The Old Testament Witness to Christ and His Kingdom, Mentor's Guide, MG09

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T H E O L D T E S T A M E N T W I T N E S S T O C H R I S T A N D H I S K I N G D O M

fulfillment of the divine promise. In a real sense, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is the original Promise Keeper, the one who swore by himself to draw out of the world a people for his own possession. The writer to the Hebrews says that this knowledge of God’s fidelity to his promise is an anchor to our souls, the very ground of our being: Heb. 6.17-19 - So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, [18] so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. [19] We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain. Remind your students that the structure of the testaments aligns perfectly with the character of the living God whose promise and its fulfillment is the ground and confidence of our hope of eternal life, and the certainty of our ministries in the name of Jesus. The Contact section of the lessons is designed in order to aid you to “prime the pumps” of your students before you engage the lecture material, and your discussion after it. These are designed to give you an opportunity to introduce the students to the theme about to be considered, and to do so usually from a practical, interesting, and/or controversial way. They are discussion starters, meant to focus the attention of the students on the material about to be studied. As such, they are the springboard into the material, not the proverbial pool . In other words, use them to arrest the students’ attention and get them concentrated on the subject of the day. Be careful, however, that you do not take most of your actual lesson time on them. The are meant to introduce the lesson, not take the place of them.

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