My Lessons in Samara: "Our Relationships in Christ"

A portion of my work in Samara, Russia, during the last half of May will be to present a series of lessons entitled, "Our Relationships in Christ," much of which is based on a book Cindy and I are planning entitled, The Hand and the Foot: Redeeming Relationships in the Body of Christ. Here are more details of the lessons I am planning for Samara:

• God's Plan for Uniting the World – This lesson will be based mainly on Ephesians, where the Apostle Paul reveals God's intention to "unite everything in heaven and on earth under one head, namely Christ." This eternal project focuses on the cross and has practical consequences for every human being on the planet.
• God's Plan for Uniting the Church – Here I will focus on the church of Corinth, a group in danger of splitting apart at the seams. These seams included preacher groupies, racial issues, contrasting approaches to sexuality, gender conflicts, class differences, disharmony over spiritual gifts, and misunderstandings regarding the resurrection. We today face many of the same concerns and can find our solution in Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians.
• God's Challenge for the Strong and the Weak – The core of this lesson is Paul's analogy of the body in 1 Corinthians 12. What are the special needs of the weaker members of the Body and how should the stronger, more mature members relate to them? What challenges does Paul give to the weak in relating to the strong? How can more mature Christians resolve their differences whenever they get into a conflict?
• God's Plan for Healthy Marriages – The husband-wife relationship is one of the treasures God has given to humanity, yet many of us never realize the potential benefits He has packed into it. What is the biblical teaching of marriage? How is it different from the way unbelievers connect? God intends a husband and a wife to have a mutual love, to bless one another in a variety of ways, and to bear one another's burdens. He intends their relationship to be permanent, not temporary, and to be dynamic, not stagnant.
• God's Plan Strong Families – Most parents will agree that raising children is the most formidable challenge they have ever accepted, but also the most rewarding. The biblical principles for child-rearing start in Deuteronomy 6 and expand to include much of the Book of Proverbs as well as passages sprinkled throughout the rest of the Bible. God wants parents to love their children deeply, neither with a spineless, indulgence that pampers and smothers them nor with a spiky, cold, and demanding sternness that pushes them away. In this lesson I will be sharing parenting principles from the Scriptures, but also practical hints from my own experience and training as well.