Greeting Members and Friends
It time once again for our weekly Sunday School preview so thanks for joining me and welcome back. The Summer Quarter entitled “Justice in the New Testament” focuses on ways God demonstrates His justice and ways His people should follow His example.
The August unit is entitled “Paul Teaches about New Life in Christ” and has four lessons that offer Paul’s teachings about just and merciful behaviors. Those who live the new life in Christ are called to imitate God’s just and merciful nature through their actions toward others, including their enemies.
This Sunday’s lesson is entitled “God’s Justice” or “Equity For All”. In this week’s lesson, Apostle Paul addresses the question of God’s fairness when it comes to sin. His main point is twofold. The first one is that all sin will be judged regardless of rather there was a written law that was transgressed or not. He makes the point that all people are accountable to God for their action. Even the Mosaic Law does not detail every little action a person does. But it gives the board outline as to how we should order our lives.
Jesus said all the Law could be summed up in how we should love God and our neighbor as ourselves. Paul indicates that people know this instinctively and will be judged accordingly. The second point he makes is that knowing what to do is not an excuse for not doing what one knows. This applies to both those who have the Law and those who do not. God is just and fair. It all depends on what one seeks and how they go about it.
A person can be godly and seek eternal glory and life with or without the knowledge of the Law of Moses. And a person can just as well seek unrighteousness and wickedness with or without the Law. The bottom line is that those who know to do good and does not do it regardless of whether they were informed by the Law or by their conscience, it is sin. And all sin will be judged by God. Well, that’s all for this week’s preview. Be sure to join us in Sunday School this week for a fuller discussion of this lesson and the general topic of Justice in the New Testament. So, until then
Grace and peace
Pastor Jordan
