February 14, 2019
Middle School:
Last night, the middle school group continued their time in Genesis talking about three key people: Noah, Abraham, and Sarah. The focus of the night was particularly on God’s covenants, which is a promise or contract between two parties. In looking at these covenants in Genesis 9:8-7 (Noahic Covenant), and in Genesis 15:1-6 (Abrahamic Covenant), the students learned about how God is steadfast and faithful to keep His promises throughout all of time. Even when God’s people are unfaithful, God keeps up His end of the agreement. In Genesis 18, we see first hand that God miraculously fulfills his promise to give Abraham and Sarah a son by opening the womb of Sarah, a 90 year old lady! We serve an amazing God, who can and should be trusted. Some follow up questions you may want to ask your students are:
- How do you decide if you can trust someone who makes a promise to you?
- Do you find it easy or difficult to believe God keeps all of his promises? Why?
- How can you remind yourself this week of Jesus’ faithfulness to you?
High School
The high school group continued to study through the book of 1 Peter, focusing on 1:22-2:10. I had the students split up into three small groups, and divide the text up how they saw fit. From there, the students all summarized each of the sections that they broke up, and then chose one section to study more in depth. We came away with three sections: 1.) (1:22-2:3) Christians have been raised to new life, and therefore are called to love one and other earnestly, and to desire and need God like a newborn infant desires and needs milk (that is to say, more than anything else). 2.) (2:4-2:8) Christians are living stones being built into God’s house to glorify Him. 3.) (2:9-10) Christians are a new, chosen people that are God’s possession. We had a really good time studying, and came away with some helpful things. I keep encouraging the students that the study methods that we’re using at youth group are awesome when applied to personal bible reading. I asked them to study what a “priesthood” is, and why it’s important that we are now a “royal priesthood.” Would you follow up with them, and encourage them to study it? I think they’d be excited at the connections that it makes between the new and old testament!