P3L4 - Man's Response to God

Part 3 Man's Response to God: Following Jesus Christ
Lesson 4 The Church in God's Plan

Lesson Objectives:

1. To awaken an appreciation of the Church as "the pillar and bulwark of truth" (1 Tim 3:15);

2. To forge an understanding that through the Church, "God has seen to it that what He had revealed for the salvation of all nations would abide perpetually in its full integrity and be handed on to all generations" (Dei Verbum II:7);

3. To Enhance the knowledge that the transmission and interpretation of Divine Revelation was faithfully fulfilled by the Apostles through oral and written preaching; and

4. To introduce the essence of the Church's mission to spread the Kingdom of Christ over all the earth so that all members of the Church share in this mission.

Scriptural Reading:
1 Corinthians 12:1-31

Topics for Discussion:

1. the Church's origin, foundation and mission

a. A plan born in the Father's heart

b. The Church:

- foreshadowed from the world's beginning
- prepared for in the Old Covenant
- instituted by Christ Jesus
- revealed by the Holy Spirit
- perfected in glory

2. Transmitter and interpreter of Divine Revelation

a. the Apostolic Tradition

b. The relation ship between Sacred Tradition and the Sacred Scriptures

c. the interpretation of the heritage of faith

- The Magisterium of the Church

3. One Holy Catholic and Apostolic

References:

Cathechism of the Catholic Church

Points of Reflections:

Jesus Formed a community around Himself , animated it, and then left it His word, His Spirit, and the Eucharist. Church is not about a few like minded persons getting together for mutual support; it is about millions of different kinds of persons transcending their differences so as to become a community beyond temperament, race ideology, gender, language and background. What does it mean to you to be "church"?