Adult Bible Studies Summer 2022 Teacher/Commentary Kit: Transform

By Gregory M. Weeks

Adult Bible Studies Summer 2022
Theme: Transform

The lessons this quarter begin with a look at the ministry of the Holy Spirit that brings new life to us as members of the body of Christ. Jesus tells the disciples in John’s Gospel that he must leave so that the Comforter or Holy Spirit could come. The Spirit will lead and guide us into all truth and bring gifts and graces to all who will receive them. This transforming power prepares us for ministry in the world.
The Holy Spirit’s work in empowering us to be the church and carry out its mission is not limited to time and space. The lessons in Unit 2 take us through a series of events in the context of Jewish and Gentile hostility in which we see how the Holy Spirit moved the church forward to serve others.
The final four lessons in this quarter explore a problem that has plagued humankind throughout the ages—violence! How do we as the people of God confront and overcome this menace to the faith?

Unit 1: The Fruit of the Spirit
Paul used the metaphor of fruit to help us understand that our lives are like the firstfruits of offering. Through participation in Christ’s crucifixion through baptism, we have offered our lives to God’s service. The Holy Spirit then gives us gifts to display.

Scriptures: Acts 2:1-4, 17-21, 33, 38-39; 1 Corinthians 2:10-16; Galatians 5:13-21; Galatians 5:22-26
Spiritual Practice: Silence

Unit 2: The Work of the Church
These lessons take us through a series of events in the Book of Acts in which the activity of the Holy Spirit drives the action forward. The lessons in Unit 1 identify the gifts granted to us by the Spirit; these lessons look at the path on which the Spirit directs our lives and how the Spirit is already active before we arrive at our destination.

Scriptures: Acts 4:23-31; Acts 8:26-39; Acts 11:1-18; Acts 15:1-21; Acts 16:25-34
Spiritual Practice: Service
Unit 3: The Pursuit of the People
God’s word established a created order that depends on fruitfulness and cultivation rather than violence to maintain it, but humanity through its rivalries brings violence into God’s created order. It is clear from Scripture that God’s intent is to reestablish shalom, the Hebrew word that means “a shared well-being and abundance.” While violence remains a part of the created order, God does not quietly sanction the human use of violence and calls us to imitate God’s love and work toward shalom.
Scriptures: 1 Chronicles 22:6-10, 17-19; Matthew 5:9, 38-48; Ephesians 2:11-22; Matthew 26:47-56
Spiritual Practice: Remembering
Adult Bible Studies components include:
Student Book
Published quarterly, each week's Student Book lesson lists background Scripture, features key verses, provides reliable and relevant biblical explanation and application, and more, in a readable font size that is accessible to everyone.

Teacher Book/Commentary Kit
Each quarterly Teacher/Commentary Kit includes a Teacher Book with additional biblical background and exposition and suggestions for guiding group discussion and a copy of the new quarterly Adult Bible Studies Concise Commentary, designed for readers who seek additional background on the biblical text for each session of Adult Bible Studies.

Video-DVD
Does your group enjoy watching videos to generate conversation around Bible studies? Video sessions directly correspond to the Adult Bible Studies quarter’s theme and content and features a segment for each Bible lesson.

Hundreds of thousands of people each week have transformative encounters with God through Adult Bible Studies—Bible-based, Christ-focused Sunday school lessons and midweek Bible studies endorsed by the Curriculum Resources Committee of the The United Methodist Church. Lessons follow the church seasons, including Adve

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cokesbury
• Release date: Apr 19, 2022
• ISBN: 9781791006709

Book preview

Adult Bible Studies

Spring 2022 • Vol. 30, No. 4

Teacher

To the Teacher

The Spiritual Practice of Silence

Acts: The Movement of an Irresistible Force

Acts and the Holy Spirit

The Golden Rule in Other Religions

Spiritual Fruit and Gifts

The Spiritual Practice of Service

Prayer in the Book of Acts

The Unclean in the Bible

How the Church Organized Itself

Singing in the New Testament

The Spiritual Practice of Remembering

Violence in the Bible

Being Christian in a Roman World

The Reconciling Cross: A Spiritual Exercise

Living in the Kingdom of God: Sermon on the Mount Imperatives

Editorial and Design Team

Jan Turrentine, Editor

Tonya Williams, Production Editor

Keitha Vincent, Designer

Administrative Team

Rev. Brian K. Milford,

President and Publisher

Marjorie M. Pon, Associate Publisher and Editor,

Church School Publications

ADULT BIBLE STUDIES TEACHER (ISSN 1059-9118). An official resource for The United Methodist Church approved by the General Board of Discipleship and published quarterly by Cokesbury, The United Methodist Publishing House, 810 12th Avenue South, Nashville, Tennessee 37203. Copyright © 2022 by Cokesbury. Send address changes to ADULT BIBLE STUDIES TEACHER, 810 12th Avenue South, Nashville, Tennessee 37203.

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Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from the Common English Bible, copyright 2011. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ are used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations from THE MESSAGE. Copyright © by Eugene H. Peterson 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. Scriptures quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission (www.Lockman.org). Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1952 (Second edition, 1971) by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked CSB have been taken from the Christian Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible® and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers. Scripture taken from the Modern English Version. Copyright © 2014 by Military Bible Association. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture taken from the Good News Translation in Today’s English Version–Second Edition Copyright © 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.

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Meet the Writer

Gregory M. Weeks is a retired elder in The United Methodist Church. He pastored congregations in the Missouri area before retiring in 2019 after 43 years of service. An important part of his ministry was writing curriculum and other material for The United Methodist Publishing House. He is the author of the Job volume for the Abingdon Basic Bible Commentary series.

Greg lives in the St. Louis area with his wife, Barbara. They have two adult children, Cameron and Emma. He continues writing in retirement, serving as a Faith Perspectives columnist for The St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He also writes a blog titled Being Christian Without Losing Your Mind.

To the Teacher

Last year marked 50 years since the world first heard John Lennon’s song Imagine. Written during a time of rapid change and tremendous national and international unrest, the lyrics ask us to envision a world in which all the things that divide us are gone, a world where people are united and live peacefully. It’s not a religious song, although some of the lyrics sound like a prayer. In contrast to much of the hard and noisy music of its time and today, the melody is calm and soothing. Perhaps that is why it was so effective as a protest song.

Then and now, it compels us to ask, What would the world be like without things such as violence, corruption, selfishness, hate, conflict, jealousy, animosity, and division? Such present realities are these, it is hard to imagine our world without them. But as people of faith, we are called to do more than imagine life without them. We are called to help create a world in which love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control take their place (Galatians 5:22-23). We are, in fact, called to become the very things our world needs.

At first, it’s not the work of our hands or our voices. Instead, it grows from the inside out. God’s Spirit gives us these qualities that, in turn, empower us to extend Christ’s peace to others. It’s a matter of the heart, of living in the Spirit. Before these qualities can take root in our world, they must take root in our lives. That doesn’t happen overnight; it’s a process born of spiritual practices that must be deliberately cultivated and regularly nourished.

Anglican priest Tish Harrison Warren describes a sign hanging in a New Monastic Christian community house that reads, Everyone wants a revolution. No one wants to do the dishes. Most people want peace and unity in the world. People of faith want the fruit of the Spirit to permeate the world. But as Warren says, You can’t get to the revolution without learning to do the dishes. It’s in the everyday things of the Christian faith—praying, reading Scripture, doing the work God has entrusted to us, the quiet, the small—that God’s transformation takes root and grows.¹

The early church learned this, sometimes the hard way, but left for us an example of what happens when we allow the Spirit to live within us and go ahead of us, leading us where God wants us to go. Their phenomenal growth came from a foundation of the basics of prayer, teaching, fellowship, and shared meals. They learned to do the dishes, and so must we. Their inclusive fellowship did not come without struggle, without letting go of some things in order to embrace others.

The chasm between the way things are and the way God desires things to be is massive. The prevalence of violence tries to convince us we will never bridge that gap. And we won’t, as long as we believe that violence is stronger than love. One act of love, however, can silence and confuse violence. Those deliberate acts, one at a time, the quiet, the small, help bring about God’s transformation of us and our world.

Our lessons this quarter, written by Robert Gardner and Greg Weeks, challenge us to become the people the world needs, people who are a temple that is dedicated to the Lord…. a place where God lives through the Spirit (Ephesians 2:21-22).

Jan Turrentine

[e-mail]

¹From Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life, by Tish Harrison Warren (quoted at goodreads.com).

Unit 1: Introduction

The Fruit of the Spirit

Our lessons in this unit hinge on how we answer the question, Who or what is the Holy Spirit? If we reduce the Spirit to a feeling or a concept, then we miss the key message that undergirds the Book of Acts: The Spirit is God’s forceful presence doing signs and wonders.

In Lesson 1, we will see how the Spirit birthed the church on Pentecost. Acts makes it clear that the community of faith isn’t a human invention, but rather a Spirit-created, Spirit-infused one. Acts starts with a divine Surprise! and never lets up.

Lesson 2 details how we can no longer view life as we had prior to the church’s birthday. Paul, in writing to the Corinthians, contrasted two types of wisdom: human and divine. The Spirit, who searches even the heart of God (1 Corinthians 2:10), grants us new eyes through which to see God and our fellow humans.

Paul instructs us in Lessons 3 and 4 based on his letter to the Galatians. He addressed a question the early Christians asked themselves: How will the Holy Spirit empower me to live differently?

The apostle answered this by contrasting a life based on pleasing yourself (Lesson 3) with one based on pleasing the Spirit (Lesson 4). He listed several qualities characterizing each of these polar-opposite lifestyles.

A theme that holds all four lessons together is that of unity, which could be a spiritual fruit as well. Pentecost was more than flaming tongues. It united a despondent and diverse group of believers into a cohesive and confident community. The description of the fellowship in Acts (Acts 2:42-47; 4:32-35) presents what happens when people manifest the Spirit’s fruit: The community of believers was one in heart and mind.

Similarly, the fruit that Paul described is much more than something enjoyed by an individual. The churches to which he wrote, the Corinthians and the Galatians, were fragmented. They had slipped the guardrails and had lapsed into pride and selfishness.

One key in opening ourselves to the Spirit’s transformative and unifying power is our spiritual practice for this quarter. See the accompanying article on practicing silence. This practice has long been a key to positioning the mind and heart to receive the Spirit’s direction. It’s as if when we practice stillness, the Spirit has room to enter our lives.

This discipline was probably part of the early believers’ devotion to prayer (Acts 1:14) as they awaited the promised gift of the Holy Spirit. As we’ll see in our next unit of lessons, God encountered people when they quieted their mind through prayer or sleep.

To assist with this, you may want to be intentional in this practice yourself if you aren’t already. You’ll find many books, online articles, and apps that will help in cultivating silent meditation. Sharing your experiences will benefit your students in their practice. A book we’ll reference at times in our lessons is The Wisdom Pattern: Order, Disorder, Reorder, by Father Richard Rohr. He explores how we grow spiritually, and there are parallels with what we’ll study in the early church.

The early Christians experienced something old falling apart, and this resulted in their transformation through the unstoppable Holy Spirit. From their experience, we now know that when something familiar falls apart, the Spirit is preparing for something new. Wherever that direction takes us, we will discover new fruits of the Spirit growing abundantly.

June 5 | Lesson 1

Receiving the Spirit’s Gifts

Focal Passages

Acts 2:1-4, 17-21, 33, 38-39

Background Texts

Acts 1–2

Purpose

To recognize the role of the Holy Spirit in preparing us for ministry in the world

Acts 2:1-4; 17-21, 33, 38-39

¹When Pentecost Day arrived, they were all together in one place. ²Suddenly a sound from heaven like the howling of a fierce wind filled the entire house where they were sitting. ³They saw what seemed to be individual flames of fire alighting on each one of them. ⁴They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit enabled them to speak….

¹⁷In the last days, God says,

I will pour out my Spirit on all people.

Your sons and daughters will prophesy.

Your young will see visions.

Your elders will dream dreams.

¹⁸ Even upon my servants, men and women,

I will pour out my Spirit in those days,

and they will prophesy.

¹⁹I will cause wonders to occur in the heavens above

and signs on the earth below,

blood and fire and a cloud of smoke.

²⁰The sun will be changed into darkness,

and the moon will be changed into blood,

before the great and spectacular day of the Lord comes.

²¹And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved….

³³He was exalted to God’s right side and received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit. He poured out this Spirit, and you are seeing and hearing the results of his having done so….

³⁸Peter replied, Change your hearts and lives. Each of you must be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. ³⁹This promise is for you, your children, and for all who are far away—as many as the Lord our God invites.

Key Verse: They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit enabled them to speak (Acts 2:4).

Connect

A goal we share as Christians is to grow in faith. It’s what United Methodists call the process of sanctification, where we mature in our beliefs and in how we put them into practice.

Franciscan priest and author Richard Rohr has described such spiritual growth as an ongoing, three-step progression.¹ First is a sense of order, where we feel comfortable in the world. Things seem understandable and life seems predictable.

Second is an experience of disorder, where something happens that disrupts our lives. Suddenly, we aren’t so sure of ourselves and start questioning things. This sense of disorder can sometimes come from a natural transition in life such as a marriage or the birth of a child. Conversely, a divorce or a loss may unhappily turn our world sharply upside down. Regardless of how it happens, vulnerability replaces personal power. We undertake ways such as prayer, study, and service to discern where the Spirit is leading us.

The final stage is reorder. Ultimately, our experience of disruption broadens our vision and beliefs. Along with a deeper faith comes a changed lifestyle; new priorities emerge along with possibly new relationships.

Churches go through a similar process of growing in faith. Perhaps you’ve seen this in your own congregation. Something happens that disrupts the ordinary, whether it’s a pastoral transition, a social/theological issue, or a pandemic. Vulnerability replaces the status quo, and a congregation and leadership must come together in seeking the Spirit’s guidance. New learnings and directions may emerge that would never have happened had it not been for the state of disorder.

We see this model of transformation played out in the story of the church’s birth at Pentecost. The disciples and other believers had found themselves in a disordered, vulnerable position. The resurrected Christ had ascended, no longer appearing among them. The Holy Spirit had not yet fallen on the church. What would they do?

Tapping into your own experiences of a disruptive in-between time can help you relate to what these early Christians were experiencing. At a period in your life when you were unsure of the future and the only thing you could do was wait, what were your feelings?

For those early Christians, such feelings were replaced by different ones when they received the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. That experience gave them a new identity, one grounded in Christ and expressed in community with fellow believers.

The Pentecost story begins the narrative of transformed, reordered believers following the Spirit into ever-expanding adventures. As we read this narrative, along with those in other lessons this quarter, we will see how the Holy Spirit continually shaped believers’ lives while giving clear directions for the church’s ministry and mission.

Such timeless stories in Acts provide a lens through which we can view discipleship—our own and that of our church. We will learn that it’s okay to live in the disordered phase that leads to transformation. It’s when we live in vulnerability, open to whatever the Spirit has in mind, that we will grow in faith, individually and as a congregation.

Inspect

Perhaps the easiest way to approach the events we read in Acts is to think of them as a sequel to the Gospels. They address the question, Now that Jesus has been resurrected, what’s next?

Answering this question is Luke, whom Christian tradition has viewed as the author. He was the dearly loved physician (Colossians 4:14) and Paul’s companion. Imagine his book as depicting this early era of church history as if it were a spiritual explosion. The Holy Spirit fell upon the believers at Pentecost, unleashing a power that spread throughout the world. The article in this teacher book, Acts: The Movement of an Irresistible Force, overviews the expansion of the spiritual shockwaves.

As we read this account, there will be times when we’ll scratch our heads. Questions will arise. For example, at Pentecost, if there were Jews from other countries present, why did Peter address only Judaeans living in Jerusalem?

Luke used different sources as he wrote his narrative, just as he did in writing the Gospel that bears his name. He wasn’t concerned as much with detailed consistency as modern readers are. Rather, he was impassioned to describe a spiritual reality that changed lives as well as history. Critical questions are fine, but they should never sidetrack us from getting swept up in the panorama we find in these pages.

Pentecost, known as the birthday of the church, ignited things. To get the full impact of what happened that day, though, we need to see what happened prior to the event.

Acts 1:6-11. Verses from our Background Text reveal what was on the disciples’ minds as they conversed with the risen Christ prior to his ascension. They wanted to have clarity for the future. Would he immediately usher in God’s kingdom? He gently corrected them. The Kingdom wouldn’t come yet. God would choose the time and the method. They only had to wait patiently and obediently for what was promised: You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you (Acts 1:8).

This clarifies for the reader that Jesus’ followers didn’t start the church. If they had, it would have failed; Gamaliel’s speech in Acts 5:38-39 makes that point. Rather, the church began through God’s plan, initiative, and empowerment. They would soon discover this on Pentecost.

Acts 2:1. The setting for the drama about to take place was Jerusalem. The location was probably the Temple courtyard, since the house (verse 2) would have been too small.

It was there that Jews and Jewish converts from every nation under heaven (verse 5) had gathered. A worldwide audience would appropriately witness the birth of the Christian community and take the news back to their homelands.

Pentecost is the Greek term referring to the fiftieth day after Passover. It was when the Jewish festival of Shavuot (literally, weeks), described in Leviticus 23:15-21, took place. This was one of the three main Jewish pilgrimage festivals; the others were Passover and Sukkot (booths).

Shavuot was an observance of thanksgiving for the early summer harvest. More important for us, this festival became an observance of the giving of the Torah to Moses on Mount Sinai, seven weeks following Passover. That the Holy Spirit fell during such a festival was not accidental. A new era had begun, with the Law now being fulfilled through God’s action in Christ.

Verses 2-3. The symbols of wind and fire conveyed to the Jewish audience the presence of God. The words for spirit, in Hebrew (ruach) and Greek (pneuma), literally mean breath, wind. Wind and fire have also been linked together, such as in Elijah’s cave experience (1 Kings 19:11-12) and in David’s writing, The LORD’S voice unleashes fiery flames (Psalm 29:7). Finally, Luke had in mind John the Baptist’s prophecy that the Messiah’s followers would be baptized with the Holy Spirit and fire (Luke 3:16).

Verse 4. Instead of Luke’s second book being known as the Acts of the Apostles, some have suggested a better title would be the Acts of the Spirit. For a background on Luke’s understanding, refer to the article Acts and the Holy Spirit in this teacher book.

It is not clear who received this Pentecost gift. They may have been just the 12 apostles or the 120 believers of Acts 1:15. Once again, Luke was not caught up with objective accuracy. He focused on the effect: the phenomenon of glossolalia, the speaking in tongues. It bore witness to this international audience of the Spirit’s extraordinary empowerment and enlightenment. As such, it certainly got their attention and opened them to hearing Peter’s subsequent sermon.

This outward emphasis of speaking in tongues differs from the later experience in the church. Paul wrote that such manifestation of the Spirit was meant for the building up of the Christian community (1 Corinthians 14:13-33). In Acts, though, it was a bridge for hearing the good news.

John’s Gospel details another account of the giving of the Holy Spirit (John 20:22-23). Instead of the Spirit manifesting in flaming tongues, Jesus simply breathed on the disciples. This narrative is in keeping with his designating them to lead the church through his authority.

Verses 17-21. Peter’s first speech sets the tone for subsequent Spirit-empowered sermons.

The apostle’s crowd was confused. Not only had they witnessed the flames and the glossolalia, but they were surprised by the people upon whom the Spirit had fallen. They were Galileans, known more for a spirit of rebellion than of education.² Accordingly, it’s not surprising some thought them to be drunk (verse 13).

When Peter, a Galilean himself, began speaking, it would have shocked any who had remembered him as the frightened disciple (Luke 22:54-62). Rather, he now addressed the crowd, strengthened and encouraged by the gift he’d just received: Know this! Listen carefully to my words! (Acts 2:14). As one scholar noted, Like Jesus, Peter speaks as authoritative prophet. He has already begun to address the crowd as a teacher about to explain something.³

Along with Peter’s authority was a sense of urgency and a call for a decision by his audience. He directly called out his listeners three times (verses 14, 22, 29). As they heard God’s decisive action through Jesus, how would they respond?

Verses 17-18. Main speeches in Acts given by Christian leaders, such as Stephen (7:2-51), are rich with illustrations from the Old Testament showing how the mission and message of Jesus have fulfilled Scripture.

Peter set the precedent for this by quoting Joel 2:28-32. A common theme for this prophet was the Day of the Lord, when Yahweh will ultimately fulfill in the last days the promise to fully restore Israel. While this was what Peter had inquired earlier of Jesus (Acts 1:6), the Holy Spirit had broadened his understanding of what it means.

With the gift of the Holy Spirit, the last days would now signify the beginning of the new days. One era of history had concluded. The experience of Pentecost was the first day of a new chapter not just in Israel’s life, but in that of all humanity.

The images from Joel would characterize the early church. It would be a diverse community in age (young, elders), gender (men, women), relationships (sons, daughters), and social status (servants). The fellowship would demonstrate the gifts of the Spirit through prophecies, visions, and dreams; such activities would be instrumental throughout Acts in carrying the gospel message throughout the world.

It’s significant that Luke changed the beginning of Joel 2:28. Instead of the original, After that, he began, In the last days. He wanted to underscore that what the crowd had witnessed revealed they were now living in a history-changing time.

Verse 19. This verse introduces one of the most common phrases Luke used in Acts. Signs and wonders will appear eight more times in the book. Its use signifies the uniting of the former revelation of God to the new one completed through Jesus. Signs and wonders, from the Exodus to the Resurrection and now on to Pentecost and beyond, manifest God’s relentless saving power.

Verse 20. The language here is eschatological, referring to the end of the world. It connects with Jesus’ prophecy in Luke 21:25: There will be signs in the sun, moon, and stars. The early church fully expected Jesus’ imminent return.

Verse 21. Everyone is the key word. In this new age, Gentiles as well as Jews will have equal access to salvation. This will be a developing theme in the chapters ahead.

Overall, Peter’s use of this text from Joel previews how Acts will unfold. The church will grow into an inclusive community as it lives during this final time. The Spirit will provide power and direction through signs and wonders. Barriers between people will be broken down