God the Son, Student Workbook, SW10

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G O D T H E S O N

God’s creation in the sense as God’s first created being is an old, well-worn idea. What would you say to the Witnesses regarding their unique view of God’s Son?

The Christ Came Upon Him

How would you respond if someone in arguing their view of the person of Jesus, made a distinction between Jesus and the Christ. In other words, they argue that the Christ spirit, the power of God’s anointing, came upon the human being Jesus at the baptism ; Jesus was simply a holy man whom God chose to place his spirit upon, and was therefore not preexistent with the Father before his human existence. How would you explain the relationship of the human being Jesus with the identity of the Christ, the anointed One of God .

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Doctrine Is Key, but Not on Sunday Morning

Many congregations today are de-emphasizing the teaching and preaching of doctrine in the pulpits and classrooms of the Church. With such an emphasis on being seeker friendly, on lifestyle evangelism, on a strategic focus on being less doctrinaire in our services, many churches have opted to keep doctrine in less public forums and reserve the pulpit and public teaching for more “contemporary and comprehensible subjects.” If you were the senior pastor of a growing church, what would your philosophy be regarding the role of teaching something like the doctrine of Christ in the prime-time Sunday morning hourly slot? Would you teach this material, and if so, how? In hearing of one church’s mission statement of understanding themselves as a community that anchors its devotion on the person and work of Jesus Christ, a number of churches in the denomination have begun to confront it about that statement. Accusing the congregation of being a “Jesus only” focused church (called Christomonistic ), the other pastors are suggesting that focusing too exclusively upon the person of Christ can lead to a denial of the Trinity and to the exclusion of other important theological themes. The church under investigation has countered that they, of course, are Trinitarian, and that they know that there are other themes of doctrine. However, error in regards to the person of Christ spills into every other Jesus Only