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It Is Written

Sabbath School 2nd Quarter 2026: Growing in a Relationship With God

Nina Atcheson

Eric Flickinger

01 Reality Check

02 To Know God

03 Pride Versus Humility

04 The Role of the Bible

Welcome to Sabbath School, brought to you by It Is Written.

Today, we're excited to study a brand new subject, and we're going to look at the role of the Bible in growing in our relationship with God, a fascinating subject, and we're glad that you're with us.

Father, we thank you for blessing us once again with an opportunity to learn more about you and the way that you want to interact with us and help us to grow.

We ask that you'll bless our time together here today and that as a result of it, we will grow in you and be able to share your love with others as well.

So we're glad that you are here to join us for lesson number 4 of 13, looking at the role of the Bible in our growth with Christ.

We're also excited to have not just you, but the author of this quarter's Sabbath School lesson with us as well, Nina Acheson.

In fact, we're going to be looking at the Bible, not just this lesson, but next week's lesson as well.

So it's a significant subject, as we would expect it would be.

But with respect to the role of the Bible, we know it's important.

But is it important to us personally, or why should it be important to us personally, if we are wanting to grow in our relationship with God?

Let me answer that, but before I do, I'd love to share a short story, a personal story.

When I was just maybe 6 or 7 years old, it was Christmas time, and my grandmother, she was actually Russian, she gave me a gift.

And I remember her, she didn't speak a lot of English, a little English, but I remember her kneeling down and holding onto my little six-year-old hands and she said to me, Ninochka, eto samaya glavnaya podarek.

And I said, Babushka, I don't know what you're saying.

And she said to me, this is the most special gift you'll ever receive.

And I opened it up and I saw this beautiful red picture Bible.

And in the front, I still got it at home.

She said to me, may this book stay with you and the messages of this book change your life or something like that.

But I remember her telling me after I opened it, she said to me, always read your Bible.

Don't take it for granted because it's God's word speaking to you.

And as a young child, I remember, I mean, it just had pictures.

I had a few words in this book, but I remember looking at it, thinking, God's word to me?

And that afternoon, I remember playing outside with my cousins, and I had the Bible just kind of placed under a tree and I'd look back every now and then to see, is it still there or has God taken his word back?

And sure enough, it has been with me ever since.

And I've got, I don't know, maybe 10 or 15 Bibles in my home office.

I feel like many of our viewers would have a copy of their own Bible.

But I wonder if we've really thought about how much this book, how very precious it is.

The fact that people over the years have copied it in secret.

They've smuggled it to share it with others.

There are places even today where it is forbidden to read and have a copy of the Bible.

It's the most published book in any language around the world.

It's also 1 of the oldest books, and people have died to share the Bible with others.

But I wonder for our viewers, where is this book positioned in your life?

Do we do we realize that God's inviting us to open it, that he wants to speak to us, to encourage us?

It's a really powerful, powerful book that we hold in our possession.

It's a challenging question I think we need to consider.

And I think today, at least in the Western world, they've become so prevalent that I think the special nature of them, to some extent, at least in many minds, has become diminished.

I mean, you can pick up a Bible at the dollar store today.

And many people have many of them at home but they rarely bring them off the shelf or crack them open.

I've got, you know, But how often do they get used?

More than how often do they get read, how often do they get studied?

Because it's important to not just breeze through it, but to slow down and pick things apart and let God speak to you in those things.

And there's someone who doesn't want us to spend time in it.

He doesn't mind so much if it's around, but how much time are we actually spending in it?

Talk to us a little bit about why Satan doesn't want us in the Bible, doesn't want us studying it, learning it, making it a part of our lives.

He knows that it is living, that it is so life-changing for us.

And I do believe that Satan's, 1 of his greatest strategies is for him to keep our Bibles closed so that we don't open the power and bring it into our lives.

And I know that in the great controversy, Ellen White has this very profound quote.

She says, Satan employs every possible device to prevent people from obtaining a knowledge of the Bible, for its plain utterances reveal his deceptions." So when I think about every possible device, what kind of devices does he use to keep our Bibles closed?

We might be doing a lot of good things for others, even for God, but we might not have time.

We might feel like we've heard all the stories before.

And is there really anything new in here for me?

Whatever it might be, but maybe it's even guilt.

We feel like we're not good enough to open or we're living a life of sin.

Whatever these things, I think we need to remember that God invites us to come regardless of those things.

He doesn't want anything to keep us away from opening His Word.

Because when we open our Bibles, it's almost like a physical declaration to the enemy.

It's almost as though Satan becomes powerless when we start to claim these words.

And really, it is incredibly profound that we hold the word of the living God, the living word of the living God, in our hands.

And when we think about the Word of God, when God spoke, God spoke, the world came into existence.

When Jesus spoke, Lazarus came forth from the tomb.

We know that at the end, when he calls forth the dead at the second coming, they will rise.

So there's so much power in the Word of God, and we have the Word at our fingertips.

So I think maybe we don't appreciate it as much as we should.

I think unfortunately it's so common that we think of it as common.

Maybe, not that I'm suggesting we should get rid of Bibles, but if it were less common maybe we would pay more careful attention to it.

There's a passage of Scripture in 2nd Timothy 3 verses 15 to 17 that I think is powerful here.

It says, and that from childhood, you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus.

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Series

Sabbath School 2nd Quarter 2026: Growing in a Relationship With God

04 The Role of the Bible

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Parts

01 Reality Check

28m

02 To Know God

28m

03 Pride Versus Humility

28m

04 The Role of the Bible

28m

Sound Doctrine