Thank you for your prayers regarding the lesson on Abraham\u2019s sons. The day we taught that lesson (Wednesday) the Lord allowed for a higher number than usual of religious leaders to attend the session. We started by reviewing some background that we taught in the earliest lessons (see the post called \u201cThe trunk and the branches\u201d) as well as the principles that God has revealed through the lessons up to this point (i.e. that He does not accept human effort, etc.). As we taught the lesson it was clear to everyone that there is no way God was going to accept Abraham\u2019s effort to help God save face.<\/p>\n
When Francois\u2019 curriculum development helpers were developing this lesson they used a very descriptive term that summed up the issue very nicely. The word they used was \u201copoosa\u201d and it means something like \u201cto give hand-outs.\u201d When two friends go fishing and one catches a lot of fish and the other doesn\u2019t catch any, the one who caught a lot of fish will opoosa his friend by giving him some fish. He doesn\u2019t want his friend to feel bad so he shares with his needy friend out of his abundance. It carries the idea of shame for the needy friend. When we used that term during the teaching of this lesson the audience immediately recognized the absurdity of what Abraham was trying to do. Does God need Abraham to opoosa Him? Absolutely not!<\/p>\n
Every day we ask questions at the end of each teaching session to see how people are tracking. You can tell a lot by the way people respond to questions how they are tracking. Sometimes you get a blank stare, a \u201cdeer in the headlights\u201d look, when you ask a question that tells you they don\u2019t know what you are asking. Sometimes you get someone who isn\u2019t sure of the answer but will venture a tentative guess. Sometimes the answer is a \u201cno-brainer\u201d and they all answer rapidly and in unison in a way that communicates they are confident they know the answer. That is the way they answered the question of \u201cDid God accept Ishmael?\u201d. In unison and with confidence, they all replied saying \u201cNo! Of course God will not accept Abraham\u2019s effort to opoosa Him by having a son and offering to Him as a replacement for the Son that God he would provide.\u201d It\u2019s a no-brainer!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thank you for your prayers regarding the lesson on Abraham\u2019s sons. The day we taught that lesson (Wednesday) the Lord allowed for a higher number than usual of religious leaders to attend the session. We started by reviewing some background that we taught in the earliest lessons (see the post called \u201cThe trunk and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":300,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-532","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ministry","7":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/phil-henderson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/phil-henderson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/phil-henderson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/phil-henderson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/300"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/phil-henderson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/phil-henderson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/phil-henderson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/phil-henderson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/phil-henderson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}