The Town of Odyssey

I thought we should start a topic discussing the Sunday School/sermons that we hear each week.

Today our Sunday School time's topic was about meditating on Scripture...not just quickly reading our chapter for the day and moving on, but "chewing on" a verse or 2 throughout the day to fully digest the meaning and be taught by God.
The main sermon was on 2 Peter 1:3, and how knowing that God has granted us all things for life and godliness should make us thankful, confident, and humble.

How about your church?

We recently started going through Ezekial, we were in the latter part of chapter 2 today. It'll be a long series...

Great idea, Laura!

Our Sunday School lesson was the first part an exposition of the second chapter of a book written by an old Puritan named Octavius Winslow called Personal Declension and the Revival of the Soul. This week's chapter was about the declension of love in a Christian--what Christian love should look like, how to discern if it's declining, and how to remedy that declension.

The morning service, in honor of the baptism of myself and two other young men in the church, was an exposition of Matthew 28:18-20, the Great Commission. The emphasis of the sermon was on why we are baptized.

Additionally, the short devotional before our celebration of the Lord's Table was an examination of the prophecy of the Messiah in Isaiah 59:20.

I love the idea Laura

Today our sermon was on listening to God, and surrendering to his will. Also, being completely open in every situation to bring glory to God.

Today we studied methods and dangers of divination.

How long are you guys' sermons? Looking at the web archive ours seem to range from 30 to 50 minutes.

My pastor pretty consistently preaches hour-long sermons. But they can range from 50-70 minutes, I guess.

Today the homily (or sermon) was on the Prodigal Son and reaching out to former Christians and those who aren't going to church. My priest's homilies are about 10-15 minutes.

DanP740 wrote:How long are you guys' sermons? Looking at the web archive ours seem to range from 30 to 50 minutes.

Our service typically lasts about 1 1/2 hours, (8:45-10:15ish) but I'd say the sermon itself is usually about 40-50 minutes.

Our sermons are about an hour/hour and a half long.
Yesterday the pastor preached on respecting and not criticizing spiritual leadership.
Someone who had started coming to our church had sent him an email while our pastor was in Israel, and basically said some disrespectful stuff after our pastor asked a few questions responding to his original email. He called himself a "prophet and apostle", which he said was above a pastor. It was....ridiculous, and strangely funny,
So our pastor decided to preach a sermon about that kind of stuff.

It's Sunday again!

Our Sunday school topic was about the preterist view of Revelation...which my family doesn't happen to agree with, but basically everyone else does. Always a little awkward...

The main teaching was continuing on in 2 Peter 1, and the great and exceedingly precious promises that have been given to us.

What about you?

Ezekial 3. What can I say? We're going through the whole book. Based on our sermon archive, it should only take us...a year? to get through the whole book.

Truth is...

I haven't heard a normal sermon in a long time. >_> On Wednesday nights I teach 4-5 year-olds, on Sunday nights I usually have to work, and Sunday mornings have been insane lately. I'm part of a rotation of people involved in Jr. Church and other kids' programs. In theory, I should be in the adult service three Sundays out of the month. Well, our bus ministry has been really growing lately, so I've been asked to help in various ways each week. Hecticness. I love it, though. Serving others > being served.

Continuing from last week's topic, today we took an in-depth look at the history and function of tarot cards, as described by today's speaker, an ex-Satanist-turned-Christian. It was fascinating, and next week she's going to talk some more about her experiences as a tarot card psychic.

Laura Ingalls wrote:It's Sunday again!

Our Sunday school topic was about the preterist view of Revelation...which my family doesn't happen to agree with, but basically everyone else does. Always a little awkward...

What does that view espouse again?

My church's sermon was on the parable of the prodigal, but instead of focusing on the prodigal, the sermon focused on the son who was pouting, how similar attitudes can damage the church, and that our confidence rests in the gospel, not law (spoiler for every other sermon I recap in this thread; my Pastor works law and gospel into every single sermon, which is one of the things I like about him).

Bible study was on Romans 6; we've been working through the whole book over the last six months, and we're not even half done.

Our Sunday School lesson was the second part of an exposition of a chapter from the book Personal Declension and the Revival of the Soul, about the declension of love--how to recognize when our love for God and for others is declining, and how to remedy that declension.

The morning sermon was an introduction to Romans 14 and 15, the section in Romans about how "weak" and "strong" Christians are to treat each other when it comes to issues that are clearly spelled out in Scripture. It included an exposition of verse one, which basically says to receive those who are weaker in their understanding of Scripture, not in order to argue with them, but gently so that they might learn and understand the truth.

And then the evening sermon was an exposition of verses two through four, which give an illustration of how this would work in the example of diet. Jews of the early church had a hard time making the transition to the New Covenant where they could eat any kind of meat; and some Gentiles had a hard time eating meat because they didn't know if it had been sacrificed to idols or not, which was a sensitive issue for them because of their former pagan ways. Other Christians, however, understood their liberties under the New Covenant, so Paul told these "stronger" Christians not to despise the "weaker" ones, not to look at them with contempt just because they didn't have as full an understanding of their freedom. But he also commanded the weaker Christians not to judge the stronger ones, because they might be tempted to feel like the stronger Christians were violating God's law and living licentiously; but they were to leave the judging up to God, because, as Paul said, He is the master over His servants, and He will do the judging--the servants don't need to judge each other on these secondary issues.

Jonathan wrote:

Laura Ingalls wrote:It's Sunday again!

Our Sunday school topic was about the preterist view of Revelation...which my family doesn't happen to agree with, but basically everyone else does. Always a little awkward...

What does that view espouse again?

That most verses that some people view as prophetic for our future, in Matthew 24, Revelation, and more, were all fulfilled in the A.D. 70 destruction of Jerusalem. There are full preterists who believe that Jesus actually DID come a second time then and there are absolutely no prophetic passages that have not been fulfilled, but the others in our church and most who call themselves preterists are just partial preterists.
So anyway....it's interesting to know the different eschatalogical views and all that, it's just that this subject comes up a LOT and they sort of disparage those who are *gasp* futurists. I have to admit, it's probably a little odd for us to be Reformed Baptist but still be more convinced of the premillenial view...there doesn't seem to be to many of us.

Plumb forgot about this thread.

Sunday School was Part 1 of 3 on the fourth chapter in Octavius Winslow's book Personal Declension and the Revival of the Soul. This time it was about the declension of prayer, and how that is the underlying cause of basically all forms of declension. It is at the root of the declension of faith, as well as the declension of love and other graces that we have yet to discuss. The teacher said he believes that the foundational reason that the church is in the state it is today is because we do not rely on and take part in true prayer to God on a regular basis.

The morning sermon was the beginning of a series that will be a verse-by-verse exposition of Psalm 110. According to my pastor, many of the old Puritans and Reformers call this Psalm the most gospel-saturated chapter in the Book of Psalms. The first verse, as interpreted by several New Testament authors, is a prophecy of Christ's resurrection. It depicts the eternal covenant between God the Father and God the Son, in which the Father promises to give the Son a kingdom and a people to have as His bride. He also promises to subdue all of His enemies under His feet at His second coming. In turn, the Son agrees to purchase this people, by means of taking the punishment for their sin, and subsequently rising from the dead. Verse two goes on to describe the kingdom of Christ as a present kingdom, a future kingdom, and a spiritual kingdom.

The short devotional before the Lord's Table was an exposition of the Messianic prophecy in Isaiah 40:9-11, which identifies the Messiah as God, King over God's people Zion, the Church. It describes His coming with might and power, as well as reward and recompense, both to those who have done good and those who have done evil. And finally, it shows the Shepherd-sheep relationship of the Messiah to His people.

Oh yay, someone else posted so I can post again!

This Sunday our Sunday school lesson was on the relationship of works to salvation and the errors on both sides of the Biblical view. The main service was in the book of Jude and building up the church in the faith.

My pastor started a series last week that he calls his punch list for graduates. he explained that a punch list is a construction term for the list that an inspector give to the builders describing all the details that need finished before the project is complete. Last week he talked about the best way to set up a daily Bible reading plan. This week he talked about understanding your Christian worldview.

In Sunday School my young adult class has been reading through Max Lucado's Great Day Every Day. I really enjoy the stories that he uses to illustrate his points. Today we talked about how we should turn over all of our problems to Jesus before we try to fix them ourselves. He used the example of running out of gasoline in his car: He tried to glare at the gauge, then pretended that the gauge was wrong, but in the end the only way he could fix the problem was to get to a gas station. In the same way when we have a problem, we can get angry, deny that the problem exists, but in the end as Christians the only way to truly solve our problems is to take them to Jesus. The cool thing was that right after Sunday School, all of our worship songs this morning talked about handing over our problems to Jesus.