken as well as in:

Heb. 12:26  Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.

In previous parts I have already dwelt on the meaning of heaven as referring to the sky. Our conclusion is thus that one many of the occasions when the earth was destroyed it was done from inside itself as a sort of implosion, but in Revelation the skies will also be shaken, meaning that the whole earth will tumble as in:

Isa 24:20  The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage; and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it; and it shall fall, and not rise again.

Adult Sunday School - Part 4: The first sin

The first sin:

And so the world was new again and there was no sin and no law and no evil, only a serious warning by God that they should not eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, because they would then die (spiritually).

Gen 2:17  But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

It is clear from this that when there is no law and no knowledge of evil then there cannot be any sin. This verse says that once you know what is good and evil, then you will know what is sin and then you will die of your sin.

Regeneration and Replenishment of Earth

Adult Sunday School - Part 3 - Regeneration and Replenishment of Earth

And so we come to Genesis 1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

We have seen in the previous part how the earth was laid waste, being void, and without form and without light. It was time for God to remake the vessel :

Jer. 18:4 And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make.

If we read this story as the story of creation, we will see many anomalies and discrepancies. If we read it as the regeneration of earth, we will find it interesting. If we read between the lines or on a deeper level, we will find it vital and exciting - and I will try to bring all three to you.

Disaster strikes

Adult Sunday School – Part 2 – Disaster strikes

We have seen that God has created the heavens and earth in Genesis 1:1 - and all was well.

But then, sin was found on earth ... and God destroyed almost everything on earth, with only a few souls remaining. Scripture says He shook the earth.

The aftermath of this tragedy is described in Genesis 1 verse 2 : And the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. In Hebrew the word ‘hayah’ is used which means ‘it became’ and not as translated ‘it was’.

In the Beginning

Sunday School for Adults – Part 1:  In the beginning

The story of creation is very much misunderstood and abused and derided by atheists and agnostics, because they, and many of us think that it is narrated in the first book of Genesis.

However, if you read that carefully, you will find that it is not the story of creation. There are at least eight serious anomalies, which cannot be explained away, and thus we were taught in Church that it is merely a myth covered in a cloak of religion, much like the religion of many Christians in the world is a myth covered with a 'form of godliness, but denying the power thereof' (2Ti 3:5). We are rather encouraged to 'refuse profane and old wives' fables, and exercise ourselves rather unto godliness' (1Ti 4:7).  And this I will try in this series. I will go into this supposed story of creation in more detail in a next part of this series. Today I am addressing the actual story of creation.

Sunday school for adults – Introduction

I was brought up in a strictly religious environment. Every week I had go to Church – about three times, attend Sunday School, 'Kinderkrans' (Children's religious ring), CSV ('Christian Student Association'), Hostel 'stiltetyd' (quiet time) – seven times a week, and many other. So when I left school, I had had enough of religion. But … it prepared me for the day I met God and Jesus Christ some twenty years later.

Today I am astounded to hear that all these things have been banned from the school program or curricula, and I mostly find people who have never been to Church and who do not even have a Bible. I am writing this series for them, to solve their BKDS, which, as everybody knows, is their Bible Knowledge Deficit Syndrome.