Bible Study Wednesday at 6:30

Hi everyone,

This Sunday is Holy Trinity Sunday and our readings sum up all we have heard of God's love in Lent and Easter to help us see how God pours that love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

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Pastor Tim

"God has led you to the desert, and spoken to your Heart."

Mount of Olives Lutheran Church

3546 E. Thomas Rd

Phoenix, AZ 85018

602-956-1620 office

Bible Study for June 15, 2025

Opening Prayer:

Creator of all, we thank you for the opportunity to gather in study. Open our minds and hearts. By the power of the Holy Spirit, unite us in faith, hope, and love. Help us to be faithful to the gospel and to walk humbly with you. Grant us your peace as we grow in wisdom and understanding. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

John 16:12-15 Jesus promised that the Spirit would guide us to new truth as we needed it. How has the Spirit helped your faith to grow with the acceptance of new truth?

Jesus and John claim that new occasions bring new understandings of God’s truth. As our lives and our world change over the centuries, the circumstances we face are very different from those the disciples confronted. But we are promised that the Spirit will guide us beyond what Jesus could teach in the first century. God’s gift of the Spirit in our lives ensures that Jesus’ words are not locked in the past, restricted to an historical moment. The promise of 16:13 is that each new generation can receive fresh insight into God’s truth appropriate to its situations. Through the Spirit, God remains with us and offers us new interpretations of God’s life-giving message and revelation.

Romans 5:1-5 When have you found hope through pain, misfortune or failure?

The Roman house churches mirrored a tension that existed in Christianity at the end of Paul’s ministry. Paul spoke to that tension. To Gentile Christians in Rome, he explained how he understood the continuing validity of the Abrahamic tradition and of Jewish law in God’s purpose. To Jewish Christians in Jerusalem, Paul would defend the validity of the Gentile church by expounding on God’s impartiality and on Jewish and Gentile equality as heirs of God’s grace and salvation. In defending each side, Paul risked being misunderstood by both. Romans reflects his struggles with a weighty but practical matter: How might both sides learn a larger truth about the way(s) to reconciliation with God? Paul wrote that since they had faith in Christ, they could have peace with God. The overcoming of separation from God provides them access to God’s grace—undeserved acceptance and forgiveness. 

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31

Proverbs 8 shows wisdom with female attributes in service to the divine initiative of creation—present during the process of creation, participating as a master worker, pleasing the Creator and enjoying human beings as they emerged. She determines cosmic order and is the prior condition for the existence of functioning of all things. Wisdom is described as a female prophet or street teacher who appears at the crossroads and the city gates where men did business, settled disputes, arranged marriages, and obtained justice. She calls to young men to learn from her..

Closing Prayer:

God of heaven and earth, before the foundation of the universe and the beginning of time you are the triune God: the Author of creation, the eternal Word of salvation, and the life-giving Spirit of wisdom.

Guide us to all truth by your Spirit, that we may proclaim all that Christ revealed and rejoice in the glory he shared with us. Glory and praise to you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen.