Encountering God

Please note: This product is a digital file. You will need to download the file to your computer and print it from your printer.

Age Group

Adult

Brief Description

“Encountering God” is a four session study for adults, including learner’s materials, teaching guides, and handouts. The teaching guide is options-based, so teachers can customize sessions to match their favorite approach.

“Encountering God” explores the many ways we know and learn about God. For example, as creator, God’s imprint is found in all of creation. However, there are some places where the picture of God is clearer than in others. This unit may be used during Epiphany.

Session One is the first in a series of four that consider the various ways we know God. This session will raise several difficult questions: How is God revealed in the Scriptures? How do we encounter God in those Scriptures? Finally, we must also ask ourselves about the usefulness of the Scriptures for our daily lives. The text clearly suggests that the Scriptures are God-inspired and worthy of instructing us. We will do well to ask ourselves how we respond to the Scriptures and to the God we meet in them.

Session Two explores how we can know God through worship. Many seasons of the church year offer us the opportunity to think about revelation, or how we come to know God. Sometimes we think of revelation as grand, flashy events that call attention to themselves. In reality, the greatest revelations of God come in ordinary, common occurrences. Our busy schedules seldom allow us to know our neighbors, much less see God in them. And who was Jesus, but a common man?

Session Three focuses on one of the pivotal texts in Romans. It deals with how is God made known to us? In this Scripture Paul writes to explain that everyone has encountered God in such a way to be able to know God.

Session Four gives us a picture of Jesus at the very end of his public ministry. We see a Jesus who has met the crowds and healed the multitudes. We see a Jesus who has touched the eyes of the blind and fed the hungry. In this session, Jesus is visiting the Temple and a group of Jews follow him there. They crowd around him and insist on him telling them who he truly is.

by Darrell Gwaltney

User License
The purchaser of this file has permission to print twenty copies of this Learners Study Guide. Neither the file nor the printed contents may be sold copied or transferred to another person or church. The purchaser may make a backup copy of the file.

The purchaser of this file has permission to print one copy of this Teaching Guide. Neither the file nor the printed contents may be sold, copied or transferred to another person or church. The purchaser may make a backup copy of the file.