UNIFORM LESSON FOR December 9, 2018 Scripture passage and lesson focus: Joshua 24:1-3, 13-15, 21-24  It is unlikely that most of us will get a chance to conclude our lives with a long speech detailing our last thoughts and counsel. However, Joshua gets to do precisely this in Joshua 23-24 when he says farewell to the Israelites with a series of concluding remarks and advice. Detailing the long history between God and Israel, Joshua repeatedly asks the people to affirm and reaffirm their commitment to God. When the Israelites agree, he marks the recommitment with a final covenant ceremony. Joshua 24:1-3 — Israel’s idolatrous past Joshua begins his speech with a reminder of Israel’s less-than-pristine heritage. The history of God and Israel, according to Joshua, goes back to their ancestor, Abraham, and Abraham’s father, Terah. Terah, according to Joshua, worshipped other gods. However, polytheism was likely the norm in his culture. The purpose of this information is not to … [Read more...]

UNIFORM LESSON FOR December 2, 2018 Scripture passage and lesson focus: Deuteronomy 6:1-9 This week we begin a series that will take us throughout the Bible. God’s people are poised on the east bank of the Jordan. Moses is delivering a hortatory sermon before we cross into the Promised Land. This part of the sermon serves as the “white hot center” for Jewish faith — and thanks to Jesus’ teaching, for Christians as well (Mark 12:29-30). Much is at stake — not only for us, but for our children and our children’s children. Let us hear and obey. Deuteronomy 6:1-3 — Hear, observe, love Even in English, it’s clear that the primary mode of address in this passage is the imperative. These are not suggestions or possibilities; they are commands, beginning with the most fundamental command “to hear” (from which comes the name of this passage in Hebrew, The Shema). As God spoke a new world into being in Genesis 1, so Moses, as God’s servant, is speaking a new nation into being in … [Read more...]

UNIFORM LESSON FOR November 25, 2018 Scripture passage and lesson focus: Genesis 30:22-32, 43 Maybe, if I were choosing the lessons, we would end with Genesis 33, and the reconciliation between Jacob and Esau on the banks of the Jabbok. It seems to bring the story full circle and fulfills God’s promise to bring Jacob back to the land from which he has fled (Genesis 28:15). But even this scene ends with the two brothers going their separate ways (Genesis 33:12ff), as does our story about Jacob and Laban — including that perhaps misplaced Sunday school blessing known as the Mizpah benediction: “May the Lord watch between me and thee, while we are absent one from the other” (Genesis 31:49). Maybe it is best that this series on God’s Creation ends with “unfinished business.” As the title for this final unit puts it: “God blesses and re-creates regardless.” Genesis 30:22-28 — A strange federation If we don’t have some fun with this passage, we’re not paying attention. A rascal on … [Read more...]