Thanks again to Susan Farnham for providing our discussion questions this week!
Before we get started, let’s pray together for our “three in 2023.” How are we doing on those? What are your updates?
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
Ephesians 6:12
When you think of the “darkness” that we wrestle with.. What comes to mind?
When Paul writes this, he uses the Greek word, skotos…
Skotos – (Greek)(noun)(vari: adjective, verb) – defined as ‘darkness’ – used 32 times in the NT concerning physical, moral, and intellectual darkness.
Does this word sound familiar? Because there is an English word…
Scotosis – English – 21st cent. (from the Greek) Definition – (pathology) Intellectual blindness: A hardening of the mind against unwanted wisdom.
In Textual Criticism and Greek Lexicons, Skotos as used in Eph. 6:12 is a metaphor. It means – of ignorance respecting divine things and human duties, and the accompanying ungodliness and immorality, together with their consequent misery.
Ignorance is not the opposite of wisdom. It is the absence of wisdom.
Darkness is not the opposite of light. It is the absence of light.
Mr. Comfort references the Barna research survey of 2018 and writes of the lost generations (Millennials, and Gen Z) that have reached young adulthood and identify as agnostic, atheist, or not religiously affiliated.
As children of God, have we misunderstood what it means to be in the world but not of it? Or has the modern western Church chosen to purposely ignore it? As a result, have we lost the ability to convey that concept to our children, and to young adults?
Mr. Comfort then goes on to write about the Bible and Science by using categories to show the complementary relationship, not a relationship based on conflict.
Do we teach our children to categorize? More specifically, to categorize those things that are divine as opposed to those things that are of the world? What are some of the ways we conflate these two categories, and what can we do about it?
The Barna survey conclusion – Today’s youth see atheism as an intellectual asset.
“We have a deceived and brainwashed generation that has given itself to seducing spirits and is blinded to the truth, hating God without cause.” (p.79)(ref: John 15:22-25)
And they are image bearers. Not the enemy.
Discuss Mr. Comfort’s statement – “Here’s the real challenge for Christians today: we are in a war, but most of the army does not believe in the cause.”
Discuss some of the ways a good evangelist maintains focus?
As evangelists, where do we focus?….. Debating evolution, apologetics, or the simplicity of the gospel?
Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.
Romans 3:19-20
What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet, if the law had not said “you shall not covet”.
Romans 7:7
How does awareness of the moral law affect the ability of the unsaved to come to Jesus?
For I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
Romans 1:16
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Galatians 2:20
Why does the world abhor Christ crucified and Christ exalted?
How does the Good News, when given to the unsaved, shatter this darkness and demolish the stronghold?