Sharing Scripture — May 16-22, 2021

This is a tool for you to use if you lead a Sabbath School (SS) class or small group. It is keyed to the Bible texts used in the current week’s Adult SS lesson and includes a brief story from current news you can use to introduce the discussion and then a series of discussion questions in a relational pattern designed to build fellowship and spiritual reflection.

For use: May 16-22, 2021

Texts: Exodus 19:6; Isaiah 56:7; Hebrews 2:9; Deuteronomy 4:13; Deuteronomy 10:13; Amos 3:3; Genesis 18:19

When our founding fathers met to organize the fledgling United States government at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, they examined several models of governance. The ancient Greeks developed a form of democracy, including a body of legislators called the Senate. And the Enlightenment in Europe signaled a move away from a monarchy toward a government of the people. The Bible certainly provided instructions on moral and ethical living (but they didn’t want a theocratic government). Eventually, they found a viable model for our Constitution in our own backyard: The Great Law of Peace established by the Confederation of the Iroquois.

This Confederation began several centuries earlier when the “Great Peacemaker” united five nations: the Mohawks, the Onondaga, the Cayuga, the Oneida and the Seneca. These nations formed a multi-state government while maintaining their own individual governance, a model that reflected the desire of the Constitutional delegates to unite the colonies into a body of thirteen states.

Constitutional historians barely acknowledged the Iroquois’ influence for most of our nation’s history. Fortunately, we finally recognized our debt to the Iroquois for our Constitutional form of governance during the 1987 Constitutional bicentennial celebration.

Unlike the story presented here, the basis for the covenant that God established with the children of Abraham is very well known: the Ten Commandments. Deuteronomy 4:13 identifies the Ten Commandments as the covenant, written by God’s own hand on two tables of stone. In this document we see that God established a contract with two very simple terms: God will be our God and provide for our needs, and in return, we will obey God. This contract would serve as a righteous “governance” with Israel who were to be a kingdom of priests and not ruled by any human powers.

Of course, we know how well the children of Israel held up their end of the covenant. The Bible narrative follows this familiar pattern: Israel obeys and God blesses them; Israel gets careless and disobeys, and they find themselves in deep trouble; Israel cries out to God for help, and God intervenes on their behalf; Israel disobeys again, and the cycle continues. The one constant in the narrative is that God—unlike us—is always faithful and never abandons us.

The good news is that even though we often break our part of the covenant law, God provides the remedy for us: Jesus Christ the Righteous One. Jesus not only fulfills God’s part of the covenant; the atoning sacrifice of Christ provides our salvation from the penalty for our failures: the law of sin and death. Jesus, the one true King, paid it all.

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