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March 14, 2019

Middle School:
This week, the MS crew spent their teaching time in Romans 5 as Ryan Donovan talked about friendship with God in Jesus Christ. The group started off by using a fun illustration about superhero’s and villains, and the differences between them. Ryan related God to the superhero, or “the good guy,” and us to the villain, or “the bad guy.” Although we don’t tend to think of ourselves this way, Romans 5:10 tells us that we were in fact enemies of God! What’s the role of a superhero against an enemy? It’s to stop them at all costs! But instead of doing so by destroying humanity, God made His enemies into His friends by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross. Now, instead of enemies, as Romans 5:11 says, “…we rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” What good news! Here’s a couple of questions you can ask your teens as a follow up:

• How do you know/how have you experienced God’s love and friendship?
• Why is forgiving an enemy so hard/so powerful?
• As you’ve become a closer friend with Jesus, how have you changed? Should your friendship with Jesus be changing you?

High School
The high school group spent the entire night talking about ONE verse! Last week, we started talking about the institution of marriage (1 Peter 3:1-6), particularly in relation to how a wife should conduct herself in the fear of the Lord as her master and King. This week, we focused on 1 Peter 3:7 which talks about the role of the husband in honoring the woman as the weaker vessel, and a co-heir of the grace of life. The students asked some great questions about the text, and we had some really good discussion about what Peter meant by “weaker vessel” and “co-heir of grace.” We concluded that, just as the wife has a role of honoring and respecting her husband in the fear of the Lord, so too the husband has a role of honoring and respecting his wife in fear of the Lord. These roles play out different, though. The husband, being the stronger vessel (biologically) is to provide, protect, initiate and lead in marriage. But he is not to lord over the wife, as she is equal in the glory that will be given to her on the day of Christ. Therefore, Peter offers us a check and balance, that husbands should honor their wives, not belittling them, but treating them as the daughters of the King of the universe!

It was a really cool night, and the students took home some cool applications. Although it may seem that the topic of marriage is over the head of high schoolers (yes, that’s true), I feel that these passages are so crucial to understand! I’m so glad to have the students talking about and thinking about these things now, as I believe that their understanding of biblical marriage will have a huge impact on the way that they live, and on the decisions they make when they start to date.

If there’s any way that I can be a help to you and your family, please don’t hesitate to contact me! I’m here to be a resource, and I’d love to chat with you about your students.