Sabbath School From Home Cameron and Lachlan Rogers

Hope is an incredibly powerful motivator. 
Prophets are fascinating and unsettling in an incredible variety of ways throughout the Bible, but one consistent theme is anticipation of the future. We look at Joseph's teenage dreams and explore how things don't turn out the way he probably expected. It seems one important role of prophecy is to remind us of hope.

There's definitely controversy described in Revelation 11, and there could also be about this chapter! 
The lesson this week makes quite a strong statement about this chapter pointing to the French Revolution. We discuss a few cautions about confirmation bias, and don't see this connection particularly vividly in the text itself. Rather than try to reach a definitive interpretation, we explore some details in this passage and meditate on the power of God despite the observation of suffering and oppression.

Reformers exhibit faith against all odds, but we recognise this more easily in hindsight. 
The bible has numerous accounts of "reformations", where followers of God either re-found truths of old or expanded into new truth. We mention a few examples before looking a bit more closely at Ezra. There is much to admire in this reformation story, but some details are troubling. Reformation seems to be needed in an ongoing or repeating manner, and it is challenging to consider the idea that we could be the odds against which valuable reformation might fight.
[edit: audio fixed to remove silent section part way through]

Standing for the Truth is vital, but what if our "truth" needs tweaking? 
History is full of people who passionately defended what they felt was true, but which seems more questionable to us in retrospect. This problem is not new - exactly the same thing occurred in Biblical times. Throughout the Gospels people struggle to accept the Truth in Jesus because of their passion for defending truth they inherited or developed. John 9 tells a fascinating story all about knowledge, which highlights the way that conversations about truth are often motivated by working out who is in and who is out. We take comfort in Jesus being "the way the truth and the life", and it seems that standing on the truth still allows room for growth and even uncertainty.

Why is it so hard to accept an incarnational nature of scripture? 
Christians take that name because of their belief in Jesus as God incarnate - the whole point is that He had to become human in order for us to better understand who God is (and what we mean to Him). It seems reasonable to encounter the Bible in the same way: inspiration but through genuinely human authors.

"Love or selfishness" forms an interesting axis. 
It might seem strange not to contrast love with hate, but the book of 1 John spends a lot of time on the relationship between love and a focus on what is best for others. It is quite a stimulating perspective on love and its role in the revelation of God. We realise that love can have many "opposites", each of which represents a somewhat "great controversy" that we each must navigate in the particulars of life.