Have you ever flown on a plane? On a few airplanes the flight crew will wear parachutes, and military fighters are equipped with ejection seats. How do you view your salvation? Do you see it as a parachute to allow you to abandon ship and survive? Depending on your view of end time events you may see it as an ejection seat. This is a rather isolated and individualistic viewpoint. Do you see salvation as an escape from an irredeemable world? Is there another possible scenario that is larger and more inclusive? Continuing with the metaphor above, do you think I could make a safe landing?

You know that you can’t change the past, but there are some things that can be applied retroactively, which is sort of like changing the past. For example, you could get a pay raise at work, and your boss could make it retroactive to some previous date, so you will get more money than you expected, because you had been working for more money than you realized. How do you view grace? Can you see that from the moment you call upon it, it applies retroactively to your entire past? Can you also see that it applies to the rest of your life going forward?

Are you familiar with the concept of line upon line, precept upon precept? This is an approach to studying the Bible, and it is taken from the Bible in Isaiah 28:10. Is this method the one you are familiar with from school, and find that it adapts well to studying the Bible? Can you think of an alternative approach? For if you read ahead to verse 13 what sense do you get of how pleased I was with this method of study? The purpose of your faith is transformation. Can you obtain this through the incremental approach to learning you were taught in the classroom? How else would you do it?

Are you familiar with the concept of consolation? Do you think of it only in terms of a consolation prize; an award given to make you feel better about a contest you lost? The Biblical concept of consolation is more positive than this. Life involves unavoidable suffering. You would like the suffering to cease, but how often are you able to obtain this? Yet even as you endure afflictions and hardships I am present with you in them. This is the meaning of consolation, that I will sustain you, even in the midst of your afflictions.