Education

“Adult Christian Education Message”
Bible Study in Lent is Important. We are blessed at First Church to have many offerings for Christian education. We have classes at 9:00 am on Sunday mornings, monthly studies with Michael Odle, and special classes throughout the year. If you are still feeling left out, please talk to me or any member of our Adult Christian Education Committee about what you need. More basics? More advanced classes? Theology? Discipleship? Social Action? We want to meet your needs. Please join us in our Lenten study of Luke on Sundays at 9:00 am or Tuesday nights at 7:00 pm on Zoom. With or without the book, you will still learn from the videos with Pastor Adam Hamilton and the discussion. There are also free online studies you may join.
Academic dean and professor of New Testament at United Theological Seminary, the Rev. David F. Watson, recently shared his insights on how John Wesley (the founder of Methodism) read the Bible. In “Reading the Bible like Wesley (sort of),” Watson argues that while Wesley often read the Bible plainly and looked for the simple truth contained in the verses without too much speculation, he always read it with what Watson calls “the analogy of faith”. The analogy was a basic summation of key doctrines such as the Trinity and salvation by faith that Wesley allowed to always frame his reading. Wesley also always read the scripture with a goal of recapturing the witness and vigor of the early or “primitive” church as it appears in the New Testament. New converts studied intensely during Lent. It is a good model for today.

~Tom Bolton-Lay Leader