"OUR STORY"

Material for a Confirmation Class

• How is it that we have come to know about God? (Romans 1)
• Where is God and His kingdom?
• How do we come to know God personally? (John 14)
• How does God know us?
• Why is the Bible so important to us?
• What are the different parts of the Bible?
• Why does the Bible start off with the story contrasting God’s good creation—and Adam and Eve’s early fall into sin?
• In what way did Adam and Eve fail to meet God’s test?
• Why is God’s redemption of all mankind central to the rest of the story?
• Which of God’s people does He love? (John 3:16)
• Why has He chosen only some to be “His People”? (Deuteronomy 7)
• How does someone become one of the “chosen”? (Romans 8 and 9)
• How do people know that they are among God’s chosen?

• What kind of covenant did God make with Abraham? (Genesis 15)
• Why was Abraham considered the “father of faith”? (Romans 4:13-25)
• How does God test Abraham's faith? (Genesis 22:1-18)
• Why was Jacob (or “Israel”) considered such a schemer?
• Was it his schemes or was it Divine mercy that finally delivered Jacob?
• How did God prove to be the author of Joseph’s dreams?

• Why did Moses fail to be a Hebrew leader as a young man?
• Why was Moses called as an old man to deliver the Hebrews from slavery?
• What was the covenant God made with the Hebrews in the wilderness?
• Why did that first generation fail to enter the Promised Land?
• What later happened to Moses?

• What problems faced the people of Israel as they finally entered the Promised Land?
• What were the instructions of the Lord God (Yahweh) to the Israelites as they began the takeover of the Promised Land?
• The battles of Jericho and Ai:  why did they have such different outcomes?
• Why do you think God was so "tough"?
• What was the job of the judges? (Judges 2:11-19 )
• Samuel:  Judge or Prophet? (1st Samuel 7:3-14 )
• Saul--the first King (1st Samuel 8:1-9 and 1st Samuel 12:13-25)
• David is annointed King (1st Samuel 16:1-13)
• David begins to distinguish himself
• David's time of testing
• David comes to the throne
• Why do you think David had to wait so long and go through so much turmoil  in order to be Israel's king?

• King David and the Prophet Nathan (2nd Samuel 7:1-29)
• David, Bathsheba and Nathan (2 Samuel 12:1-2)
• Solomon:  Wise or confused?
• The Kingdom divided into two new Kingdoms:  Israel and Judah
• The northern Kingdom of Israel defeated and the people carried off into captivity--never to be heard of again
• Judah:  The remnant of Israel
• The Prophets as the most powerful of the Spiritual guides of Israel during the rule of the kings of Israel and Judah
• The Early Prophets:  still a bit like the Judges or Samuel (1st Kings 18:1-46)
• The Later Prophets:  more focused on declaring God's truth to a deaf people (Isaiah 40: 1-11 and 27-31).
• John the Baptist in Jesus' time:  The last of the prophets--in the tradition of Elijah? (John 1:14-34)

• Why are the stories of Jesus' birth so important to us?
• Why are the ministries of John the Baptist and Jesus so closely connected? (John 1:14-34)
• Why was Jesus led by the Holy Spirit out into the wilderness to be tested? (Matthew 4:1-11)
• What was the central theme of all his teaching? (Mark 1:14-15)
• Why did Jesus often refer to himself as the “Son of Man”? (Mark 2:23-2)
• Why was the coming of Jesus a fulfillment of all previous covenants?
• Why did Jesus come “as one of us” rather than as a powerful ruler?
• How was Jesus himself tested in the wilderness just after his baptism?
• What was the central theme of all his teaching?
• Why did Jesus often refer to himself as the “Son of Man”?

• Why did Jesus refer to his miracles as signs? (all of John, chapter 2)
• What was the relationship of the disciples to Jesus? (John 6:53-71)
• What were his expectations of them? (John 13:34-35 and John 14:12-17)
• Why did Jesus refer to himself as “the Way, the Truth and the Life”—the only way to the heavenly Father? (John 14:6-11)

• Why did people want to put Jesus to death?
• What/when was Jesus’ own understanding of his coming death?
• What was the reaction of the disciples to this news--and Jesus' reaction to their reaction?
• How was Jesus again tempted as death approached?
• Why was Jesus’ forgiveness the power that broke Satan?
• Why is Jesus’ crucifixion considered the essential ingredient for God's new covenant with us?
• Why was Jesus raised from the dead on the 3rd day?
• Why is Jesus’ resurrection considered God’s sign of a new covenant with us?

• How was the end of Jesus' ministry connected to the coming of the Holy Spirit? (John 14:15-17, 25-26 and 16:4-1)
• When and how did the disciples receive the Holy Spirit? (John 20:19-2, Luke 24:49-53, Acts 1:1-5 and Acts 2)
• How is the Church the most important work of the Holy Spirit?
• How are the people's spiritual gifts vital to the unity of the Church? (1st Corinthians 12, 13 and 14)
• What, to Paul, are indeed the real signs of the presence of the Holy Spirit at work in someone? (Galatians 5:13-26)

• What kind of person was Paul (Saul) as a young man?
• What happened to change him?
• How did that affect his understanding of the Gospel (Good News) of Jesus Christ?
• How did he come to serve the early church?
• Why are his letters to the early churches so important to us today?

• Where did the early Christian congregations first meet?
• How was the early church organized?
• What was the relationship of the early church with the society around it?
• What kept the early church together as a single faith?

• What terrible situation was facing Christianity as it entered the 4th Century (300AD)?
• What did Roman Emperor Constantine do in 312 AD that changed Christian history?
• How did his conversion to Christianity change the position of Christianity within the Roman world?
• How did Unitarianism challenge the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity?
• What was wrong with Arias' Unitarianism?
• How did the church move from persecuted to persecutor?
• In what ways did this reshape Christianity's basic character?
• What did Augustine teach us about the faith--that helped keep the faith alive during very trying times that were arising quickly?

• What happened to the church when German tribes collapsed Rome in the West (400s / 500s)?
• Why was Celtic Christianity so important to the Christian West?
• Why did the Muslim Arabs complete the destruction job in the East (600s / 700s)?
• Why did the Crusades (1100s / 1200s) begin to reverse the picture?
• How did a renewal of wealth and power in the West challenge the moral purity of the church (1300s / 1400s)?

• Who were the Cathars or Albigensians?
• Why were Peter Waldo and the Waldensians persecuted by the church?
• How did St. Francis avoid the same fate?
• What was Christian "mysticism"?
• What was Christian scholasticism?
• Why were John Wycliff and John Huss persecuted?
• Who was Savonarola?
• What was the mood like in the Church as the 1500s loomed into view?

• Why did Martin Luther post his 95 theses on the Wittenberg chapel door?
• What efforts were made to silence him?  How did Luther respond?
• How did Ulrich Zwingli start the reformation in Switzerland?
• How did the reform movement begin to spread in and from Switzerland?
• How did Luther's movement and the Swiss reform movement get along?
• Who were the radical reformers, or Anabaptists?

• Who was John Calvin?
• How was it that Calvin came to making Geneva, Switzerland, the center of the Reformed Movement?
• How was Calvin's Reformed Movement closely related to the mindset of the newly emerging European "middle class" of townsmen?
• How did this cause a new "democratic" spirit to grow up as part of Calvin's Reformed Movement?

• How did Calvin's ideas on the Protestant Reformation compare with Luther's and Zwingli's?
• What about the hotly debated issue of Holy Communion / Lord's Supper?  To Calvin was Christ's presence in the bread and wine truly real or only symbolic?
• John Calvin is always closely connected to the idea of predestination.  What is predestination?  Was this an idea that Calvin thought up?
• Calvin is also closely connected to the idea of the Covenant.  Why?
• How is this idea of Covenant closely related to Calvin's understanding of Baptism?
• What was Calvin's impact on the Reformation?

• How was it that Protestantism first came to Scotland?
• How did Knox become such a supporter of Calvin's form of Protestantism?
• How did Knox and the Scottish Noblemen finally bring Protestantism to Scotland?
• How did Knox reshape the Scottish Church into a "Presbyterian" form?

• Why was the Protestant Reformation such a "political" event--and not just a matter of renewing and strengthening the people's personal faith in God?
• Was the Protestant Reformation limited just to Germany, Switzerland and Scotland?
• How did Protestantism come to England in the 1500s?
• What was the Catholic church doing during this period to protect its position in Europe?
• What happened to Protestantism (Lutheranism) in Germany in the 1500s?
• What happened to Protestantism (Calvinist Huguenots) in France in the 1500s?

• Who were the English "Puritans"?
• How does this relate to the English establishment of colonies in America (early 1600s)?
• What was happening in the meantime on the European continent between the Catholics and Protestants (first half of the1600s)?
• Why does the English civil war now take up at this point (1640)?

• Why by the 1600s was the idea of "Truth" undergoing a profound change in European culture?
• Why by the end of the 1600s can we speak of a Newtonian (or "modern") world-view (or cosmology) that was beginning to replace the older Christian world-view?
• Where did the Newtonian "revolution" leave us in our thinking about God?
• Where did such "Deism" leave the church?
• Why was the Great Awakening (1740s) so important to Christianity?

• How was it that by the early 1800s the secular spirit was able to seriously challenge the Christian faith?
• Why were some Western thinkers becoming even very disdaining or haughty in their attitude towards Christianity?
• Why was the most serious challenge to Christianity posed by the English naturalist, Charles Darwin?
• How did secularism continue to push Christianity off center stage--in order to take that position for itself?
• What was happening to Christianity during the rise of secular science to dominance over Western culture?

• Why have the writings of Darwin, Marx and Freud had such an impact on us?
• How has material success in this world become the “modern” hope for life?
• How has the church been put to the test by modern secular culture?

How well has the church stood its ground in witness to God in Jesus Christ?

• As a recap--what were the steps up to the present situation in which religious Truth has been chased out of our modern culture as being just so much superstition?
• How did relativity theory begun to “break the box” of scientific "realism"?
• How did quantum theory further shake loose the hold of the empirical mindset on modern science?
• How has the “big bang” theory reopened among scientists the debate on God?
• How has “chaos theory” demonstrated Divine design in creation?
• What other branches of science have been adding to this post-Newtonian revolution in modern science?
• Overall, what are the "lessons" we can begin to draw from the "new" science or "post-modern" (or "post-Newtonian") science as it is being called?

• How is it that we have come to know about God?
• Where is God and His kingdom?
• How do we come to know God personally?
• How does God know us?
• Why is the Bible so important to us?
• Why does the Bible start off with the story contrasting God’s good creation—and Adam and Eve’s early fall into sin?
• Why is God’s redemption of all mankind central to the rest of the story?
• Which of God’s people does He love?
• Why has He chosen only some to be “His People”?
• How does someone become one of the “chosen”?
• How do people know that they are among God’s chosen?

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