Adult Bible Studies Fall 2022 Student

By Robin Wilson

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 United Methodist Church.

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.

Additional information about Adult Bible Studies, Fall 2022
Theme: Freedom
This fall, our Bible lessons follow the theme of “Freedom.” The lessons explore the concept of salvation and God’s gracious acts in redeeming us. They challenge we who have experienced God’s gracious salvation to work for freedom and justice on behalf of others. They acknowledge that as we do, we will encounter those whose beliefs and values are different from our own, so they encourage us to remain faithful to our beliefs while we act as neighbors to others.

Unit 1
Rescue
The concept of salvation is broad and inclusive of many divine actions by which we are rescued from the human predicament. The lessons in this unit focus on the freedom to which we are liberated. In the Roman world, the freer you were, the more power you exercised over others. Today, we think of freedom as the ability to do whatever we want without restrictions. In the Bible, freedom is about choosing to whom or what we devote ourselves without restriction. Paul described that choice as servitude to sin or becoming a slave to Christ.
Scriptures: Exodus 1:1-2:10; Exodus 15:1-18; Exodus 17:1-16; Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Spiritual Practice: Living With Intentionality

Unit 2
Justice
In the commandments that God gave in the covenant at Sinai, God repeatedly called the Israelites to extend justice and share their blessings with widows, orphans, and strangers in their midst. This triad represented the most vulnerable people within ancient society. Widows, orphans, and strangers appear frequently throughout the Old and New Testament narratives in ways that illustrate this divine mandate. The measure of justice or righteousness found throughout Scripture is whether one cares for the “widow, the orphan, and the stranger.” The lessons in this unit invite us to ask ourselves, who are the most vulnerable in our society? Who in our community are excluded from the common good? Who has trouble providing for themselves or gaining access to the courts and public services?
Scriptures: James 2:14-17, Exodus 22:21-27; 1 Kings 17:8-24, Luke 21:1-4; John 9:1-7, 35-38; Luke 18:1-8; Ezekiel 47:21-23
Spiritual Practice: Awareness

Unit 3
Faithful Conversations
We increasingly find ourselves living in communities and working with people from diverse backgrounds. While we may not agree with the beliefs of others, we seek peaceable and neighborly relationships. The lessons in this unit explore the models for neighborly conversations with people of various faith traditions.
Scriptures: Acts 17:16-31; 2 Kings 5:1-19; Exodus 18:1, 13-27; Romans 14:13-19
Spiritual Practice: Listening

Other Adult Bible Study components, sold separately, include:
Teacher/Commentary Kit
The Kit includes a Teacher Book with additional biblical background, exposition, suggestions for guiding group discussion, and a copy of the quarterly Adult Bible Studies Concise Commentary, designed for readers who seek a solid biblical basis for each session of Adult Bible Studies.

DVD/Video
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 feature a segment for each Bible lesson.

Visit AdultBibleStudies.com and sign up for the weekly newsletter to automatically receive the FREE Current Events Suppl

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cokesbury
• Release date: Jul 19, 2022
• ISBN: 9781791020385

Robin Wilson

Robin Wilson is the Senior Pastor of First UMC in Opelika, Alabama, and has a passion for helping all people discover and respond to God’s call upon their lives. Having served on the Board of Directors of Discipleship Ministries and the Upper Room Ministries, Inc., Robin currently serves on the Board of the Stegall Seminary Scholarship Foundation. Robin is a graduate of Vanderbilt University and Duke Divinity School.

Book preview

Editor’s Perspective

The Smoky Mountains were a favorite family vacation destination when I was a child. One night as we navigated one of those harrowing hairpin curves, my father lost control of the car and we plunged a little way down the side of the mountain. A thick bank of trees prevented us from falling farther, but we were nonetheless in danger. Not all four tires of the car were on the ground. We were partially suspended in the air. The only lights piercing the dark sky were the stars and moon, but they often disappeared behind clouds. Any movement within the car caused it to rock, so my dad cautioned us to remain still.

Even if we had had a cellphone, the service at that elevation would have been spotty. Because of the late hour, other vehicles seldom passed. Most drivers likely didn’t even notice us, as the car had come to a stop lower than the road. Wisely, my dad left the car lights on, and eventually a kind soul noticed and stopped to help. He promised to call for a tow truck as soon as he could get to a phone. For my brother and me, that tow-truck ride became a great adventure. For my parents, the situation was heart-stopping. It was years—decades, actually—before my mother could recall the situation with even a slight hint of humor, calling it that time your father tried to hurl us off a mountain. The reality was, we could’ve been killed. We couldn’t save ourselves. We had to be rescued.

Getting into trouble due to crippling circumstances, our own poor choices, or the choices of others is part of the human condition. Scripture records accounts of dire human predicaments and miraculous divine rescues. God’s deliverance and salvation are certainly worth celebrating, but they are only the beginning of God’s plan for redeemed people. Once rescued, freed from whatever oppresses or enslaves us, God calls us to join in the work of rescuing others, working for justice, and sharing our blessings with those who are vulnerable, stuck, and precariously hanging on.

It’s not always dramatic. It can, in fact, be as simple as a friendly conversation. But that can be the first step toward someone’s redemption. Our lessons this quarter, written by Robin Wilson, remind us that we are rescued, redeemed, and saved for a purpose.

We are God’s accomplishment, created in Christ Jesus to do good things, Paul wrote. God planned for these good things to be the way that we live our lives (Ephesians 2:10).

Jan Turrentine

[e-mail]

Unit 1

Rescue

As we turn our calendars to the month of September, those of us in the United States cannot help but think of September 11, 2001. Each of us knows where we were when we heard about the attacks that took place that day. I remember watching events unfold while TV commentators tried to interpret the latest information. It seemed as if experts and ordinary citizens alike were all trying to understand and to make sense of the events, while we wondered what this could mean for our society in our future. How could this happen in the land of the free and the home of the brave?

The concept of what it means to be free is one Christians have pondered for centuries. We know that Christ came to save the world from sin and death and to set us free from both. In the prayer of confession that we pray in our Communion liturgy, we ask God to free us for joyful obedience, through Jesus Christ our Lord. And that is indeed our biblical understanding of freedom. We who are in covenant with God are free to choose to submit to follow and serve our God. The Bible is full of teachings and examples of those who embraced the freedom God gave them to use their lives to love and serve others as they followed God.

As we enter September and are filled with the memory of how freedoms in this world can be misused, let us who are seeking to grow closer to our God explore deeper meanings of the freedom God gives us as believers. How are we to understand that the joyful obedience we pray for when we take Communion is the ultimate freedom? The world’s understanding of freedom can be warped to mean that people are free to pursue their own will and their own goals. Our Christian understanding of freedom includes surrendering to God’s will and joyfully submitting to love and serve with all that we are. Embracing biblical freedom is not easy, but it’s the only way to be free.

September 4

Lesson 1

Standing Up Against Oppression

Focal Passage: Exodus 1:1–2:10

Background Text: Same

Purpose Statement: To contemplate the ways our decisions impact future generations

Exodus 1–2 (Selected Verses)

Exodus 1

⁸Now a new king came to power in Egypt who didn’t know Joseph. ⁹He said to his people, "The Israelite people are now larger in number and stronger than we are…. ¹¹As a result, the Egyptians put foremen of forced work gangs over the Israelites to harass them with hard work…. ¹²But the more they were oppressed, the more they grew and spread, … ¹³So the Egyptians enslaved the Israelites. ¹⁴They made their lives miserable with hard labor, making mortar and bricks, doing field work, and by forcing them to do all kinds of other cruel work.

¹⁵The king of Egypt spoke to two Hebrew midwives named Shiphrah and Puah: ¹⁶When you are helping the Hebrew women give birth and you see the baby being born, if it’s a boy, kill him. But if it’s a girl, you can let her live. ¹⁷Now the two midwives respected God so they didn’t obey the Egyptian king’s order. Instead, they let the baby boys live.

¹⁸So the king of Egypt called the two midwives and said to them, Why are you doing this? Why are you letting the baby boys live?

¹⁹The two midwives said to Pharaoh, Because Hebrew women aren’t like Egyptian women. They’re much stronger and give birth before any midwives can get to them. ²⁰So God treated the midwives well, and the people kept on multiplying and became very strong. ²¹And because the midwives respected God, God gave them households of their own.

²²Then Pharaoh gave an order to all his people: Throw every baby boy born to the Hebrews into the Nile River, but you can let all the girls live.

Exodus 2

¹Now a man from Levi’s household married a Levite woman. ²The woman became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She saw that the baby was healthy and beautiful, so she hid him for three months. ³When she couldn’t hide him any longer, she took a reed basket and sealed it up with black tar. She put the child in the basket and set the basket among the reeds at the riverbank. ⁴The baby’s older sister stood watch nearby to see what would happen to him.

⁵Pharaoh’s daughter came down to bathe in the river, … She saw the basket among the reeds, and she sent one of her servants to bring it to her. ⁶ When she opened it, she saw the child. The boy was crying, and she felt sorry for him. She said, This must be one of the Hebrews’ children.

⁷Then the baby’s sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, Would you like me to go and find one of the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?

⁸Pharaoh’s daughter agreed, Yes, do that. …

¹⁰After the child had grown up, [his mother] brought him back to Pharaoh’s daughter, who adopted him as her son. She named him Moses, because, she said, I pulled him out of the water.

Key Verse: Now the two midwives respected God so they didn’t obey the Egyptian king’s order. Instead, they let the baby boys live (Exodus 1:17).

My parents were not expecting my arrival into their lives. Only now can I appreciate the way they must have rearranged their lives as well as their plans upon my birth. I wonder if they were planning an earlier retirement or if they were worried for my mother’s health, given her age.

My siblings were 13 and 9 years old when I was born. I wonder if they were unhappy about having to share a room to make space for a new nursery. I’ve never heard any stories of stress or fear from my parents or my sisters about that time in their lives. I’ve only heard the stories of excitement as they planned for a new baby to be part of the family.

No one ever fully knows what to expect when a baby comes into the world. Certainly, Moses’ mother must have been filled with a mixture of fear and joy like most of us can never know. Yet her brave choices, along with the courageous actions of her daughter and two Hebrew midwives, paved the way for her son to lead an entire nation to freedom, thus affecting all future generations.

Joseph’s Legacy

To understand the circumstances of Moses’ birth, we must remember key moments of the story of Joseph. After his brothers sold him into slavery, Joseph rose to prominence in Egypt, gaining the respect of Pharoah. Because of his vision and leadership, the people of Egypt survived a great famine. The respect Pharoah and his court showed to Joseph and his family upon the death of Joseph’s father, Jacob, was remarkable (Genesis 50:1-11).

When we read in Exodus 1:8, Now a new king came to power in Egypt who didn’t know Joseph, we should immediately take notice. Generations had passed, and the respect garnered