We had another 3 session-week this week. Francois taught on Monday about the feeding of the 5000. After the lesson there were a lot of good questions and quite a bit of animated discussion on whether the outward form of religion (prayers, fasting, etc.) was really pleasing to God or whether God looks at the heart motive. It was neat to hear most of the people clearly articulating that God looks at the heart and doesn’t look at the outward form. This represents a major shift from where these guys started out. Tuesday’s lesson turned out to be very appropriate, it was about the controversy the Pharisees had with Jesus and his disciples for not following the “right” religious forms. Many of the issues from the day before were brought up and addressed once again.
Wednesday there was another death in the village along with bad weather. The group that gathered was too small to do a full lesson so we just took the time to review what we had learned up this point regarding Jesus as well as the recent lesson on the Pharisees. Thursday’s lesson included the Transfiguration which was a heavy lesson in which we began to be more direct in addressing topics like the Deity of Christ and the need for His death as a payment for sins. These topics come into conflict with the established tradition of the main religion of this area.
Many of the ones who are struggling to understand outward form over inward heart issues are not coming very faithfully to the teaching. Please pray that in these last weeks they will more faithfully come and begin to grasp the difference. Pray for Phil as he seeks these guys out to discuss these topics more in depth in a non-controversial environment.
With only 2 weeks of teaching left, please pray for attendance in general, that people will continue to attend and that they will fully grasp their need for Christ as their Redeemer!