Adult Bible Studies Winter 2022-2023 Teacher/Commentary Kit

By Taylor W. Mills

A comprehensive Bible study plan and spiritual practices to deepen your relationship with God

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.

The Kit includes a Teacher Book and a Concise Commentary that are both supplementary and complementary to the Adult Bible Studies student book

The Teacher Book provides small-group leaders, teachers, and facilitators with additional biblical background and exposition and suggestions for guiding group discussion. Printed with a larger font for ease of reading. Included to help leaders prepare and lead each week:
As A comprehensive Bible study plan with more flexibility in terms of Scripture selection and topics.
Additional information, as well as suggestions, designed to help leaders and facilitators lead with confidence.
Observation of the church seasons, including Advent and Lent.
Suggestions for developing spiritual practices (prayer, confession, worship, mindfulness, solitude, community, hospitality, neighboring, service, and celebration).
One font size in the student edition to accommodate all readers.
No printed Scripture text allowing you to choose your own Bible translation.

The Concise Commentary provides biblical commentary for the focal Bible passages used in Adult Bible Studies. Based on the Abingdon Basic Bible Commentary. Printed with a larger font for ease of reading. Included each week are:
The focal Bible passages for each Sunday.
The unit introductions.
Commentary on the focal Bible passages.
A pronunciation guide for Bible names and places.

Additional information about Adult Bible Studies, Winter 2022-2023
Theme: Power and Love
This winter, our Bible lessons follow the theme “Power and Love.” The lessons first challenge us to try to understand Scripture, particularly the Nativity accounts, from the position of vulnerability and powerlessness. They then move to a closer look at what it means to belong to the family of God and culminate in a series of lessons on love and how it informs and changes our relationships. The writer of the teacher book is Taylor Mills.

Unit 1
Power and Vulnerability
God’s incarnation was into a poor family from a village of no consequence, vulnerable to the whims and machinations of the mighty Roman Empire. While some people reading this Bible study can relate to the poverty and obscurity, most will read it as citizens of a great world power. Some people know from experience that power can be abused even against a government’s own citizens, but others have known only the protection and benefits of that power. These lessons invite us to read the Nativity stories from the vantage point of the victims of empire.
Scriptures: Judges 9:1-15; Matthew 1:1-25; Matthew 2:1-12; Matthew 2:13-15
Spiritual Practice: Acts of Mercy

Unit 2
Power and Belonging
The lessons in this unit follow the trajectory of biblical imagery for faith development from adoption through baptism and infancy in faith, into youthful excitement and exuberance, and then to a mature faith that struggles, challenges, and questions.
Scriptures: Galatians 3:23—4:7; Luke 15:11-32; John 17:1-24 and Ephesians 4:14; Colossians 3:12-17; Matthew 22:1-14
Spiritual Practice: Rule of Life

Unit 3
The Power of Love
One of the distinct traits of biblical theology is the emphasis on God’s hesed (“lovingkindness”) and Jesus’ selfless love. In the
early twentieth century, a great deal of ink was spilled trying to distinguish agápe love by which we become channels of God’s
love from philía, friendship in which reciprocity is important, and éros, a passionate sort of love. Recent scholarship finds that Greek and bi

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cokesbury
• Release date: Oct 11, 2022
• ISBN: 9781791020477

Taylor W. Mills

Taylor W. Mills has been the pastor of United Methodist churches in Williamston, Raleigh, and Durham, North Carolina. He recently became the pastor of Ann Street United Methodist Church in Beaufort, North Carolina. His wife has worked in the school system, and neither she nor their two daughters share Taylor’s taste for Led Zeppelin music. taylorwmills.com

Book preview

Adult Bible Studies

Winter 2022–2023 • Vol. 31, No. 2

Teacher

To the Teacher

Joseph’s Righteousness

The Spiritual Practice of Acts of Mercy

The Spiritual Practice of Rule of Life

Custodian in the Ancient Near East: Paul’s Adoption Metaphors

Who Were the Magi?

The Practice of Spiritual Friendship

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, TN 37203. Copyright © 2022 by Cokesbury. Send address changes to ADULT BIBLE STUDIES TEACHER, 810 12th Avenue, South, Nashville, TN 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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Photo Credit: Shutterstock

Meet the Writer

Taylor Mills is a United Methodist pastor originally from Raleigh, North Carolina. He received a degree in communication from Appalachian State University and a master of divinity degree from Duke Divinity School. He has led churches in Williamston, Raleigh, and Durham, North Carolina. Currently, he is the pastor of Ann Street United Methodist Church in Beaufort, North Carolina.

His wife, Betsy, works in the school system; and together they try to keep up with their two teenage daughters.

Von Unruh wrote Lesson 13, which begins a new series of lessons observing the season of Lent and extending into next quarter.

To the Teacher

A small book I read years ago claimed that we can act our way into a new way of feeling. As powerful as they may be, our feelings don’t have to control us or paralyze us. Our actions can pull our feelings along, the writer said, until the two are in sync.

Perhaps he had in mind what C. S. Lewis said in his classic book Mere Christianity: Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less.¹

That’s the power of love. Love changes us as much as it changes those to whom we show it. It doesn’t matter what kind of love we’re talking about: love of friends, romantic love, love of God. We can’t experience love, receive love, and give love and remain the same. That’s where our Bible lessons ultimately take us this quarter, but that’s not where they begin. They start by reminding us of the ever-present reality of the conflict between human rule and God’s kingship. They take us back to a place and time marked by vulnerability, poverty, and obscurity for most people. They show us vain attempts to cling to power at the expense of the voiceless and powerless.

And they show us love in its ultimate form: the Incarnation of God in Jesus. The powers of that day were proven weak and ineffective by the most vulnerable—a defenseless baby born into a poor family from a village of no consequence, subject to the Roman Empire’s whims. That baby’s subsequent life, death, and resurrection redefined power and love. Both are available to us because God has adopted us into God’s family.

When we learn to read the story of Jesus and see it as the story of the love of God, doing for us what we could not do for ourselves, said theologian N. T. Wright, that insight produces, again and again, a sense of astonished gratitude which is very near the heart of authentic Christian experience.² It is to that authentic Christian experience that our final Bible lesson this quarter calls us, preparing us for the Lenten season and a series of lessons next quarter that demonstrate Jesus’ perfect obedience to God’s will and the true nature of kingship under God’s reign.

So, we begin in Advent and visit the Nativity from the vantage point of the victims of empire. We unpack what it means to belong to God’s family and what power God’s adoption of us instills within us. We discover that for all the ink that has been spilled defining the different kinds of love the Bible describes, the lines among them are blurred, and they all focus on relationships: God with us, us with God, us with others. Lessons 1-12 are written in the student book by Sue Mink and in this teacher book by Taylor Mills. Because it begins the Lenten season, Lesson 13 is written in the student book by Michelle Morris and in this teacher book by Von Unruh. All the lessons encourage us to celebrate this truth:

This is how the love of God is revealed to us: God has sent his only Son into the world so that we can live through him. This is love: it is not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son as the sacrifice that deals with our sins (1 John 4:9-10).

Jan Turrentine

[e-mail]

¹From Mere Christianity, by C. S. Lewis (MacMillan Publishing Company, Inc., 1943, 1945, 1952); page 116.

²Quoted at goodreads.com.

Unit 1: Introduction

Power and Vulnerability

Greetings, teacher! It is an honor to share this book with you, and I pray that you find it helpful. If you will pardon my boldness, I’d like to tell you something at the outset: Our fourth lesson falls on Christmas Day! I know you will be tempted to take that Sunday off as a class, but let me encourage you to meet on Christmas Day. It is a high, holy day of the church. Some would say Christmas Day is equal in importance to Easter Sunday. Easter always falls on a Sunday, and we surely don’t cancel church for Easter!

If your class doesn’t meet on the morning of December 25, shift the class meeting to another day near that Sunday; or you could hold class partially or fully online for Lesson 4 and easily move to an alternate day. This is also a good way to include people who have traveled out of town. When you gather on December 4, talk about what your class plans will be on December 25. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Now, on with our unit!

The lessons of December tell a story of the divine reversal of power and vulnerability. We will perceive the unseen hand of God ordering events so that the high and mighty are brought low and the lowly are lifted up.

Lesson 1 is about Abimelech and his thirst for power, but God taught him that power over the Israelites would not come from his own strength or ingenuity. It would come only if God willed it and anointed him with it.

This account from Judges 9:1-15 will likely be the least familiar of our four lessons. Anticipate that your class is going to need help following the story and understanding its meaning and importance, all of which you can find in this teacher book.

Lesson 2 takes us into familiar territory: the events leading up to and including the birth of Jesus as Matthew told it. Matthew focused on Joseph’s story, whereas Luke focused on Mary’s story. Our lesson is about how Joseph chose to protect Mary’s honor.

In this teacher book, you will find an explanation of how Joseph lived in an honor/shame culture and what that meant. We will help the class discover that he sacrificed honor and risked shame by being Jesus’ earthly father. Even before an angel told him that Mary’s pregnancy was a gift from God, he had already decided not to add to her humiliation.

When we get to Lesson 3 we are going to jump ahead to after Jesus’ birth and consider the account of the magi’s visit. Despite their presence in most of our Nativity sets, the magi probably didn’t visit Jesus, Mary, and Joseph at the same time as the shepherds. By the time they found Jesus, he was called a child and they found his family in a house (Matthew 2:11).

But these mysterious men from afar are further examples of people of power and influence who make themselves vulnerable. They were ambassadors of a sort who could officially recognize another kingdom. And they saw that kingdom in the Child Jesus, not in Herod!

Lesson 4 is about how the Holy Family escaped to Egypt to avoid Herod’s massacre of the innocents. How ironic that they would need to go back into the land from which their ancestors were delivered. And the story reminds us how vulnerable the whole Holy Family was. One incident could have put them in peril and changed the whole course of history; yet it was out of their cautiousness and determination that Jesus was saved that he might one day save us!

May you and your class have a blessed Advent, a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year. May God fill you with wisdom and understanding as you teach this unit. Be on the lookout for surprises and ah-ha moments in these biblical texts!

December 4 | Lesson 1

Reign Over Us

The Second Sunday of Advent

Focal Passage

Judges 9:1-15

Background Text

Judges 9:1-21

Purpose

To dedicate ourselves to God’s rule over human rule

Judges 9:1-15

¹Abimelech, Jerubbaal’s son, went to his mother’s brothers in Shechem. He spoke to them and to the entire clan of the household to which his mother belonged: ²Ask all the leaders of Shechem, ‘Which do you think is better to have ruling over you: seventy men—all of Jerubbaal’s sons—or one man?’ And remember that I’m your flesh and blood!

³So his mother’s brothers spoke all these words on his behalf to all the leaders of Shechem. They decided to follow Abimelech because they said, He’s our relative. ⁴They gave him seventy pieces of silver from the temple of Baal-berith, with which Abimelech hired worthless and reckless men, who became his posse. ⁵He went to his household in Ophrah and killed all seventy of his brothers, Jerubbaal’s sons, on a single stone. Only Jotham the youngest of Jerubbaal’s sons survived, because he had hidden himself. ⁶Then all the leaders of Shechem and all Beth-millo assembled and proceeded to make Abimelech king by the oak at the stone pillar in Shechem.

⁷When Jotham was told about this, he went and stood on the top of Mount Gerizim. He raised his voice and called out, "Listen to me, you leaders of Shechem, so that God may listen to you!

⁸"Once the trees went out to anoint a king over themselves. So they said to the olive tree, ‘Be our king!’

⁹"But the olive tree replied to them, ‘Should I stop producing my oil, which is how gods and humans are honored, so that I can go to sway over the trees?’

¹⁰"So the trees said to the fig tree, ‘You come and be king over us!’

¹¹"The fig tree replied to them, ‘Should I stop producing my sweetness and my delicious fruit, so that I can go to sway over the trees?’

¹²"Then the trees said to the vine, ‘You come and be king over us!’

¹³"But the vine replied to them, ‘Should I stop providing my wine that makes gods and humans happy, so that I can go to sway over the trees?’

¹⁴"Finally, all the trees said to the thornbush, ‘You come and be king over us!’

¹⁵And the thornbush replied to the trees, ‘If you’re acting faithfully in anointing me king over you, come and take shelter in my shade; but if not, let fire come out of the thornbush and burn up the cedars of Lebanon.’

Key Verse: Which do you think is better to have ruling over you …? (Judges 9:2).

Connect

What kind of rulers do we want? What kind of rulers does God want for us? In the United States, we hold municipal and state elections almost every year, and a presidential election every four years. We are bombarded with political ads on our televisions and the internet. Campaign signs line the roadways.

We have elected our leaders by a democratic process in a direct rejection of a monarchy. For most of our history, the United States has historically practiced the peaceful transition of power after elections. This is something we may have taken for granted, for it is not the same way in some other countries.

This lesson focuses on Abimelech and his rise to power. We will also hear Jotham’s fable of judgment on Abimelech and the people of Shechem who put him into power. Your class members might not be familiar with Abimelech, Jotham, and Shechem. But it is my hope that you will find all the background information you need here for you and your class members.

Let’s be honest. In addition to perhaps being unfamiliar, this story from the Old Testament might not seem seasonal here on the second Sunday of Advent. But don’t discount the power of this story as we prepare for Christmas. As we will see, the way Abimelech came to power was the opposite of how Jesus came to power.

This is a story of how not to rise to power.

The remaining lessons in this unit come from the Nativity story of Jesus, as told by Matthew, in which the magi and their interaction with Herod show us how a king comes to power in a way that honors God. We will appreciate Matthew 1–2 and Jesus’ birth in a new way after we read Abimelech’s story.

If you are not familiar with the story of Abimelech and Jotham’s fable, don’t panic. The information below in Inspect will help you. Familiarize yourself with the story. When you teach this lesson, keep the focus on how Abimelech rose to power and how that is different from how God brought Jesus to be King of kings.

In Reflect, you will find a guide for how to introduce your class to this story and its meaning and then how to apply its lessons to our lives. Help them see how Abimelech’s rise to power is the antithesis of how Jesus came to be King of kings. This will help thicken the plot, if you will, as you come to Jesus’ Nativity story in Matthew. They might draw parallels, for example, between Abimelech’s and Herod’s abhorrent behavior.

Abimelech’s story brings up issues of how Israel chose its leaders. Abimelech had the least claim to power, but he rose to call himself a king through fratricide at his own hand. He hired thugs with no apparent ties to Israel to intimidate the people in the city-state of Shechem. He had no interaction with God until God sent an evil spirit to disrupt Abimelech’s hold on power.

This account was handed down in Israel’s history as a warning: Ruthless violence, hunger for power, back-stabbing, and the worship of other gods will not sustain Israel or any other people. It will lead to destruction and death.

The way of Jesus honors God and neighbor, doesn’t respond to violence with more violence, and sets up a future in which the people live in God’s favor. What an important lesson to consider on this second Sunday of Advent as we anticipate the birth of Jesus, the King of kings and Lord of lords!

Inspect

Judges 8:33-35. To understand the Focal Passage, we must back up to these verses, which serve as a prologue.

The good old days of Gideon were over. He died at a good old age (Judges 8:32) but not before he fathered 70 sons (verse 30). By his secondary wife (sometimes translated concubine), he bore a son named Abimelech (verse 31).

After Gideon died and while Abimelech was growing up, the Israelites once again acted unfaithfully by worshiping the Baals (verse 33). They didn’t remember the LORD their God (verse 34). They worshiped one Baal in particular: Baal-Berith (whose name means lord of the covenant).

Shechem reverted to its Bronze Age form of government: establishing a monarchy. Archaeological evidence uncovered in the 1960s has revealed that Shechem had strategic importance during the Middle Bronze Age, dominating the north central hill country of Israel. However, Shechem was destroyed in at least two Egyptian campaigns against it in 1550 and 1543 BC. Today, the area is known as Tell-Balata and is about 40 miles north of Jerusalem in a fertile valley between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim.

In Judges 9, Abimelech’s legacy is not good. He is not presented in an heroic way. He had not delivered Israel from an enemy nor kept the land at peace.

The name Abimelech means my father is king, which is ironic because for all his striving, Abimelech would not be anointed or kissed in the manner of Samuel’s king-making (1 Samuel 10:1). He would be called neither king of Shechem nor king of Israel.

Judges 9:1-2. One wonders what jealousy got into the heart of Abimelech during this time. Why did he want so badly to be king? He was not devoted to the memory of Gideon, also known as Jerubbaal. We are told that Abimelech appealed to his uncles on his mother’s side and their entire clan that they might make him king.

This was contrary to what Gideon wanted when he said, I’m not the one who will rule over you, and my son won’t rule over you either. The LORD rules over you (Judges 8:23).

But Abimelech used another logic. He asked the clan leaders what would be better: to have 70 men (Gideon’s sons) ruling over them or to have one man (Abimelech) ruling over them (Judges 9:2)? They were presented with a choice: a decentralized government or a centralized government.

And remember, Abimelech added, that I’m your flesh and blood! One might read between the lines and hear this as a quid pro quo: Make Abimelech king, and he would remember who his relatives were. This was an offer of nepotism. The root of the word nepotism is nephew.

Verse 3. Abimelech’s familial appeal apparently worked. Abimelech’s uncles on his mother’s side decided to follow him because they said, He’s our relative (verse 3). Kinship ruled over logic.

Together they spoke all these words to all the leaders of Shechem (verse 3). By all these words, they meant the words Abimelech told them to speak in verse 2 about how it would be better to have one man rule over them than 70. They preferred centralization of government to decentralization.

Verse 4. Abimelech would need not just a base of support but also a treasury. A campaign fund was established in his name that netted 70 pieces of silver. (Note this was one piece of silver for each of his rival half brothers.) This silver came not from the pockets of his supporters, but from the temple of Baal-berith, a deity worshiped in the Shechem region! In Judges 8:33, the Israelites set up Baal-berith as their god.

Abimelech took this money and hired worthless and reckless men (Judges 9:4). The implication is that these men were his thugs who were intimidating the people into supporting Abimelech. These were likely relatively poor mercenaries and misfits, men who fell between the cracks in the kinship structures. The Hebrew word to describe them connotes that they were reckless and arrogant. These men became his posse.

Verse 5. Under Israelite tradition, Abimelech was the least likely to succeed his father. He was the last born of one of the secondary wives who lived away from the clan’s center in Ophrah. So he had to have the support of clan members who did have standing to represent him to the leaders of Shechem.

The would-be king went to the home of his half brothers with their father in Ophrah and killed all 70 of his brothers, Jerubbaal’s sons. He first raised up support from among his mother’s side (her brothers) and assaulted his father’s side (his half brothers).

Abimelech killed all of his half brothers/rivals on the same stone. This effectively removed from Israel any legitimate leadership derived from family ties. One wonders if Abimelech’s uncles felt they were right to support him as their relative after they saw how he treated his own brothers!

The image of one stone harkens back to the first rock on which Gideon set his offering to the angel of God. The angel miraculously caused fire to burn on the rock, consuming Gideon’s offering. In that case, the rock was a sign of assurance that God was with Gideon.

This rock in Shechem, however, was the site of the gruesome deaths of 69 of Abimelech’s brothers. Some scholars have wondered if using one stone was Abimelech’s way of gathering the blood of his brothers and preventing it from being absorbed into the soil as happened when Cain killed Abel (Genesis 4:10-12). The image of a single stone returned at Abimelech’s death when a woman threw a millstone down from atop the city wall onto Abimelech’s head, crushing his skull.

Abimelech killed 69 of his 70 half brothers on his father’s side. One escaped: Jotham, the youngest.

Verse 6. Since he had killed all but one of his brothers, Abimelech’s victory was in hand. The leaders of Shechem and Beth-millo assembled by the oak at the stone pillar and crowned him.

Beth-millo was an area near Shechem. Millo in Hebrew has a connection with the verb to fill. It probably referred to the practice of filling a stone-walled enclosure with earth and rubble to form a foundation for buildings such as temples. This is exactly how the temple at Shechem was built. It probably served as a temple and a fortification.

The oak and the pillar very well could have been a reference to a Canaanite worship site (Genesis 35:4). The generations after Joshua apparently lost control of this site, one of Israel’s most sacred shrines, as it appears to have been fashioned by the Canaanites to worship Baal Berith or El Berith.

The narrator of Judges pictures Abimelech’s coronation as the result of human initiative and not God’s choice. This is the first example in Judges of lineage and clan loyalties leading to the community choosing its own leader. The role of clan loyalties would grow to such an extent that it would contribute to the civil war at the end of Judges.

This would also become the first time in the history according to Judges that