Christ Church Studies

We often speak of hope as a kind of wishful thinking or general optimism, such as hope that a relationship will work out or that an interview will go well. But this is not what the Bible speaks of as the virtue of hope. Christian hope is confidence in God and God’s promises. In this session, we discuss how Christian hope gives us strength to live in the present.

Love is central and necessary to a life well lived. Act justly, prudently, temperately, and courageously, but without love, you can never be the person God made you to be. In this lesson, we discuss why love is so essential, why we need the grace of God to become loving, and how we can open ourselves up to God’s transforming work.

Prudence, justice, temperance, and courage are recognized as central virtues by many religious and philosophical traditions. But faith, hope, and love–these three are uniquely Christian. In this session we begin with faith: what is it, and how is it a virtue?

Fear is among the most common obstacles that prevent us from doing what we should. And its remedy is often courage, the fourth and final of the cardinal virtues. In this session, we discuss why courage is so important and how we grow in it.

In the book of Philippians, the apostle Paul serves us a warning about lacking temperance: “Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame.” In this session, we discuss the peril Paul is referencing and how the virtue of temperance helps us to avoid it.

What do we owe to God and what do we owe to one another? That is the basic question of justice, a question the God of the Bible takes very seriously. In this session, we consider what it means to be just and how to respond when we fail to do what is right.

How do we make wise decisions and carry them through? How do we judge rightly what is right and what is wrong? How do we set goals worthy of our lives and then achieve them? Questions like these reveal our need for the virtue of prudence, the first virtue in our exploration of Christian character.

“All things come to us, not by chance, but by God’s fatherly hand.” This doctrine, described as such in the Heidelberg Catechism, is a truth wonderfully reflected in the book of Ruth. As we conclude this study, we discover that behind the twists and turns of Ruth’s story lie the invisible hand of God.

On the threshing floor that night, Boaz asks Ruth, “Who are you?” Is she a woman who should be ashamed or a woman of honor? It is a weighty question with much at stake, and it is asked not only of Ruth, but of ourselves. Who is Ruth, and who are we?

The romance of Ruth and Boaz is among the most famous in the Bible. Yet when they first met, they were not romantic interests but two people from entirely different worlds: a wealthy, respected landowner meets a poor, immigrant widow. Through their unlikely relationship, we glimpse our own relationship with God.