I hope that you are having great discussions over there in Turkey as well. 
I had Josh, Jordan and Deanna take a half an hour to go do lesson three before we officially got started. I wanted them to answer on the blog as well as in person so that our far away family could know what they were thinking as well. Of course the written answers are a poor substitute for actually discussing these topics in person, but it is better than nothing, right?
Here are some of the notes I took during our discussions this past Sunday:
- Is the soul immortal?
- What / When is spiritual death?
- Paul mentioned the phrase – “born twice, die once OR born once, die twice”
- Noah shared from his hands on bible the passage from Isaiah 54:10
- It was great to see Noah jumping in on the conversations this past Sunday with his views and where he agreed or disagreed.
- Wes said that Romans 3:22 basically sums up the whole Book.
- In the bible study book we are using, it said that Romans 3:22 to 24 summarizes God’s plan of salvation. It also encouraged the participants to read aloud Isaiah 52:13 to 53:12 as this passage would show the law and the prophets told of God’s plan long before Jesus came to earth. (We were going to read it but conversation took us in another direction.)
- Justification comes through FAITH… not keeping the law, not religion, not good works… only FAITH. (it was this way in the OT as well as the NT)
- One of the questions that sparked quite a bit of conversation here was – “Is God fair?”
- We wrestled with the question – “If salvation is FREELY given, then why do we humans try to pay for the gift, to pay Him back (works)?”
- One answer --- we don’t know how to receive freely, to accept a gift and do nothing in return. We feel guilty or obligated to the gifter.
- One suggestion or idea was to “PAY IT FORWARD” instead of trying to pay it back. Loving one another IS loving God.
- One of the questions from lesson 3 was --- “What should prevent believers from bragging?” And we have a new ‘Paul-ism’ from it, “We don’t have no bragging righteousness!”
- This past Sunday, the teens here really opened up and spoke from their heart. It was so good to see and be a part of. We discussed judging others, spending time with those who are different than us, what God expects us to do with those who choose a life different than us, why is homosexuality wrong (or as Romans puts it… unnatural), is love and sex two different things, …. (there was more but I don’t have notes and it is now Wednesday and my memory is foggy).
- We were having such great discussions that we didn’t thoroughly get through all of lessoon 3’s questions. We flew threw the last 5. And just before it was time to eat, the last question came up (how do we receive God’s approval?”, and all we got for that one was that Paul didn’t like the question. :)
AFTER SUPPER --- there was more discussion among the adults (the youngers off doing other things).
- We discussed the question – is a sinner saved by grace the same as a saint? Based on an article I had read the previous week (http://onanygivendayinpamelasmind.blogspot.ca/2012/03/food-for-thought-is-it-correct-to-say-i.html).
- For Wes… the definition of saint is a sinner saved by grace. So he thought the whole thing was a play on words that was unnecessary.
- For Paul… he found he could now call himself a saint. (Leftover programming from his Catholic days made him think he wasn’t one.)
AFTER THE D FAMILY LEFT --- the conversations continued…
- we discussed “do we choose who we fall in love with?” (Because there is a teaching out there that those who are gay cannot help who they love.) We discussed falling in love, is it a choice, attraction… what is a person attracted to (looks, personality, etc).
- Deanna is struggling with if she believes in God? I asked her if she was questioning God’s existence OR if she was struggling with God’s instructions? She said both.
I will post lesson four when I get back from my trip to town.
TTYS
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