Sunday lessons 10/1/06

This morning I resumed a sermon series I started back in August from Romans 12. Today's AM lesson was "You have a Gift" from Romans 12:6-8. I tried to focus on the idea that "gifts" in this text were expressions of God's grace in our lives. The Greek word is "charisma" which is from the word for grace, "charis." I tried to point out that while sometimes gifts are natural talents, sometimes God puts us in a situation where we have to exert ourselves in new and different ways. I told about a small congregation of 7 and only one of them is a man. He leads singing, says the prayers, distributes the Lord's Supper, and preaches. He may not have any natural talent in any of those areas but he is using his "gifts," expressions of God's grace in his life.

The PM lesson was on the book Misquoting Jesus by Bart Ehrman. Ehrman is a textual critic (one who studies Greek manuscripts for the purpose of trying to reconstruct the original text as penned by the New Testament writers). His book tries to put a spin on the textual variations in our Greek manuscripts that suggests we cannot trust the accuracy of our Bible today. He states that he believes many of the scribes were theologically motivated to add changes to the text that resulted in our current understanding of the divinity of Jesus and the role of women in the church. Of course he must go against the writings of the church fathers (95-300 AD) and other pieces of evidence that paints a different picture. The really ironic thing about his book is that he doesn't bring up any misquoting of Jesus' statements. My lessons are designed to warn us about how our society is changing and becoming more skeptical about the Christian faith and our Scriptures.

I had three responses this morning for the invitation. I'm sure that my lesson had little to do with their decision to respond. Two were brothers living in the Christian Home. They both wanted to be baptized. I spent a little time with them during the afternoon. They were baptized by Eddie after PM services. The other response was a young woman (wife and mother of three) who just moved to the area and is going to have some tests done this week. She's been going through some medical difficulties and the doctors have yet to diagnose her condition. She, her kids, and her aunt stayed for our potluck afterwards. I noticed that several people spoke with them so they were well received.