Tag: Forerunner

From the Gospel, Living in the Image of God

Message of John the Baptist

Living in the Image of God M03S01

John the Baptist preached a message of new life in Christ exemplified by compassion, fairness in public service, and fairness in commercial interactions. The new life begins with repentance from the old way of living characterized by predatory human interactions and relationships. The old way focused on serving self and exploiting others for self-enrichment, not minding any cost to them. His message raised awareness for a lifetime commitment to Living in the Image of God and the promise of Christ ministry, for which he was the Forerunner.

Message of John the Baptist 8:42

Our program on Living in the Image of God continues this year (2022) with studies focused on understanding Christ teaching on Living in the Image of God based on the gospel according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. In today’s session, we discuss the message of John the Baptist.

The bible provides a brief account of John the Baptist work as the Forerunner for Christ, describing his message of repentance for forgiveness of sins as he baptized people that came to him in the country around the river Jordan. He urged them to prepare for the Messiah by repenting from their current life of predatory human interactions and relationships and committing to a new life in Christ. He described the new life using examples from their community.

His message reflects the essence of his role as the Forerunner for Christ by drawing attention to Living in the Image of God. Christ would subsequently explain the new life in detail through formal teaching, parables, and real-life illustrations during his ministry. Therefore, our study of Living in the Image of God from the gospel begins with a discussion of John the Baptist message.

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The Gospel

Living in the Image of God: The Beatitudes

Christ’s Teaching on Positive Human Interaction

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The Beatitudes. wikipedia.org
The Beatitudes. wikipedia.org

We begin our study of Christ’s direct teaching with a two-part discussion of the Sermon on the Mount: Christ’s elaborate sermon recorded in Matthew 5–7. The sermon was a teaching on living in the image of God, which we have also described as “positive human interaction:” i.e., living and interacting with people for the purpose of representing God in everything we do and accomplishing the objectives for which he created us. The sermon consists of two parts. In the first part, he provides the principles of living in the image of God. In this study, we identify the principles as eight steps, which are described in the bible as the Beatitudes. In the second part, he describes specific examples of application of the principles.

THE BEATITUDES Part 1 of our two-part discussion focuses on the Beatitudes: the first part of the Sermon on the Mount. The Beatitudes describe eight steps (or principles) for living in the image of God. The first three Beatitudes describe human relationship with God, the third through eighth describe human interactions, with an overlap in the third Beatitude because it applies to both human relationship with God and human interactions.

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