Tag: learn god

Episode 4: Paul and his conversion

Everything You Need to Know (about God) You Can Learn in Sunday School Series

Have you ever felt like you don’t deserve God’s forgiveness? Have you ever felt like you have done too many bad things for God to love you? I think that most of use have felt this way at some time or another. What if I told you that the man that God chose to write most of the New Testament and was once feared all over the land by Christians. This man was feared because he would hurt believers and even have them put to death! His goal was literally to wipe out all of Christianity. I’m sure you are wondering why God would choose such an awful man to one day be a great Apostle. Maybe after you learn about his conversion you will start to understand God’s plan.

Today we are going to learn about a man called Paul (formerly known as Saul). Paul has become probably my favorite person in the New Testament (other than Jesus of course)! When I really started to study the Bible a few years ago I became fascinated by Paul and his conversion. Whenever I would think about my past or if I could really be forgiven- Paul’s life would give me comfort. Even after I had turned my life to Christ- I would still find myself questioning if I deserved God’s forgiveness. I hope that the story of Paul can give you some hope and comfort as well.

We are going to look at Saul’s conversion to Paul in the book of Acts (written by Luke). To summarize: Saul was an extremely religious Jewish leader, a Pharisee, who had been trained by a man named Gamaliel. Gamaliel was considered the finest Jewish teacher as well a saint and Pharisee doctor of Jewish Law. Saul truly believed that the Christian movement was dangerous to his religion, Judaism, and persecuted any and all of the Christian believers without any mercy.

In the book of Acts it tells us that Saul was traveling far away from Jerusalem to a town called Damascus, where he planned on gathering believers of Christ to bring back to punish. On Saul’s way to Damascus here is what happened:

3 As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

5 “Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked.

“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. 6 “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”

7 The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. 8 Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. 9 For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything.

Acts 9:3 NIV

After this Saul and the men traveled on to Damascus. The Lord had already spoken to a man named Ananias and told him that Saul would be coming and to go find him praying. Jesus also gave Saul a vision of a man named Ananias would put his hands on him and restore his sight. Ananias was scared because he had heard the stories of Saul. This is what Jesus said in response:

15 But the Lord said to Ananias, “Go! This man is my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings and to the people of Israel. 16 I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.”

The two men finally meet up and Ananias speaks with Saul and prays with him and of the Holy Spirit. Something like scales fall off of Saul’s eyes and he is no longer blind! He got up and was baptized!

Saul started preaching that Jesus is the Son of God! Everyone was amazed and could not believe this was the same man that had been so feared by all of the followers of Christ.

God took one of the worst people at that time and turned him into one of the greatest followers of Christ! Paul spread the word of Christianity even to the non-Jewish people. This had really not been done before. God used him to do something extraordinary that others had not done- and Paul did it extremely well! He used his intensity that he once used for bad to spread the word of God!

If we ever think that our pasts are too bad for God to use us, forgive us or to love us please remember the story of Paul. Who knows…. one day God might use you for something extraordinary too!

The Books of the Bible believed to be written by Paul (according to my Bible: Life Application Study Bible- NIV):

  • Romans
  • 1 Corinthians
  • 2 Corinthians
  • Galatians
  • Ephesians
  • Philippians
  • Colossians
  • 1 Thessalonians
  • 2 Thessalonians
  • 1 Timothy
  • 2 Timothy
  • Titus
  • Philemon
  • Partial- Hebrews along with others

Have a Blessed Day!

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** I am not theologically trained. This is just my explanation at a very basic level and hoping to make relatable for children and adults to understand to grow their relationship with God. The literature from my Sunday School class is from D6 – Elementary Teaching Guide through D6 Family Ministry – I have made all attempts to not reference their materials directly but they are great lessons and this is what I use in my class. I try to take as much from my own learnings from the Holy Bible in addition to the lessons for this blog. **

Episode 1: Old Testament- The Commandments

Everything You Need to Know (about God) You Can Learn in Sunday School Series

When I first started studying the Bible I didn’t see much point in understanding the Old Testament. Now, I love the Old Testament and want to know as much as I can from it!

The way I explain it to the kids is that the whole Bible is one big story mostly about one family and leading to Jesus. Our Savior grew up following the strict rules of the Jewish religion and He answered and fulfilled over 300 prophecies from the Old Testament!

I think that studying the OT is super important if we want to grow our relationship with the Lord. Knowing where someone comes from and why they do the things they do is a great way to understand them and trust them – and love them.

When we study the OT there is also another common thread throughout this whole division of the Bible and its that the Israelites repeat a relationship cycle over and over with God.

Here’a a simple explanation of the cycle:

  1. They love God, they follow His commandments.
  2. They forget what God has done for them and they fall away- usually turning to false gods/idols.
  3. Something really bad happens (a big test/trial)- a war, famine, slavery etc
  4. They turn back to God by turning away from their false gods/idols/disobedience and follow the commandments again.
  5. God forgives them.
  6. Repeat!

This literally happens over and over again throughout the whole OT more times than I know. This is how almost all of the stories in the Old Testament can easily relate to our lives today.

How many times do we do this same process? How many times do we forget all of the great things that God has done for us and turn our attention and time to other things? How many times are we then reminded we need God in our lives because something bad happens and we need His help? How many times do we ask Him to forgive us and then do it all over again?

If you are someone that is in the middle part of this cycle I want you to focus on items 4 & 5. You can still turn back to God and we know that God will always forgive us. Then the way we grow our relationship with Him is try really really hard not to keep repeating the process or if we do return to steps 4 & 5 as quick as possible.

God gave Moses the Ten Commandments after the Israelites had crossed the Red Sea fleeing from the Egyptians (the exodus of Egypt following the plagues). There were over 500,000 men plus women and children – so upwards of over 1,000,000 people! It makes complete sense that God felt He needed to give some rules to follow going forward to help keep them on the right path with Him.

Several years ago while teaching the children’s church class the Ten Commandments I came across a video that taught the kids how to use their hands to remember the commandments and it is the simplest and most memorable way I have used. I will link the video to the one most similar to the pictures I’m posting below. These are photos below of my ten year old daughter’s hands and explanation of each commandment. Please review these and I can promise you can learn them too! I used this in my Sunday school class with this lesson and every single kid (regardless of age) was able to share them all back to Mrs. Brenda and I by the end of the roughly 30 minute class!

Commandment 1: We are to have ONE and only ONE God (Use ONE finger to show the number ONE)
Commandment 2: TWO Gods are too many (use TWO fingers like a peace sign)
Commandment 3: WATCH your WORDS – Do not say God’s name in vain or say anything bad about God (The fingers make the shape of a W with THREE fingers).
Commandment 4: We are to rest on the Sabbath Day/Sunday and worship and give thanks to God on that day (Hold up FOUR fingers with the thumb resting on your palm- this is to show we are to rest on that day)
Commandment 5: Honor thy mother and they father (This is my favorite to teach kids about they usually have guilty reactions – hold all fingers together on one hand like you are making a pledge- FIVE fingers for commandment 5)
Commandment 6: Do not kill (don’t panic over this one and it works – hold one hand of all five fingers sideways and take index finger from the other hand like you have a squirt gun pointing at the other hand- this uses SIX fingers)
Commandment 7: Keep marriage sacred- married people should love each other and shouldn’t go on dates with other people (hold one hand with all five fingers out flat- take index and middle finger of the other hand to make two people walking together- you will be using SEVEN fingers).
Commandment 8: Do not steal (this one is fun and usually makes them laugh- hold four fingers up on both hands – not using the thumbs on either- put the EIGHT fingers in front of your eyes like you are behind jail bars).
Commandment 9: Do not gossip/tell lies about others (hold up one hand with all five fingers turned to the side- hold up four fingers on the other hand with the thumb turned towards the four extended fingers- this is to show the thumb is talking to the four fingers about the other hand of five fingers).
Commandment 10: Do not be greedy (You take all TEN fingers and hold them in front of you and scrunching fingers to show you are wanting something- we usually do this with funny greedy faces- I teach them that coveting is different than stealing- it’s being jealous of someone having something that you want and you may wish that someone loses that thing or that they get hurt so they can’t have it anymore).

These commandments are still very important today and we should follow them to the best of our ability. We know that when Jesus came in the New Testament some things from the OT went away such as animal sacrifice. When Jesus was asked about the Ten Commandments this was His response:

30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’[a] 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] There is no commandment greater than these.” MARK 12: 30-31

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark%2012%3A30-31&version=NIV

If we look at the above verse it summarizes all of the commandments into just two commandments! If we love everyone like we love ourselves- then we would not steal, not talk bad, not cheat, keep marriage sacred, not murder or not want bad for others. If we love God with all of our heart, mind and soul we will always put Him first, not have any other idols, we would put one day away for Him and would never say anything bad about Him. So really if we follow what Jesus says in this verse we would cover all of the Ten Commandments!

Thank you each for reading and I hope this helps you grow your relationship with God like it does for my Sunday School class.

Have a Blessed day!

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Link to a video version :

https://youtu.be/8pBrw4uVgz8?si=PLFCVwd8omhC1FZC

** I am not theologically trained. This is just my explanation at a very basic level and hoping to make relatable for children and adults to understand to grow their relationship with God. The literature from my Sunday School class is from D6 – Elementary Teaching Guide through D6 Family Ministry – I have made all attempts to not reference their materials directly but they are great lessons and this is what I use in my class. I try to take as much from my own learnings from the Holy Bible in addition to the lessons for this blog. **