What a pleasant surprise...
Nico even separated the posts per lesson study day and put in all of the nice looking font stuff.

I spent considerable time, in class, on the thief on the cross dialog...because of all of the stuff that happened in the 3-4 hour span of time that this lesson focused on..the thief on the cross comes up more times..in class.. than any other topic.

also spent time on what it means to be forsaken and the wrath of God

jB I'm glad you got into the Thief on the Cross dialogue in your class. Mine didn't even touch upon it, sad to say. It is incredibly profound and very moving. Notice the ONLY acknowledgement from this thief is that of the justness of his sentence and the innocence of Christ. He does not "repent" in the conventional fashion, but he asks Christ simply to "remember" him when He comes into His kingdom. So why does Jesus receive this as repentance and promise him paradise? Interesting. And where does the term "paradise" come from? And why the word "today" (and please don't give me the standard SDA rap that this word doesn't matter -- if it doesn't matter, why does Christ use it so emphatically?)

........ so many questions ....

Yes, Nico, the word "today" does matter -- it indicates that at that time -- today -- when Christ was giving His life on the cross, when the thief was also facing certain death -- when the world was at its blackest, and it appeared that all hope was gone -- Jesus held out the promise of life eternal, based on the death He was about to die. It is a promise that belongs to everyone of us -- however dark the hour, that promise is there also for us.

God bless,

Beryl

Since you are on a DA study...go to the page which gives detail regarding the thief on the cross and his experience...
I read a whole page in class from DA to give better perspective to the input that usually comes from the thief on the cross input during sabbath school classes.

Yes, I read that during my study -- it was really interesting. I think EGW takes a few liberties with the story but the important stuff is in there. I found it so touching that she stated it was this thief who gave Christ the only comfort during those dark hours that He experienced.

For some reason the thief makes me think of all those at the end who confess the justice of God's sentence upon them. I know, I know, it's not a popular parallel to make in these barbaric times where we'd still rather see our enemies destroyed (2000 years after Christ and we haven't learned a thing), but that's just how my mind works. They will have no hope in that day and the thief had no conceivable hope hanging there on the cross, facing death. But One thing made the difference: Jesus. Only Jesus. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?