God the Father, Mentor's Guide, MG06

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G O D T H E F A T H E R

make certain that you alert your students to the goal of the segment, and the intent of the material in this segment.

Make sure as you approach these questions that you 1) keep in mind that the goal here is to help them review the main points associated with the first video segment and its defining of the outline of God’s moral attributes, and 2) ensure that the students are inoculated against the reductive malady of isolating God to a core of attributes to the exclusion or underemphasis of others. Remind them of the need to know that while intellectually we can consider the elements separately, in real time our glorious God is one. Isa. 45.5-6 - “I am the Lord, and there is no other, besides me there is no God; I equip you, though you do not know me, [6] that people may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none besides me; I am the Lord, and there is no other.” Exhort the students to remember that God is one, and acts in perfect harmony with all of his attributes simultaneously. The challenge to entertain the idea of God’s wrath as we consider his goodness is not something that is encouraged in many church settings today. The absence of this tendency has produced a generation of Christians who are theologically and ethically out of sync, wobbling through life because they focus only on those attributes which seem to resonate with their own experience and interests, and systematically turn their backs on those that don’t. The key in discussing this with the students is challenging directly their right to pick and choose what characteristics of the Godhead they wish to focus upon and emphasize. No Christian has the right to parse through the Bible, skipping and dipping around to the texts that suit their fancy, while racing over or deliberately ignoring the “hard sayings” of the Bible. Deut. 6.4 - “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.”

4 Page 128 Student Questions and Response

5 Page 138 Student Questions and Response