Cornerstone Curriculum, Official Certification Edition - Mentor's Guide

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descends at the same time as Jesus is baptized or to the crucifixion where Jesus feels abandoned by the presence of the Father. In these and other instances we see the Father, Son, and Spirit relating to each other, something that they could not do if they were one person playing separate roles). Have students think of and discuss a few of these illustrations and how they help us or hinder us in thinking rightly about God. Transition: “Our lesson today will help us discover what the role of the Holy Spirit is in the life of the Trinity. We will try to find ways to describe the difference between the Son of God and the Spirit of God and we will try to discover the ways in which the Spirit relates to the Father and the Son. Some of these ideas will be difficult because we are talking about a great mystery but the Church has learned from experience how important it is to think rightly about the nature of God and to correct wrong ideas whenever they appear. No matter how difficult these theological ideas about the Trinity are, we should remember that the most basic truths of the Trinity can be learned by memorizing the Nicene Creed which describes the essential truths about God’s nature in just a few paragraphs.” In Scripture it is not always obvious whether a verse refers to wind, to breath, to the human spirit, to an angelic or demonic spirit, or to the Spirit of God. That is why sometimes when you compare translations you will see one that translates a verse a breath and another as Spirit, or one capitalizes the word “Spirit” because it assumes the Spirit of God is being spoken of while another does not capitalize it because they assume that a person’s spirit is under discussion. Compare: • Zech. 12.10 in the King James Version and New King James Version of the Scriptures. Compare “the spirit of grace and of supplications” and “the Spirit of grace and supplication.”

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T h e o l o g y a n d E t h i c s

& 7 page 244 Outline Point II-B-1