Humans love challenges. Some prefer challenges related to ideas, others to practical things. Whether you prefer to work crosswords, plan Sabbath dinner menus, or enhance production efficiencies, satisfaction results from meeting challenges. This week’s lesson examines challenging sayings of Jesus, a topic to engage both bends of mind.

The works that the Father has given me to complete, the very works that I am doing, testify on my behalf that the Father has sent me. (John 5:36)

The striking work done by Jesus set him apart. The Gospels list a range of things done by Jesus, but all his individual deeds can be grouped under three main aspects of his work, which are summarized by the following headings: powerful works; forming God’s new people; transforming death into life.

If you have to choose between a savior and a teacher, the savior wins, hands down. At least that is the Christian view, where Jesus as Savior appears to overshadow Jesus as Teacher. The great religions of the world all provide teachers of profound ethical wisdom. Only Christianity announces a Savior who dies in the repentant sinner’s place.

No topic or series of biblical texts could possibly be more important than this week’s lesson. Even if we devoted thirteen weeks to this topic, we would not exhaust the enormous meaningfulness of getting the “reality of his humanity” right! This is far more than a theological exercise. The personal experiences of every man, woman, and child breathing on this planet today is directly affected by his or her grasp of how “real” Christ’s humanity was! And is!

Over the centuries, Christians have understood Scripture’s claim that in Jesus Christ the Word was made flesh in a variety of ways. We Seventh-day Adventists have revisited this territory in our much shorter history. Early on, the first Christians eventually prevailed against Arianism, the view that the divinity of Jesus is secondary and subsequent to God’s. So did the first Adventists.

"There must surely have been something not only mysterious but many-sided about Christ if so many smaller Christs can be carved out of him” (G. K. Chesterton). And the smaller Christs are plentiful and contradictory. Jesus has been portrayed as a celibate (J. D. Crossan), a homosexual (Gene Robinson), a lustful philandering heterosexual (Martin Scorsese), or a married family man (W. E. Phipps). He's been a guerrilla leader (S. F. G. Brandon), a pacifist (J. H. Yoder), and a political innocent (Oscar Cullmann and Martin Hengel).

Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give. (Matt. 10:8)

At some point in one’s life, one is likely to be confronted with one’s mortality. Often one may ask: “Have I been all that I should have and could have been? Have I done all I could have done and should have done?” Often, one may find the answer to these questions uncomfortable.

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. (Matt. 28: 18–20)

How do we make sense of this biblical passage in light of the growing diversity we face within both our immediate and global communities?

(Translated by Carlos Enrique Espinosa)

How many times, as we look back on the past, have we heard ourselves say, “Now I understand”? We have all gone through such experiences, not understanding some words and facts at the outset. Given time…sometimes after a long, long time, the experience makes sense, as if we have a revelation.

The Atheist Manifesto, by French philosopher Michel Onfray, is just one of the half-dozen major atheist books of the last few years.1

Part of his project is the “deconstruction of Christianity,” among other monotheisms, which Onfray faults for the arrogance of “men claiming to be repositories and interpreters of God’s word—the priestly castes”