Shows / Sabbath School From Home
Sabbath School From Home
Sabbath School is perhaps the most communal and participatory element of a regular Seventh-day Adventist church event (after foot-washing), but social distancing has us all isolated at home. This is a weekly Sabbath School styled conversation on Biblical themes and passages. Join in the conversation by writing comments/questions to sabbathschoolfromhome@gmail.com .
Episodes
- Sabbath School From Home
Jeremiah 36 - I wrote them down in ink
Why would God ask a prophet to write things down? Jeremiah 36 is a gripping story about exactly that: decades of prophecy dictated to Baruch, read in the…
- Sabbath School From Home
2 Peter 1 - We heard that voice from Heaven
Can a message from God be objective? We start by asking whether any message can be: the same words can arrive as very different messages depending on the…
- Sabbath School From Home
Acts 21 - Four daughters who prophecied
We spend this episode with the female prophets of the New Testament — Anna in the temple, the daughters of Philip, and others — and find a picture of prophecy…
- Sabbath School From Home
1 Kings 22 - Who can entice Ahab
What distinguishes a true prophet from a false one? The lesson this week offers several criteria, but we find ourselves drawn into the story of Micaiah and…
- Sabbath School From Home
Hebrews 1 - In the past God spoke through the prophets
What is a prophet, and what does a prophetic call look like? In this episode we discuss the call of several prophetic and prophetic-adjacent figures from the…
- Sabbath School From Home
Zechariah 14 - The mount will split apart
We open a new season on the theme of prophecy by going back to the beginning — literally. The lesson frames prophecy as God's response to the breakdown of…
- Sabbath School From Home
1 Corinthians 13 - Live in harmony and peace
Thirteen weeks on 1 and 2 Corinthians, and we attempt a summary. The thread that keeps returning is Paul's pastoral instinct — not the rigid doctrinearian of…
- Sabbath School From Home
2 Corinthians 13 - Test yourselves
"False teacher" is an accusation easy to throw around, but who gets to decide? The receiver of a teaching is not always the best judge of whether it was false…
- Sabbath School From Home
2 Corinthians 8 - Excel also in gracious giving
Paul tells the Corinthians that since they excel in so many things — faith, knowledge, enthusiasm, love — they should excel also in giving. It's an interesting…
- Sabbath School From Home
2 Corinthians 3 - The veil is taken away
Paul opens 2 Corinthians 3 with a small piece of wordplay that turns out to carry a large idea: the Corinthian believers themselves are his letter of…
- Sabbath School From Home
2 Corinthians 1 - Grace and peace
Almost every New Testament epistle opens with "grace and peace" — and it turns out to be a phrase worth pausing on. It captures something essential, and makes…
- Sabbath School From Home
1 Corinthians 15 - A foolish question
1 Corinthians 15 centres on the idea of resurrection. We explore what the chapter has to say to Adventists specifically, for whom the state of the dead and the…
- Sabbath School From Home
1 Corinthians 13 - Put away childish things
1 Corinthians 13 is possibly the most well-known chapter in the Bible, and for good reason — it speaks for itself. Love is preeminent. The heart of our…
- Sabbath School From Home
1 Corinthians 14 - Ten thousand words
1 Corinthians 14 opens in a way that might feel familiar to Adventists — an emphasis on prophecy over tongues. But Paul's description of prophecy diverges…
- Sabbath School From Home
1 Corinthians 8 - Not cause a believer to stumble
Paul's argument in 1 Corinthians 8 is elegant: food sacrificed to idols is fine to eat, since idols are meaningless — but avoid it if eating would lead a…
- Sabbath School From Home
1 Corinthians 6 - The temple of the Holy Spirit
Paul is not afraid to talk about sex — but his approach is more nuanced than the church's reputation suggests. In 1 Corinthians 5 he tells the church to get…
- Sabbath School From Home
1 Corinthians 4 - How can you brag
What would Paul make of denominational pride? We can sincerely reject division within our own tradition while quietly celebrating everything that makes us…
- Sabbath School From Home
1 Corinthians 1 - Made the world’s wisdom foolish
The gospel has always looked foolish to the wise — and Paul in 1 Corinthians 1 seems untroubled by this. In this belated episode (holidays interrupted the edit…
- Sabbath School From Home
1 Corinthians 2 - I came to you in weakness
What is an apostle, and what does it mean to be called? We open a new season in 1 and 2 Corinthians by sitting with Paul's own answer — which turns out to be…
- Sabbath School From Home
Psalm 80 - We will be alright
A season about growing in relationship with God ends not with a method or a programme, but with a recurring cry. Psalm 80 turns out to thread through almost…
- Sabbath School From Home
Revelation 12 - They did not love themselves
"Friendship evangelism" can sound like ulterior-motive friendship, and that discomfort is worth taking seriously. We explore what separates genuine friendly…
- Sabbath School From Home
Genesis 15 - What good are all your blessings
Setbacks don't only happen when you can't see the big picture. Job is a famous example of hardship accompanied by confusion about what God is doing, but we…
- Sabbath School From Home
Hosea 6 - Slaughter you with my words
In this episode we look at the themes of repentence and forgiveness. God tells us in Exodus 20 that he shows love to a thousand generations to those who love…
- Sabbath School From Home
Romans 7 - Who can save me from this?
Romans 7 names the experience precisely: the things I want to do, I don't; the things I don't want to do, I end up doing. We explore how sin, gospel, and law…
- Sabbath School From Home
Hebrews 11 - Saw it all from a distance and welcomed it
Faith has two sides: the kind that moves mountains, and the kind that endures when the mountain stays put. We explore the idea that faith is a belief held…
- Sabbath School From Home
1 Kings 19 - A still small voice
Unanswered prayer is a genuine part of Christian experience — not a failure of faith. Many of the tidy explanations we reach for turn out to be exactly the…
- Sabbath School From Home
Luke 18 - Came to him repeatedly
Prayer is a bit like calling emergency services — in the moment you need it most, technique and philosophy are the last things on your mind. We explore a…
- Sabbath School From Home
Luke 24 - Their eyes were opened and they recognized him
Sometimes personal study isn't enough. We explore three stories where genuine biblical insight only emerged in community — the road to Emmaus, Philip and the…
- Sabbath School From Home
2 Timothy 3 - Prepare and equip his people
The Bible speaks to each of us today — but how does that actually work? We land on 2 Timothy 3:15-17 as a solid summary of Scripture's purpose, but spend most…
- Sabbath School From Home
Luke 18 - Thank you that I am not
Pride has a support network. Luke 18 gives us two characters whose postures before God could hardly be more different, but we explore the broader ecosystem…
- Sabbath School From Home
Job 36 - Something to say on God's behalf
No one person — or tradition — can fully represent God. The lesson this week raises the idea that the Bible is the "truest, clearest, and most consistent"…
- Sabbath School From Home
Revelation 3 - I stand at the door and knock
We're starting a new season on the topic of growing in a relationship with God. There's a lot of great questions in the lesson this week, but we notice an…
- Sabbath School From Home
Colossians 4 - Remember my chains
We revisit the verses about mutuality in relationships that straddle chapter 3 and 4. Although these were the topic last week, various ensuing conversations…
- Sabbath School From Home
Colossians 3 - You also have a master
It's not easy for us in the 21st century to read Paul asking slaves to submit to their masters. It is fascinating to realise that his matching remark to…
- Sabbath School From Home
Colossians 3 - Mortify your members
The main metaphor framework in this chapter seems perhaps surprisingly violent. There are passages about "putting to death our bodies", and we notice that some…
- Sabbath School From Home
Colossians 2 - High-sounding nonsense
This chapter is beautifully passionate about the way that our completeness is in Christ. Everything that really matters about us is best expressed in relation…
- Sabbath School From Home
Colossians 1 - Christ lives in you
This week, we wrap up our look into Colossians 1. From Eugene Peterson’s poetic rendering of scripture to the core idea that "Christ is enough," we explore the…
- Sabbath School From Home
Colossians 1 - Firstborn from the dead
After introductory greetings, the book of Colossians launches into a glorious passages of praise to Christ. It is widely considered to be a poem or perhaps…
- Sabbath School From Home
Philippians 4 - God of peace will be with you
The closing chapter of Philippians seems to oscillate between extremely specific remarks and some thoughts that are truly general. Being separated in time and…
- Sabbath School From Home
Philippians 3 - Infinite value of knowing Christ
Paul highlights that Christ is our confidence, and makes a vivid contrast with the attitude of confidence in our own human effort. It is remarkable that the…
- Sabbath School From Home
Philippians 2 - shining like bright lights
Avoiding "worldly" demands and customs is a long-standing passtime for Adventists and other protestant denominations. The lesson this week assumes this is the…
- Sabbath School From Home
Philippians 2 - Agreeing wholeheartedly
The lesson this week explores Unity through Humility. Philippians 2 builds on the themes of chapter 1 (love, joy, patience) and draws attention to attitudes…
- Sabbath School From Home
Philippians 1 - To live is Christ
Paul's evaluation of life and death is famous but still surprising. We explore only a few verses in Philippians 1, but they are enough to stimulate an…
- Sabbath School From Home
Colossians 1 - Asking God to give you wise minds
There are plenty of similarities between the opening parts of Philippians and Colossians. We love the salutation "grace and peace", and are intrigued by the…
- Sabbath School From Home
Philippians 4 - I can do all things
Our new season exploring Philippians and Colossians starts with consideration of their context. Paul was writing from prison, and certainly had experience of…
- Sabbath School From Home
Joshua 24 - Towns you did not build
The final chapter of Joshua seems to focus on themes of God's agency, idolatry, and continuity. There is a strong emphasis on God's actions that have led the…
- Sabbath School From Home
Joshua 23 - Thorny brambles in your eyes
The narrative changes gears considerably in the last two chapters of Joshua. We get "the years passed" and mention that "Joshua was now very old", and it is…
- Sabbath School From Home
Joshua 4 - What do these stones mean?
We're back at Joshua 22, and the story of avoided conflict continues to fascinate us. Despite some difficulties with logistics and audio (sorry for lower…
- Sabbath School From Home
Joshua 18 - How long will you be slack?
Joshua and Jesus are the same name, but how well does the Old Testament character point to the Messiah? The lesson dives into slightly technical detail about…
Sabbath School From HomeJoshua 22 - Gathered to make war
In the days when the Israelites conquered the Promised Land, they nearly came to civil war. This is a re-publication of an episode from 2021 (season 7 episode…
- Sabbath School From Home
Joshua 15 - Give me another gift
Caleb is a mighty warrior with a fantastic attitude! It is amazing to read him at 85 years old asking for the hardest cities to conquer all because he "is as…
- Sabbath School From Home
Joshua 8 - Built an altar
Worship rituals are interspersed between the conquests in Joshua. This leads to a Sabbath School lesson emphasis on the need to prioritise time with God even…
- Sabbath School From Home
Joshua 7 - Their courage melted away
The difficult story of Achan and his family being destroyed again raises the question of "God's endgame". Achan and his family stole plunder from Jericho…
- Sabbath School From Home
Joshua 8 - Foreigners living among them
We continue to grapple with the issue of divine war in Joshua. The lesson this week follows closely on the topic from our previous episode, expanding on some…
- Sabbath School From Home
Joshua 5 - Take off your sandals
The "Commander of the Lord's Army" shows up in this chapter with an important reframing of the narrative. Joshua has already been described as a warrior, and…
- Sabbath School From Home
Joshua 3 - Half a mile behind
Crossing the Jordan river with Joshua is a bit like crossing the Red Sea with Moses, but some differences are intriguing. This story is told in Joshua 3 using…
- Sabbath School From Home
Joshua 2 - I don’t know where they went
An interesting theme of "deception" shows up in the story of Rahab of Jerico. Even more fascinating is the way a similar kind of thing happens slightly later…
- Sabbath School From Home
Joshua 1 - Strong and courageous
The book of Joshua starts with a new key character very much in the shadow of Moses. It is hardly surprising that he needs to be encouraged to be strong and…
- Sabbath School From Home
Exodus 35 - Expertise in all kinds of crafts
There's a lot of building and crafting towards the end of Exodus, and we explore various aspects of expertise. In many churches there is an awkwardness…
- Sabbath School From Home
Exodus 34 - Terms of the covenant
The interesting dynamic between God and Moses continues after the golden calf. We are delighted to draw attention to some excellent reflective questions posed…