In 2003 there was a film called Mona Lisa Smile that followed the lives of three young women in 1950s Massachusetts. There is a powerful scene near the end in which Betty, played by Kristen Dunst, attacks Giselle, played by Maggie Gyllenhaal, with insults. She lashes out at Giselle for her promiscuity, calling her every ugly name she could think of. Just at the moment when the audience would assume that Giselle has had enough and that she is going to strike back, she walks over to Betty, wraps her arms around her, and hugs her. While Betty initially resists, she eventually softens, returns the hug, and begins to sob. It turns out that the reason why she was lashing out was because of her sadness and anger about the infidelities of her own husband. At a moment when Giselle was receiving curses, she returned a blessing. This scene is beautiful because it seems so unlikely. For most of us, we would not be thinking of the needs of the person who was tossing insults our way. We would strike back or, at the very least, we would write the person off and speak badly about them to others. Instead, Giselle showed a picture of returning a blessing for a curse. In the passage covered in this lesson, Peter encourages believers toward the strange and rare practice is returning blessing to those who are cursing them. But he doesn’t simply give them this burdensome command without giving them insight into how God has uniquely equipped them to practice it. As you read through the lesson, consider how you are responding to those who are bringing difficulty into your life, and consider how God might be calling you to change your approach.

I ran across a funny comic strip that had a man and a woman sitting on a couch, looking as if they are experiencing a rift in their relationship. The caption at the bottom has the woman saying to the man, “It’s like you haven’t heard a single thing I’ve thought.” For many men, this is an accurate depiction of what it is like to be married. Women are enigmatic and unpredictable to us, and we often find ourselves throwing our hands up in dismay at our inability to understand what it happening. It is in this context that Peter speaks to men about how to conduct themselves with their wives. As a married man, Peter presumably knew about the difficulty that men have in understanding their wives. However, Peter’s single command to married men has to do with being an understanding partner to the woman God has given you. His command is challenging, but also beautiful and life-giving. If you are a man and if the wherever-youare in which you find yourself is marriage, then this passage should be one that you read, study, reflect upon, and perhaps memorize. It is core to God’s calling for you. If your station in life is not as a married man, this passage will still speak to issues surrounding marriage, relationships, and the kind of self-denial to which God calls each of us.

Theologian A.W. Tozer once said: “Modern Christians hope to save the world by being like it, but it will never work. The Church’s power over the world springs out of her unlikeness to it, never from her integration into it.” The struggle many Christians face is that desire to “fit in”, to be “normal”. They want to avoid the label of “Jesus freak” or “fanatic”. The truth is that if we are following the teachings of Jesus and his disciples, we will never quite fit in. It doesn’t mean we have to go out of our way to be strange or odd, but eventually our culture’s norms will clash with the teachings of Scripture. What we say and how we act in everyday situations will be scrutinized, evaluated, and judged (rightly or wrongly). In this passage, Peter tries to encourage believers that how we act is important, even if people accuse us of doing wrong. Our behavior becomes a reflection of God’s glory and ultimately leads to God being glorified because of our actions. The key is to recognize the fact that we are foreigners or sojourners in this world.

Last month my family went on vacation to Glacier National Park in Montana. It is a beautiful national park, and we explored it via hiking. We did mostly short hikes, but we decided to do one long 10.5 mile hike to Iceberg Lake. The hike up to the lake went fine, but I had a really difficult time hiking back down in the afternoon. It was hot outside, my legs were tired, and to make matters worse I twisted my ankle with more than three miles remaining in our hike. Every step was painful. I was hot. I was dirty. And I just wanted to be done. I had no choice but to finish the hike, so I decided I needed to find a way to motivate myself. So I envisioned the ice cream I was going to reward myself with when I completed the hike. With each step I focused on that ice cream, longing for it, using that image to push myself forward. I thought about the ice cream, talked about it with my husband and son, and imagined how it would refresh me after this hot hike. It worked—I eventually made it down the mountain and to my ice cream. Ice cream is a good motivator for me, because I love ice cream. I crave it when I do not have it, and I obsess over getting it. However, it is not what the Bible says we should crave. This lesson’s passage talks about something we should crave: the Word of God. The Word of God grants us life and sustenance, and it brings joy, encouragement, and peace to our lives. By reading it and meditating on it, we grow in our relationship with God. Enjoy your time studying God’s Word this week, knowing that by doing so, you are growing in your knowledge and experience with God.

Earlier this year I got to attend a Dodger game. The game was tied until the 6th inning, when the Dodgers were able to put a run on the board. Then, with two runners on base and two outs, their center fielder lofted a home run over the center field wall to put them in front 4-0. The moment was euphoric. Not only were all the members of my family high-fiving one another, but we all started high-fiving the people sitting around us. Total strangers were sharing hands, patting each other on the back, and even embracing one another. We had suddenly become bonded together because of our common affection for a baseball team. It seems pretty silly that people can be bonded together by something as trivial as being fans of the same sports team. But the fact is that we are all looking for ways to connect with others. We do this through shared interests, shared goals, shared experiences, and other (sometimes superficial) things that we share. The fact that we are so determined to find common bonds points to the fact that we were created to have connections with others. Being made in God’s image means that we were created for connection. For Christians, our common bond is not simply that we look like one another, live near one another, or have the same favorite movies and TV shows. Our common bond is our allegiance to Jesus Christ and to his calling for us. In that way, Jesus gives us a connection with one another that not only provides us with companionship and comfort, but that also drives our mission in life.

Serving is not glamorous. Most children don’t grow up aspiring to be servants. So when we are invited to serve Jesus, serve the church, and serve the community, our instinct is not necessarily to jump at the opportunity. After all, our goal in life is typically not to serve others, but to find ourselves in a position that allows us to be served by others. Jesus, however, said that he did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. In fact, he said that true greatness is found in becoming a servant. The Christian conception of greatness flies in the face of the world’s popular conception of greatness. If we want to be great, we must become a servant. As you walk through this lesson, consider your attitude and your actions when it comes to serving Jesus, serving his church, and serving your community.

Have you ever been frustrated with someone who claims to be a Christian but doesn’t show consistent love or act like a follower of Jesus? Maybe there’s a family member, or a friend, or a person you hear about on the news who shows selfishness and hatred towards others, yet claim they have a relationship with Jesus Christ. James rebukes those who claim to have true faith but in the end, it’s dead because the way they live doesn’t show Christ-centered faith: “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.” – James 2:14-19.

My husband, Mike, and I enjoy watching movies together, but it is sometimes difficult for us to agree on what to watch because he enjoys action and adventure movies, and I enjoy romantic comedies. However, when The Bourne Identity came out in 2002, we both really enjoyed it, albeit for very different reasons. The movie opens with the crew of a fishing boat pulling aboard a man (Jason Bourne) whom they found floating in the Mediterranean Sea. He is alive, but he has two bullets in his back and in his hip is a metal cylinder that contains a Swiss bank account number. When he wakes up, his first instinct is to attack the man who just finished operating on him. He has no memory of who he is or how he got shot. The scenes that follow contain plenty of fight scenes, mysteries, and intrigue (all of which Mike loved). But at the heart of this movie is Jason’s quest for his true identity. He wants to know who he is and why he is able to do things like memorize the license plate numbers of all the cars in a diner parking lot. This is the part of the story that held my interest through all four movies in the series. I wanted to know who Jason was, and I also wanted to find out what he would choose to do with his life once he got the answers he was seeking. After all, our past lays the foundation for who we are as individuals. Where we were born, who our family is, where we lived growing up...all these things play a huge part in forming our identities. However, those who go on to place their faith in Christ are not limited by their pasts; when they become believers, they are given a new identity which changes everything. This week’s lesson will look at what this new identity is, who gained it for us, and how it affects our lives. pasts; when they become believers, they are given a new identity which changes everything. Written by: Christy Gonet

Bletchley Park was the headquarters of British codebreakers during WWII. German military messages were intercepted and decoded by a team of analysts, many of whom would never know how their specific tasks impacted the war as a whole. Each piece of military intelligence gained was collected and passed on to those who could best use it in the field. The codebreakers didn’t have the context for the messages they decoded, but for the military strategists this vital information resulted in lives saved and battles won. In some ways, the Old Testament prophets had a similar experience to the codebreakers. God revealed parts of his plan to them, sometimes related to their current situation, sometimes prophecies that wouldn’t be fulfilled until hundreds of years later. They only had pieces of the overall picture. Now that Jesus has come and fulfilled the prophecies, we have the context needed to understand and respond to the grace of God more fully. This should result in victorious living as we walk in the light of Jesus’ coming.

In the story of David one can find a story of delayed promise and living a life based on that promise. In the book of 1 Samuel we’re told that after God had rejected Saul as king of Israel he anointed David as king. Even though David was promised the Kingdom of Israel, he had to deal with the reality that Saul was still on the throne. For years after David’s anointing by Samuel, David had to spend his time trying to avoid getting killed by Saul and his army. Despite being God’s chosen and anointed king, David lived in caves and on the run. Even when he had the chance to kill Saul, he refrained and trusted that the promise of the kingdom would happen. He lived those first few years as king basing his actions on the understanding that what God promised would happen despite the seemingly overwhelming odds and trials. In this passage, Peter reminds Christians facing trials that we have been given an inheritance to be received in the future. It is this inheritance that allows us to live in the present under trials we face with joy and an understanding that we are temporary residents in this world. Like David, we have a hope in the promises of God. Like David, we have a belief that God is faithful and will ultimately deliver on those promises despite how the present seems to unfold around us.