An overview for Sunday School teachers and Bible study leaders, of Lifeway’s “Explore the Bible” lesson of Leviticus 26:1-13, with the title, “Holy Living,” for Sunday, February 23, 2025. A video version of this overview is available on YouTube at:
INTRODUCTION:
??? When you think of a “holy” person, what is it that you think of??? What picture comes to your mind?
(Some might think of a hermit, clothed in “camel’s hair,” seeking God on his face in a remote desert cave.
Or a Pharisee, in his “holy robes,” looking down on those less holy around him?
Or a modern Christian, making his way past the temptations of Times Square or other worldly enticements.
My wife Cheryl said she thinks of someone who is too religious to wear makeup! (LOL, we actually had a relative like that!)
You/your group can share your thoughts, and then you can say something like: today in our lesson from Leviticus 26, we’ll look at what the Bible tells us that it means to live a “holy” life, and the benefits that come from it.
An overview for Sunday School teachers and Bible study leaders, of Lifeway’s “Explore the Bible” lesson of Leviticus 16, for Sunday, February 16, 2025, with the title, “Atonement.” A video version of this overview is available on YouTube at:
INTRODUCTION:
??? Ask your group: ??? What is the “biggest/most important day of the year to you???
(Some might say Christmas, or Easter, or their birthday — or Super Bowl Sunday!)
You can all share your responses, then you can say something like: today we are going to look at THE single most important day of the Jewish calendar, “Yom Kippur,” The Day of Atonement, and how it points to an even greater day, when Jesus made atonement for us, once for all, on the cross!
(For an alternate introduction to the lesson, you could use one of the illustrations of the “scapegoat” from Point II in our lesson)
An overview for Sunday School teachers and Bible study leaders, of Lifeway’s “Explore the Bible lesson of Leviticus 9:15-10:3, with the title of “Separation,” for Sunday, February 9, 2025. A video version of this lesson is available on YouTube at:
INTRODUCTION:
ONE way to begin your lesson this week would be to ask: ???“Which of the 5 books of the Law would be your favorite?”???
(I imagine most might say Genesis, or even Exodus. Probably very few, if any, would say Leviticus.)
But then you can transition by saying: this morning we will begin a brief, 3-lesson survey of the Book of Leviticus, and I hope that afterwards we’ll all understand just how important this book is, and how central to God’s ultimate purpose in Christ!
(On the occasion of my retirement from First Baptist Church, Angleton, TX, Sunday, January 26, 2025)
So what do you say to someone when you’re seeing them for the last time? It’s very difficult. Quite honestly, a lot of times when we see someone for the last time, we don’t know that it is the last time, right? They have an accident, or an illness takes them, and before we know it they are gone, and we don’t have the opportunity to say any “last words.” But sometimes we do. And although this may not be the last time I SEE some of you, for some it may be. And this is the last message I will preach to you as your full-time pastor. So what do you say? The best thing is always to go to the word of God. I’ve always said, I don’t have anything “spectacular” to say on my own, but God’s word is so rich, that the best thing I can do is just share what it says.
And it so happens that there is an occasion in scripture — the passage we read a few moments ago from Acts 20 — where the Apostle Paul is saying “goodbye” to a group of men he knew he would not see again, and I believe his message to them is very appropriate for us today — that’s why God put it here for us.
In Acts 20, the Apostle Paul is on his way back to Jerusalem from his 3rd Missionary Journey, and he’s had indications from the Holy Spirit that his life was nearing an end. So he sent for the elders (pastors) of the church at Ephesus, to meet him on his trip back so that he could share with them some parting words. So they’re good words for a church to hear from a pastor who is saying “farewell.” It would take weeks for us to delve through everything Paul shared with these Ephesians pastors, but let me share just 3-4 highlights this morning, things he told them to remember, that we would do well to remember today too:
An overview for Sunday school teachers and Bible study leaders who are teaching Lifeway’s “Explore the Bible” lesson of Exodus 40:16-21, 34-38, “Inhabited,” for Sunday February 2, 2025. A video version of this overview is available on YouTube at:
INTRODUCTION:
You could ask your group something like: ??? How many of you have a tent (or have had one)???
And if so, ask them what specifically they have used it for.
(Cheryl & I have a little tent that we use to set up on the beach when we go to the Gulf; our church also has a little tent we use when we do various ministry activities.
AND/OR could also ask: Have any of you ever had a WORSHIP SERVICE in a tent?
(Several probably have; “tent revivals” used to be a popular thing a generation ago; some churches may still do them.)
Then you can transition by saying something like: This morning we are going to see how God commanded Moses to build a tabernacle (or tent) to serve as a place of worship and sacrifice for the people of Israel, as well as to represent His guiding presence among them.
(ALTERNATIVE INTRO: use the “GPS” question from Point III to introduce the lesson, and transition by saying, today in Exodus 40 we’ll see how God led His people perfectly towards the Promised Land.)
An overview for Sunday School teachers and Bible study leaders, of Lifeway’s “Explore the Bible” lesson of Exodus 25:1-9 and 31:1-6, with the title “Instructions,” for Sunday, January 26, 2025. A video version of this overview that you can watch is available at:
INTRODUCTION:
One way to begin the lesson this week would be to ask your members to share about their home. Did they buy it?/build it?/some combination of the two?
(For example, when Cheryl & I moved to Angleton, Texas, from North Carolina 6 years ago, we had picked out 4 homes online to look at when we got here. But by the time we arrived two days later, all 4 had already sold! (The market was really moving then!) So we ended up buying our present home, which was not on our original list. We got a really good deal on it — but it also needed to be almost totally remodeled. So we paid for the house, but we also put quite a bit of our own personal labor into it as well. (Cheryl more than me, I am not very gifted at these things!) One of the first things Cheryl did was the peel off all the old wallpaper in our entryway, and ladled on new texture and paint, and it looks fantastic to this day; it’s one of my favorite parts of our house.
Many of your class members probably bought their homes, some built them, and many are probably like us and did some kind of combination of the two.
You/your group can share your own experiences, and then transition by saying, today in our study in Exodus we’ll see how God called His people to use both their gifts and their service, as they constructed His Tabernacle — and we are to do the same as we serve Him today.
In 1622, the ship, “Our Lady of Atocha,” sailed from the Spanish colonies in the New World back towards Spain. The Atocha was laden down with so much gold from the mines in the Americas that it had taken two months to load all of it into the ship! But just off of what we now call the Florida Keys, a hurricane struck, and the Atocha sank. For centuries, that vast treasure had been hidden somewhere underwater, and a American named Mel Fisher was determined to find it. He outfitted a ship; he recruited divers; he used modern technology to search under the ocean. In 1969 Fisher crisscrossed the waters off the Florida Keys, but after a year of searching, he found nothing. He was determined to continue, but two years went by, and still they did not find it. Five years later, no success. Ten years; still nothing. Fifteen years and countless thousands of dollars later, no Atocha. But on the 16th year of crisscrossing, searching, diving, and after much disappointment, 16 years later, they finally found a large portion of the Atocha, in 1985, with its amazing treasure that was worth an estimated 400 million dollars. In fact, just one of the rings recovered from the Atocha was valued at $500,000!
Mel Fisher is a great example of what it means to really “seek” for something. But there is a treasure to be found that is greater than silver or gold. The Bible tells us in Isaiah 55:6-7 “Seek the LORD while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way an and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return to the LORD, and He will have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.”
The Bible says the greatest treasure to be found is not silver or gold, but God Himself. Silver and gold, rings and other treasures, will never truly satisfy us, and they will all one day perish. But the treasure we can find in God will truly meet the deepest needs of our souls, and it is eternal, and cannot be taken away. So if we are wise, we should choose to seek God. Maybe you’re here this morning because you’ve said, “I am seeking the Lord”, and you are hoping that you could find Him, or find the way to Him, at church. And a church should be a good place to seek God. Others of us are a special points in our lives, where we really need to seek the Lord: last week Cheryl & I announced our retirement from full-time ministry, now we are seeking God’s direction for our next home. This church and its leadership needs to seek God’s direction for the interim time and then the call of the next pastor, a vital, vital decision! You might say that you have a personal issue in your own life, that you need to seek God about.
But what does it really mean to “seek the Lord”? This verse tells us something about that. The Hebrew word here for “seek” (“darash”) means to seek, or to read and study something repeatedly. A related word in the ancient world means to “beat a path” around something, because you are repeatedly going to it. That tells us something about what it means to “seek the Lord.” To really “seek” God means more than just going to church once or twice. It means you “beat a path” there, seeking Him. It also means that you “study” His word — not flipping open your Bible once or twice, but really “wearing a path” in it. In other words, if you aren’t “beating a path” to church, and if your Bible is not getting worn out, you are not really “seeking God”! When we really “seek” something or someone, we put a lot of time and effort into it — just like Mel Fisher did with seeking for the Atocha. And that is what we should do with the Lord. We should “beat a path” to church; “beat a path” to His word, as we seek Him, year after year if need be. If Fisher was willing to spend 16 years seeking for a treasure that he couldn’t take with him when he died in 1998 — he left it all behind! — how much more should we be willing to seek for the One True Treasure that we can keep for all eternity? We need to “seek” the Lord as fervently, or more so, than Fisher did his sunken ship. Isaiah 55:6-7 tells us some more about what it means to “seek the Lord”:
I. Seek God In Prayer Right after the Bible says “Seek the Lord while He may be found” in the first part of :6, it then adds, “call upon Him while He is near.” Those of you who are in our Prayer & Psalms study on Wednesday nights may recognize this as “parallelism”, which is the Hebrew form of poetry. Hebrew poetry doesn’t rhyme, instead their poetry consists of joining two sentences or phrases together; by saying something twice, just a little differently. It’s what Hebrew scholars call “synonymous parallelism” — repeating something in just a little different way. So what this verse tells us when it puts those phrases “seek the Lord” and “call upon Him” together is that they are similar things. It tells us that one way to “seek the Lord” is to “call upon Him.”
An overview for Sunday School teachers and Bible study leaders, of Lifeway’s “Explore the Bible” lesson of Exodus 22:21-27, and Leviticus 19:9-10, with the title of “Protection” for Sunday, January 19, 2025. A video version of this overview is available on YouTube at:
SAMPLE INTRODUCTION: Pearl Buck was the daughter of missionaries to China, and she spent much of her life there. She grew up to write a novel, The Good Earth, for which she won the Pulitzer Prize in 1932. Pearl Buck wrote: “The test of a civilization is the way that it cares for its helpless members.”
You might consider posting this quote to open your lesson (or you could use it later on, but I think it would serve well as an introduction) and ask your group: ??? What do you think about this quote? Do you think it might be true, and why???
After your group’s discussion, then you can say something like: This morning in our passages from Exodus and Leviticus, we see how God commands His people to care for the needy and vulnerable among us.
An overview for Sunday school teachers and Bible study leaders, of Lifeway’s “Explore the Bible” lesson of Exodus 20:1-17 for Sunday, January 12, 2025 with the title, “God’s Commands.”
A video version of this overview is available on YouTube at:
I have TWO different suggestions for an INTRODUCTION to the lesson this week:
INTRO OPTION 1: A survey by Kelton Research found that more people in America can name the ingredients of a Big Mac than can list all Ten Commandments. — 80 percent of 1,000 respondents could name the burger’s primary ingredient — two all-beef patties — but less than six in 10 knew the commandment “thou shalt not kill.” — Less than half of respondents — 45 percent — could recall the commandment “honour thy father and mother” but 62 percent knew the Big Mac has pickle.
Which leads to the question: “How many of the Ten Commandments can you name?” (Pass out paper and pens, secret ballot survey; keep for yourself) You could post something fun with the scores like: 0-2 You’re A Pagan! 3-4 Go Back to VBS! 5-6 You’re A Good Average Baptist! 7-8 Ready for Bible College! 9-10 BIBLE SCHOLAR! (Now try LIVING them!)
(As a humorous/interesting point of comparison you might then ask: “How many ingredients of a Big Mac can you name?” Song: “2 all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun.
Then transition by saying something like: today we will look at the Ten Commandments of Exodus 20:1-17.
INTRO OPTION 2: (In July, 1955, the 4 world powers met for a summit meeting in Geneva, Switzerland.) “By a quirk of fate, the Reverend Billy Graham was holding a revival crusade in the city that coincided with the summit. Graham acknowledged that the timing was accidental, although he did not rule out the possibility that Providence may have played a role, Graham told The New Yorker’s Richard Rovere that he was much in favor of the summit. ‘Moses long ago held a parley at the Summit,’ said Graham, ‘and had there received a ten-point directive that the heads of government would do well to restudy.’”(Jean Edward Smith, Eisenhower in War and Peace, p. 666)
On the occasion of the announcement of my retirement from full-time ministry, Sunday January 5, 2025.
I really wrestled and prayed about how to do this service today; and this is what I felt led to do: — First, I want to share some news with you, — And then I want us to look at a word from the Lord that I believe applies to Cheryl’s and my situation, and will hopefully speak to all of us in some way too.
THE NEWS: I don’t know how much of a shock it will be to many of you, that I need to announce my retirement from full-time ministry at First Baptist Angleton at the end of this month.
Most of you know that my wife Cheryl had a stroke the last day of August, and since that day, my primary concern has been taking care of her, and assisting in every way I could with her rehabilitation. That has pretty much been a full-time job, and I’ve temporarily set aside many of my church duties to do it. I am SO thankful that you all allowed me to do that. I felt absolutely NO pressure from anyone here at the church to come back and preach, or get back to full-time ministry — I have felt a lot of SELF-imposed pressure, I will tell you, but there has been none from anyone at church, and I greatly appreciate your love, patience, and understanding these past months. As I have mentioned before, your reward is with the Lord, and from my perspective, this church will fare well on that day for the way you treated me.
But although you have been SO patient and SO understanding, this church needs a full-time pastor — and the truth is, I am just not able to be a full-time pastor right now. I can’t do it. So it is obvious to me that I need to step aside, and let the church call a pastor who can lead it full-time.
I'm a retired Southern Baptist pastor of almost 40 years. My wife Cheryl & I moved to Norman, OK in March of 2025. I share a weekly overview for Sunday School teachers of the weekly Lifeway "Explore the Bible" lesson, as well as texts of my sermons and other articles.
shawnethomas 