Christ Church Studies

What should you do when you are anxious or afraid? The answer Psalm 121 offers is very similar to what we experience in our Anglican liturgy. When we feel afraid, we look away from what troubles us, we lift up our eyes and hearts to God, and we take refuge in the One who promises to keep us.

Jesus said the poor in spirit, the pure in heart, and the peacemakers will experience true happiness, yet those who seem to be having the best life often care little about what Jesus has to say. Why are we tempted to lose faith in the promise of Jesus? If you have ever found yourself wondering, then Psalm 73 is here to anchor you.

In a time of deep disagreements, conflicting facts, and moral confusion, where can we turn for guidance? In this session, we turn to Psalm 19. Through this psalm we discover what it means to attend to God, hear his voice, and have our troubled souls healed by his wise and comforting words.

Why does God remain silent as we suffer? Why does he forsake us? Many believers throughout the centuries, including Jesus himself, have asked this and turned to Psalm 22. It is through this psalm that we discover therapy for the soul who feels abandoned and alone.

Philosophers say that we live in a therapeutic culture that invests its time and money into therapy, but neglects the therapy that God himself has provided for us in Holy Scripture. In this session, we discuss how psalms offer therapy to our souls, both by diagnosing what ails our hearts and minds and also by offering a cure.

God is love. Those three little words contain the most profound meaning. Of all the divine attributes, Scripture places the greatest emphasis on love. But what does it mean to say that God is love? How does God’s love compare to our own, and where do we see God’s love revealed? These questions we consider in this final session.

The attribute of holiness sets apart the God of Scripture from all the false gods of other religions. Holiness is everywhere in the Bible. “Holy, holy, holy,” cry the angels. Where God meets his people is holy ground. In this session, we explore what divine holiness is, how we experience it, and why it is good news.

According to John Wooden, faithfulness is one of the most important character traits: to be a person that others “can bet the farm on and still be able to sleep at night.” God exemplifies faithfulness more than any other, and in this lesson, we discuss how we experience God’s faithfulness and how we can become ourselves a faithful people.

When we witness wrongdoing, our hearts cry out for justice. Something must be done! Yet when it comes to ourselves, we desperately hope for mercy. How can both of these longings be fulfilled? We find both justice and mercy in the justice of God.

Does God really know what he’s doing? We believe that God is good and God is powerful, but can we really trust his purposes and his plans? In other words, is God wise? That is the question that we address in this session as we reflect on the wisdom of God. We’ll discuss what it means to call God wise and why this matters so much to our everyday lives.