“in many ways, God spoke to our Fathers…” (Hebrews 1:1) So begins the glorious book of Hebrews, penned by an unknown author to Christians of a Jewish background. We took this as our starting point for our Thursday class. The students were given an in-depth lecture on the covenants of God and, more specifically, how God speaks to man today.
Paul told Timothy that he was to “rightly handle” or “divide,” the word of truth (2 Timothy 2:16). It is important to understand that while God himself never changes, his method of dealing with man has. This progression, from direct instruction to the heads of the family to the inspired words of Jesus’ disciples and including the Law of Moses given to Israel alone, show the nature of God and provide learning for us today (Romans 15:4).
In Christ, a new and fresh message of redemption is ours.
We carefully took the students through the three great dispensations of time, Patriarchal, Mosaic or Levitical and Christian. We emphasized that while the Law of Moses was great and glorious, it could not bring salvation (Hebrews 10:4) apart from Jesus Christ who is the only path to God (John 16:6).
In the afternoon students continued work on their sermons by refining their main points and began adding sub points under each. We want the students to understand that sermon outlines are a method or organizing their thoughts. As they gain experience each will develop their own system of sermon preparation.
