Master Teacher: 4th Quarter 2017

By R.H. Boyd

Master Teacher is the teacher’s quarterly to be used with Adult Christian Life and College and Career. Each lesson contains extensive biblical exposition and specific instructions for the teacher. The outline of the lesson is reader-friendly, and includes suggestions for maximizing teacher/student interaction and topics for making the study informative and enriching.

• Language: English
• Publisher: R.H. Boyd Publishing Corporation
• Release date: May 5, 2017
• ISBN: 9781681672885

Book preview

LESSON 1 FOR WEEK OF OCTOBER 1, 2017

I WILL DO THIS

UNIFYING TOPIC:

God’s Covenant with Abram

LESSON TEXT

I. The Struggle of Faith

(Genesis 15:1–3)

II. The Promise of God

(Genesis 15:4–6)

III. The Reward of Faith

(Genesis 15:17–21)

THE MAIN THOUGHT

In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates. (Genesis 15:18, KJV)

UNIFYING PRINCIPLE

Desperate from past disappointments and failures, people fear a continued downward spiral of unfulfilled dreams and goals. How can people find hope to reach fulfillment in life? Although childless, Abram based his hope for descendants on the promises of his covenant with the faithful God.

LESSON AIM

To help students understand how Abram struggled with God’s covenant promise and, having believed, reaped the promised reward.

LIFE AIM

To help students believe despite their struggles of faith that God will do what He says He will do.

BEFORE YOU TEACH

Consider . . .

Focus for College and Career—Young adults may feel that, because of their relative youth, they will anger God if they express doubts or questions about His will for their lives.

Focus for Adult Christian Life—Older adults may struggle with promises they see in Scripture but which do not seem to become reality in their lives.

Supplementary Study Materials

For further reference, see today’s lesson from Boyd’s Commentary, New National Baptist Hymnal, 21st Century Edition, #386 (NNBH #154), and Gods Promises Bible.

Teacher Helps

For teaching supplements visit http://www.rhboydpublishing.com.

First Step: Ask the students if any of them have had a vision of any kind. Ask if anything has come of the vision.

Second Step: Read the lesson passage and student lesson together. Discuss with the class how Abram might have been feeling as God told him he would get a great reward. Prod for answers beyond those that suggest Abram was somehow a super-saint who never doubted or struggled.

Third Step: When does doubt become dangerous? At what point does one’s anger create a barrier between us and God? Help the class understand that God accepts us even when we struggle.

Fourth Step: For College and Career: What do young adults hope God will bring to their lives? Why do they believe God will grant their desires? For Adult Christian Life: How have these students faced disappointments? Is there anything that still causes distress in their relationships with God?

Fifth Step: Close with quiet prayer. Ask students to express their thanksgiving to God for His faithful promises or disappointment even when they do not see God’s faithfulness.

God’s Word in Life

People read the promises in Scripture and are prone to two kinds of mistakes. The first is that we see a promise that is meant to apply only to the person to whom it was spoken and believe, in error, that it applies to us as well. God’s promise to Abram that he would have as many offspring as the stars in heaven was for Abram alone. It is erroneous to think that God has promised all believers that they will inherit this promise. The other error, however, is to assume that, because a promise has been given, we completely understand the when and the how of the promise. Scripture tells us, for example, to delight ourselves in the Lord and He will give us the desires of our hearts (see Psalm 37:4). That is a broad promise and it would be easy to become disappointed because God tarried, as He did with Abram, or because God gave this when we were expecting that. A better way is to take the promise to heart and trust God to do what He has promised to do for us but leave the details to God’s overarching purposes and times. †

— EXPOSITION —

Introduction

Abram (later named Abraham) is listed among the great heroes of faith in Hebrews 11. God called Abram to leave his homeland and his family, taking only his own household, and move to a new land. Abram believed the Lord when He said He would make Abram’s family a blessing throughout the world and did what the Lord told him to do. Though he did not always do right—like lying about Sarai being his sister instead of his wife, or trying to make God’s promises come true by having a child with his slave—Abram never lost faith that the Lord intended good things for him and his family and that the Lord was powerful enough to follow through on all of the promises He had made. It is tempting, therefore, to forget that Abram was a human being just like any other person. He had times when he was afraid that God was not in his corner, and he had times when he questioned what God was doing in his life. What makes him a hero of faith is not that his faith never wavered and not that he lived without doubts and fears, but rather, that he overcame those doubts and fears and remained faithful to the Lord regardless of his circumstances.

Genesis 15 followed immediately upon some great triumphs in Abram’s life. Genesis 14 recorded how he had defeated powerful enemies to save his nephew, Lot and was blessed by Melchizedek, a priest of the Lord and the king of Salem. Everything seemed to be going positively in life with one big exception: Abram had no son to be his heir. Whatever he might accomplish in life was temporary in his mind. When he died, he would have had no one who could carry on his legacy or enjoy the fruits of his labor. His family would end with him. It was at this point, as he rested in his tent near the oaks of Mamre (see Gen. 14:13), that God came to him in a vision that completely challenged his faith.

I. The Struggle of Faith (Genesis 15:1–3)

When God or His representatives spoke to someone in the Bible, most often the first words spoken were some variation of Do not be afraid. In many instances, the very presence of God sparked fear, and rightly so. Only He has the power over life and death, and anyone who met Him seemed to understand that immediately. As Isaiah exclaimed, ‘Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!’ (Isaiah 6:5, NRSV).

However, in Genesis 15:1, the Hebrew word indicated that Abram’s fear was a general sense of dread about what was coming his way and his fear not necessarily linked to the Lord’s appearance in his vision. It is likely he was afraid of King Chedorlaomer, whom he had just defeated (see Gen. 14:15). Would the king seek revenge? What about the other kings Abram had defeated? God felt it important to tell Abram, before anything else, that He would be Abram’s shield. The scripture suggests that Abram was worried that he needed a shield. In addition to this, the Lord assured Abram that his reward would be ‘very great’ (Gen. 15:1, NRSV). The reward was distinctly being given because of Abram’s faithfulness to the Lord in spite of the uncertainty of life when following Him.

When God told Abram that Abram was going to receive a great reward, Abram responded by expressing his heart. Abram’s query was, ‘What will you give me, for I continue childless?’ (v. 2, NRSV). He was already rich with servants, livestock and material possessions. He had his own army of 318 men (see Gen. 14:14). There was nothing else that Abram would have considered a reward other than an heir. He needed nothing other than someone to whom he could give what he had accumulated in life.

For more information about COVENANTS, visit www.rhboydpublishing.com.

Most cultures in that time allowed a childless man to bequeath his possessions to his personal servant if he had no biological heir. That is who Eliezer of Damascus must have been. Abram voiced his frustration with this situation by scolding God. Without doubt, he and Sarai had tried everything they could think of to produce offspring, and yet nothing had worked. As the years had gone by, there were certain arguments in Abram’s house about whose fault it was. The lack of a male offspring was a sign of a failed marriage since the first duty of a wife was to bear her husband an heir. Sarai had not done so. Ultimately, Abram laid that failure at God’s feet.

COVENANT

(Hebrew: berit)

An agreement or contract. Often between a more powerful party and a more dependent party, such as a king and a vassal slate. A common Hebrew term used for wills, legal contracts, marriage vows, and especially the binding agreements between God and His creation and special people that He i nitiated.

II. The Promise of God (Genesis 15:4–6)

After reassuring Abram that he was safe in God’s protection, God spoke to Abram about an impending great reward. Verse five contains the details of the reward. God led Abram outside and had Abram look up at the night sky. To understand the full weight of what Abram saw, modern people have to escape from the lights of the cities and towns in which many of us live. Away from such lights, the sky teems with more stars than a person could count in a lifetime. It was this canopy upon which Abram gazed as he heard God tell him that his descendants would number as many as the stars above. The specific number was not what was important. Rather, it was the immeasurable vastness of the descendants, beyond Abram’s ability to count, that God promised. Abram, who had not even the first descendant at that point, heard God promise him an uncountable multitude of descendants.

The scene is almost paradoxical, comical even. How could an already elderly man with no children at all ever imagine he would have such a quantity of descendants? The promise was extravagant. And yet, Abram simply believed. Was his faith really so simple? As Abram stood outside his tent, gazing at the array of stars shining over his head and hearing God promise that his descendants would be that numerous, all those years of doubt, frustration,