God According to God - Sunday Morning Lesson
Teachers
Lesson Summary
The teacher examined Acts 2:39-42, focusing on God's promise of salvation that extends throughout generations to both Jews and Gentiles. He established that the fundamental promise throughout Israel's history was salvation through Jesus Christ, which Peter referenced when speaking to the crowd at Pentecost. The teacher addressed the Calvinistic interpretation of God's calling, arguing that Scripture demonstrates God calls people through the gospel message, not through arbitrary predestination. Multiple passages were cited to support this view, including 2 Thessalonians 2:14 and Romans 10:14-15, which emphasize the necessity of preaching the gospel for people to hear, believe, and call upon the Lord. The class then examined verses 41-42, celebrating how approximately 3,000 souls were added to the church that day—marking the true beginning of the New Testament church under gospel terms rather than Mosaic law. These early believers enthusiastically embraced the apostolic teaching, maintained genuine fellowship with one another, devoted themselves to breaking bread (the Lord's Supper) on the first day of the week, and continued in prayer, demonstrating wholehearted commitment to Christ and to one another.
Key Scriptures
It is you who are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, And in your seed all the families of the earth will be blessed.
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it is the righteousness of God. God is revealed from faith to faith, and it is written, "But the righteous shall live by faith."
For whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved. 14. How, then, will they call on him? I think that Paul is answering this very question right this second through this verse. How, then, will they call on him whom they have not believed? How will they believe in him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?