The New Covenant: The Life of Christ (Matthew-John)
The One Who Comes – The path of the LORD was prepared by the coming of John the Baptizer. Jesus of Nazareth was born to fulfill the word of the LORD and as such was actually the Word himself. When John baptized Jesus the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus and the Father spoke His blessing from heaven. (Luke 2:67-79; 3:21-22) DOVE
The Message – Jesus message was that the kingdom of God was near: the sick were healed, people bothered by demons were set free and those who knew they were sinners could be forgiven. He not only preached this message, but had lived in the power of the message by his victories over the temptations of the devil. The message required that anyone who was going to be a part of God’s kingdom must obey God’s word and therefore trust in Jesus. (Mark 1:12-15; John 5:24) BROKEN-CHAIN
The Messengers – Jesus specifically chose twelve men to deliver his message to Israel (and later to the world). One of them he knew would betray him and the others he knew would abandon him at his final hour, but he still chose all of them. They were to pass on all that Jesus did and said, and to do this in the power of the Spirit. Others would also share this message as they had received it. (Matthew 10:1-8; Luke 24:47-49) TWELVE
The Final Week – Jesus was hated for his message because it meant that Jesus is Lord and must be trusted. This led to him being beaten and crucified by the end of the week of the Jewish Passover. In Jesus crucifixion, he became the sacrifice for sin for all who would trust in him. (John 19:16-37; 20:30-31) CROSS
The Resurrection – Jesus truly was dead and remained so for three days in a new tomb. However, on the third day, just as he had told his disciples, he rose from the dead and taught them over forty days. He finally ascended to heaven in order to send the Spirit to them ten days later. (Matthew 16:21; 28:1-10; Luke 24:46-53) EMPTY-TOMB
The New Covenant Community (Acts-Revelation)
The New Covenant Community (Acts-Revelation)
Alive with the Spirit (Acts) – Those Jesus sent out received the Spirit for the power necessary to be witnesses about him just as he had promised. Everywhere they went there were signs and wonders and many people who trusted in Jesus (though many others did not). Others also joined in the special work of sharing the good news about Jesus in distant places (to the whole world) by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Acts 1:8; 2:1-4, 37-47) FIRE
Paul and the Churches (Romans-Hebrews) – A man named Saul who had first tried to destroy the Church became a follower of Jesus (changed his name to Paul) and gave his life even while suffering and being imprisoned, to establishing the Church throughout the world because Jesus told him to do so. As he did this, he would write many letters to the churches, pastors and people he knew to encourage them and to remind them of the things they needed to know and do in following Jesus faithfully as Jesus’ community. (Titus 1:1-3) ENVELOPE
James, Peter and Jude – Others also wrote letters to different to remind them of the truth about Jesus and how they were to live because of this. Two of these are considered brothers of Jesus (James and Jude) and one was among Jesus’ closest disciples. The call was for right living, but also against false teaching and as a result – sinful living (something which Paul and John also mention regularly). (James 2:14-24; 2 Peter 1:3-15) ENVELOPES
John (1-3 John, Revelation) – John, the last surviving apostle of Jesus, wrote numerous letters concerning the need for faithfulness to the new covenant in Jesus. He also received a special revelation of Jesus concerning Jesus coming again in victory and the need to be faithful to the end no matter what comes. (1 John 2:12-14; Revelation 1:1-8) ‘V’ – (FOR ‘VICTORY’)
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The CAPITAL ITALICS are for picture representations of the respective section. Each section also has a selective Scripture portion as representative. I taught this over two weeks to our youth following the four weeks through the OT for Seventh Graders HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE.
By: Rick Wadholm Jr.
This seems like a reasonable breakdown. I do like how you are spending an entire week on the Gospels.All of the difficulties I see with it have more to do with the length of time you have than with the way you have broken this down.
I found this task incredibly difficult. I spend weeks in detailed exegetical work…translating texts, parsings, theologizing, etc…as I work through texts slowly for the adults, but for the youth (of which I have mostly seventh grade girls with little church background) I thought it would be helpful to try going through the Bible over the course of the six weeks that I get them (which is not much time at all). They had loads of great questions and it forced me to think in broad themes and also of how to summarize what should be stated in a few sentences in 7th grader lingo. This was way harder than I initially thought it would be, but very helpful for me.