Classes Continue

Last night was a short one for me. I got to bed early, but having not yet adjusted my body clock, I was fully awake again by about 4am. The time turned out to be very helpful to change a few things in the material for both 1^st Peter and Premillennialism.

My driver for the week, Raqiem, picked me up on time and we made it to the building in time to get started at 7:30am. We began the morning study with 1 Peter 2:1 and ended by finishing chapter 3. The bulk of that section deals with how we are to live as Christians in the various relationships of life. We concluded with the study of 1 Peter 3:18-22 which some in denominations have used to build a whole theory of Jesus going to Hades at His death and continuing to preach there to lost souls until He was raised the third day. We showed that Jesus preaching in Hades is nowhere found in the text. The passage shows that Jesus inspired the message given, and thus preached to lost souls in the in the time of Noah. A separation took place at that time between the obedient and disobedient based of their reaction to the message of inspiration. The separation was made apparent by the water separating the eight saved and the rest who were lost. Having lived without sin and having offered the perfect sacrifice, Christ teaches us through His message of the gospel. Water also makes clear the distinction between those who are saved and those who are lost, namely through water baptism into Christ whereby we are saved in appealing to God for a clean conscience and being raised through the power of His resurrection.

 

The afternoon session on Premillennialism dealt with the fulfillment of the land promised to Abraham’s descendants. We showed that God completely fulfilled the promise to give the full amount of land promised during the time of Joshua. It is verified that they again had possession of it in the time of David and Solomon. God also fulfilled the promise to bring them back in to the land as the book of Ezra and Nehemiah demonstrate. However, Israel to not continue to possess the land because that was conditioned on their obedience and they repeatedly disobeyed God.

The discussion periods in the morning and afternoon continued to bear fruit. The students were more comfortable in seeking point to be clarified by the panel of Jonathan, Rody and Lordy. All of them helped and added points to clarify concepts and answer question in their dialects so that the students could more easily understand the lessons. I am thankful for their help and glad we added this part.