Cornerstone Curriculum, Official Certification Edition

LESSON 2 | GOD THE FATHER: THE TRIUNE GOD – THE GREATNESS OF GOD / 199

O Father, my hope; O Son, my refuge; O Holy Spirit, my protection. Holy Trinity, glory to Thee.

~ Compline, Eastern Orthodox, St. Joannikios Appleton, George, ed. The Oxford Book of Prayer. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. p. 183.

Scripture Memorization Review

Review with a partner, write out and/or recite the text for last class session’s assigned memory verse: Luke 11.20-23.

Turn in your summary of the reading assignment for last week, that is, your brief response and explanation of the main points that the authors were seeking to make in the assigned reading (Reading Completion Sheet).

Assignments Due

2

CONTACT

A Faith that Doesn’t Make Sense? One of your church members, Mrs. Jackson, was visited by a Jehovah’s Witness the other day, and the conversation has haunted her ever since. For over an hour Mrs. Jackson listened carefully to the clean, simple, and appealing logic of the Witnesses who visited her home. She felt completely overwhelmed as these visitors ran down their laundry list of errors they say that the organized Church believes. Rejecting a host of doctrines as simple falsehoods and historical blunders, the Witnesses argued passionately against the personality of the Holy Spirit, the doctrine of the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the existence of hell, salvation by grace, and on and on. Frustrated, the member asked the Witnesses, “You guys seem to have everything figured out; you don’t seem to believe anything that does not line up with your reason.” “That’s right,” shot back the head person of the Witness team, “for why do you want a faith that doesn’t make sense to you?” That phrase has been with your member since it was spoken. How would you answer the question of the Witness: must everything in the Bible make “sense” to us before we believe its testimony? Are we or are we not obliged to believe whatever the Bible asserts, even if it goes beyond our knowledge and logic?

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T heology and E th i c s