PowerPoint Presentation- Why Rules?

Why Rules?

More PowerPoint presentations from Beth Johns

Notes: (I project the powerpoint onto the whiteboard, so that I (or the students) can write or draw on the slide during the presentation. Hence some slides are only a basic framework with no content.)

Slide 2- How many of you have gardened?

3-These plants have been deprived of sunlight.

4-Eyewitness experience of Ohio drought

6-These plants have been deprived of water.

7-This plant has been deprived of nitrogen, a necessary nutrient.

8-Ask for other examples of natural laws that are basic and intuitive to us. I.e. Gravity. (Hold out an object and ask, “If I drop this will it go up or down?” I dropped my iPhone for the shock effect!)

These laws tell us the principles that the natural world operates on.

9-Farmers study to know the right temperatures, nutrient balance, watering conditions, light, etc, so they can grow the best plants possible.

10-Another example of laws.

11-In the same way, God’s laws are not random and arbitrary. They are just as natural as the laws of nature. They tell us what principles work and which don’t.

12-Random call discussion of a thought question from the homework assignment. Students share their thoughts. (Note: I opted not to use random call at the last moment because several students had not completed the homework assignment and I wanted to avoid putting a bunch of them on the spot, so just called on the ones who had. Those who hadn’t chimed in with thoughts once the others had started sharing.)

13-Read quote.

14-In groups, what does it mean that God’s law is the transcript of His character?

(God’s character put into words, written out, etc.)

15-The wheel-in-a-wheel. (The illustration on this slide got messed up in uploading. There should be an arrow pointing from each member of the Godhead to the other two. This forms a double circle with the inner arrows pointing clockwise and the outer arrows pointing counter-clockwise.)

Review from the beginning of the year.

God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit from endless ages have demonstrated other-centered love in loving each other. They have each given love to the other two, resulting in love coming back to themselves in a continuously flowing circle.

16-Draw another circle of giving:

Water Cycle

Plant Growth Cycle

The foundational principle of nature and heaven is this other-centered principle: “receive to give.”

17-When God made man, the circle expanded.

[Draw: “God” in the upper left corner with arrows pointing across the top to “other parts of God”(in the upper right) and down to “man”(in the lower left)]

Fundamental principle that God created inside of us, is to love God and others.

God created us to love as He loves and when we do the circle is completed.

[Draw: Arrow pointing from “Man” up to “God” and across the bottom to “other men” (in the lower right) Complete the circle by filling in arrows from “other men” up to “other parts of God” and all other places needed until each part of the circle has arrows pointing to and from it just like the Wheel-in-a-wheel]

18-Walk through the commandments.

Who does this help us love? Who gets hurt if this is broken?

(We took our time here, and went off an a tangent where I asked them to discuss in their Think-pair-share groups the difference between the first and second commandments. They wrestled through it for a while, and then I worked them through it to bring out for them that the first tells us to worship the right God, and the second to worship the right God in the right way. This sparked some incredible discussion, and laid the groundwork for the next class on the Golden Calf.)

19-Show this slide, and then advance to the next and re-draw the circle drawing. Emphasize that the ten commandments tell us how to do the two things that God created us to do: love God, and love other men.

(Jesus reinforces this in Matthew 22:37-40)

20-Erase “man” and all the arrows going from it. Replace it with the word “Me” and draw several arrows from all directions pointing into it. Satan broke the circle by getting man to serve himself. All sin is a form of selfishness. (See 4T 484.3)

21-Re-emphasize:

In heaven everything operates in the unbroken circle. There is no selfishness in the love. Everybody loves everybody else before themselves.

Satan broke the circle by bringing in selfishness which separates us from God.

God sent Jesus so we could have a way out of our selfishness. On our own, we can’t break out of the selfishness we are born in, but God will give us a blood transfusion of Jesus love to make it possible to love unselfishly.

The law shows us how heaven operates and how to live in an unbroken circle.

(May bring out that obeying the law with selfish motives, or not out of love (like the pharisees) does nothing to reconnect the circle because it does not cure selfishness.)

22-(R12 signifies the right side of the interactive notebook. This is a processing activity for what we have covered. It gives them a chance to express their understanding of it.)