This weekly feature is dedicated to Adventists who are looking for biblical insights into the topics discussed in the Sabbath School lesson quarterly. We post articles which address each lesson as presented in the Sabbath School Bible Study Guide, including biblical commentary on them. We hope you find this material helpful and that you will come to know Jesus and His revelation of Himself in His word in profound biblical ways.
Lesson 1: “The Shepherd’s Crucible”
COLLEEN TINKER
Problems with this lesson:
- This lesson, based roughly on Psalm 23, stresses that we can learn discipline from our hardships to grow our characters as we follow our Shepherd.
- The lesson mentions the Cross not as God’s provision but as “the greatest example of [God’s] ‘pursuit’” of us.
- We are exhorted to endure difficulties by remembering how the Shepherd has treated us, not by trusting His finished work and being born again.
As is typical, this lesson misses the profound significance of David’s popular Psalm 23 and its promises from our sovereign God who does for us what we cannot do for ourselves. This lesson moralizes God’s promises and makes the reader focus on “His training His people in righteousness” (p. 7). In keeping with Adventism’s doctrines, this lesson attempts to imprint on the reader the importance of spiritual discipline and following the example of Jesus.
These passages from the Teachers Comments on this week’s lesson reveal the convoluted but works-oriented instruction this lesson offers as the way to eternal life:
Jesus remains the Path, and He promises us that His path is the truth and that it will take us to life, eternal life. Jesus not only is the Path; but He also is, as He says about Himself, “ ‘the good shepherd’ ” (John 10:11, NKJV). What does that mean? Jesus explains: “ ‘I know My sheep, and am known by My own’ ” (John 10:14, NKJV), including those from other folds (see John 10:16, NKJV). There is more. Jesus as “ ‘the good shepherd gives His life for the sheep’ ” (John 10:11, NKJV; see also John 10:15) and will give “ ‘them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand’ ” (John 10:28, NKJV). So, following Christ on His path, the path of His righteousness, is the only and sure path to life (Acts 4:12). Even if it is narrow, even if it has crucibles, it is the only, and the best, path to life. Our Shepherd will take us there.…
If religion is a “path” or “journey,” it is not an atemporal, ahistorical phenomenon, as in the pagan mythological or philosophical religions. Rather, in the biblical view, religion (or the reconnection of humanity with divinity) is a process in time and space. It is a personal and historical journey, both for God and for us. God comes to us and meets us where we are, in history.…He comes to us, seeking to save us, to take us back to the path of life, to take us back to Himself. In fact, He Himself becomes the Path and the Guide and the Shepherd. He walks with us through that valley, guiding us on that path of reconnecting to God. This is God’s religion, the religion of grace!
In short, this lesson makes a show of describing God as our Shepherd who leads us on His path to righteousness, but it fails to present Him as our Savior and Substitute. Instead, the lesson focusses on the suffering we will experience in life and exhorts us to see God as the One who will accompany us on our journey to Him.
Again, this lesson is inside-out. Our understanding of God’s provision is not based on logical or philosophical understandings of God as Shepherd. He is not our companion, loyally walking with us through our struggles.
Instead, He is our Shepherd who leads us into the dark valleys and losses and times of suffering. Our life’s journey is not a binary “path choice” as the lesson presents it. We do not stand and choose either the path of iniquity or the path of life, as the Teachers Comments explain.
In fact, we are born already condemned to death, under the wrath of God, by nature children of wrath (Jn. 3:18; Eph. 2:1–3; Rom. 3:9–15). We do not choose the “path of iniquity”. We are born dead! Our immaterial spirits are dead in sin from the moment of our conception. As spiritually dead people, we have no ability to rise above our natures. We cannot choose the path of righteousness!
God must intervene in our lives for us even to see who He is and to desire to know Him. Thankfully, He does reveal Himself to all of us:
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened (Romans 1:18–21).
All men are without excuse because God takes the initiative to reveal Himself! It is not up to us to pursue Him; He reveals Himself and gives us the ability to believe by faith.
Only a person who, like David the psalmist, trusts God’s word and knows He cannot lie or be unfaithful to Himself, can trust the Shepherd revealed in Psalm 23. The person who puts himself into Psalm we already knows and trusts the Lord. Psalm 23 is comfort for those who know their Shepherd’s voice.
Jesus revealed Himself to be the Shepherd of those who trust God. He said, in John 10,
At that time the Feast of Dedication took place at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the colonnade of Solomon. So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one” (John 10:22–30).
In other words, when we see Jesus as revealed in Scripture and recognize His fulfillment of the law and the prophets and believe Him, we receive eternal life from Jesus. We believe because we are His sheep, and we recognize His voice when He calls us. We follow Him and are kept safe because He holds us in a double grip between Him and the Father.
The Shepherd’s Psalm is profoundly comforting to those who trust God on His terms, believing fully in His Son and not trying to hang onto their own moral improvement as a necessity for His approval. Psalm 23 is not instruction for HOW to trust God; rather it is a revelation of God’s provision in the darkest times for those who already trust Him.
Adventism turns God’s revelation of Himself into moral imperatives for human behavior. This focus is the veil which remains unlifted when people refuse to turn to the Lord and let go of the letters written on stone (2 Corinthians 3). God’s provision is just that: HIS provision for us, not instructions for us to attain His pleasure.
For an insightful look at Psalm 23, listen to this sermon given by Gary Inrig on January 5, 2020, just weeks before our world was locked down in a pandemic fear that paralyzed us all as we faced the unknown.
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