The morning Manna will be provided at 6am. Thanks.

Studying Ephesians in the SSnet.org series Lesson 3, may the Holy Spirit be the speaker to your heart.

The Topic today is: “Ephesians 2 and all about Grace and our Wills for Morning Manna of the Sabbath School Lesson Ephesians”.

The Opening Hymn will be 229 "Spirit of the Living God."

The Sabbath School Quarterly, downloadable from SSnet.org in the Teacher's Edition is on page 34.

The SSnet.org site allows anyone, anywhere to read the lesson in their own language. Choose your own language to see God speaking also to your heart.

Why do you not click on this now?

---Real Adventist Edition(today pages 52) [pioneer support, proper holistic biblical theological analysis] Edition https://www.adultbiblestudyguide.org/pdf.php?file=2023:3Q:TE:PDFs:ETQ323_04.pdf

---Pro-Reformed [Calvinism, Lutheranism, minimalist ontological] Edition (today until page 34)

 https://www.adultbiblestudyguide.org/pdf.php?file=2023:3Q:SE:PDFs:EAQ323_04.pdf

---Or try in alternative this one:  https://ssnet.org/lessons/23c/less02.html

---When one reads the Walla Walla professor Sabbath School lesson this week, he sounds very Calvinistic in this sense, he does not open up about the free will or choice responsibility of sinners to be saved.

---Not so with the Philippine professor Sabbath School Lesson this week. He said it is not about Predestination but about choice or the free will.

---“But we cannot resurrect, ascend, and exalt ourselves. For this reason, Paul emphasizes that we are saved “by grace” (Eph. 2:5, 8). It is totally God’s work, initiative, love, mercy, and power (Eph. 2:4). For Paul, this work is the foundation of the gospel. Yet, Paul immediately rushes to add that we are saved “through faith” (Eph. 2:8). While our salvation is, in totality, God’s work, God does not save us against our wills. Those who are saved will not ascend to heaven or be exalted to the heavenly places by a divine act of predestination. Rather, God’s salvation becomes operational in us when we exercise faith—that is, when we accept and receive God’s salvation, allowing God’s power to resurrect us, to exalt our lives, and to empower us to live in Christ Jesus” p. 52 of the Sabbath School Lesson in the Teacher’s Guide second section of the Philippine professor.

---Do not get me wrong, the description by the Walla Walla professor is very “skinny” and does not mention predestination nor the free will. It is almost just mirroring the text.

---But there are nuances in Paul that one should not miss.

---This week we will look at them.

---Ephesians 2:1-2 To walk according to the World is to walk according to the prince of the power of the air, Satan that is now working in the children of disobedience. Disobedience because of original sin? No because Satan works in them.

--- Ephesians 2:3 the old man of sin in times past was walking in the lusts of the flesh. See Romans 7 in this light. I myself serve God and the law of flesh Romans 7:25

--- ανεστραφημεν = anestraphemen “we were tu(r)ned into”. It is

Conversion changed us to turn 180 degrees. Right?

--- By nature we were children of wrath like the rest of humanity and we were doing the desires of the flesh doing the will of the flesh, of the contemplations. But it changed. This was before we were turned or anestraphemen.

---Ephesians 2:4 is John 3:16 laid out on the table by Paul.

---Ephesians 2:5 “Even when we were dead in sins=paraptomasin=mistakes,[He] has quickened us together with Christ, (by grace you are saved)

--- We were dead in transgressions but because we wanted to believe, He could see us wanted to believe before the foundation of this earth in the Eternal Covenant meeting of the Trinity together and even before we were born, 6000 years before, He saw us and made us alive in Christ de iure [in theory, not yet] so that when it actually happens, the de iure becomes de facto [in reality, in actuality, practically]. God’s de iure expectations always is a de facto but not always for humans. A son said that his father said there is a testament that said that he is the sole inheritor of the land but the testament is gone. So what now? De iure he said but de facto it cannot be proven and de facto cannot happen.

--- Ephesians 2:6 Christ is our DBA in heaven Doing Business As.

---We need to keep our eyes and ears open, for Satan in our times are using people within the church to sidestep the pillars of Adventism.

---I discovered this in the life of Raymond Cottrell and his diaries are all online. He admitted the wrongs he was trying to do against many of the pillars of Adventism.

---He was still angry with the General Conference of the end of his life because they do not want to pay attention to his hermeneutics of suspicion!

---Is there a pastor in your church that preaches with a skew mouth about true Adventism? If it is bad habits or attitudes in Adventism, let the mouth be skew. But not when it is about the Pillars of Adventism or about truth. Right?

---So if so, change church. Go to another congregation. When? Now.