Find the highest purpose for your life The Way to Life Lesson 1 Find the highest purpose for your life

What is life’s purpose? In order to answer, we first need to ask ourselves a couple of questions. Where did humanity come from? Am I an accident, or God’s creation? Why do I exist? What should I live for? Where will I finally go? What will happen to me after death? What do I want in life most of all? What would bring me lasting contentment and a feeling of satisfaction and peace about myself and life?

If we discover what is life’s purpose, we must choose life goals and ways how we are going to achieve them. We may choose what is most important. Is it something or somebody? If we choose a life goal, we wonder if it will bring lasting fulfilment, joy, and happiness what makes life worth living. Or will it be temporary?

Who could know the correct answers to those questions Who could know the correct answers to those questions? If we investigate the best of human knowledge in universities, can we get clear, definite answers about the meaning of life and about mankind’s proper purpose and final end? Do philosophers, psychologists, novelists and sociologists agree with each other about the meaning of life?

Because human intelligence has not discovered the sure answers to those questions, then the only other possible source of knowledge is God. If there is a God who created the world, He would know His design for us. He knows what He made us to be and do. He knows how we should live to function properly. And God knows what He has planned to do with us at the end of our life. Would you like to know what answers God gives to those questions? Then join a journey with God and the Bible to discover authoritative answers about the purpose of life!

In this course we’ll have 12 introduction lessons to Christianity In this course we’ll have 12 introduction lessons to Christianity. They will cover the main topics in God’s Word, the Bible. Where do we start today? 2-3 4-6 9-12 8 1 7

They obeyed Jesus and took off to many places, including Greece, preaching the Good News in several cities. When Jesus had died and resurrected from the death, He spent 40 days on earth with his close followers. Then He gives them a command: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” (Matthew 28:19-20) Read: Acts 17:16-34 on page 1657, First understand some words!

“Athens” (17:16) was the chief city of ancient Greece at that time, 2,000 years ago. It was the leading intellectual, scientific, artistic and religious city of the world. It was a political democracy, unusual for that time. “Idols” (17:16) are statues, like sacred dolls, made to represent the gods people worship. A “synagogue” (17:17) is the place where Jews and converts to the Jewish religion meet for their religious instruction and worship. “Epicurean” (17:18) philosophers did not believe that the “gods” were interested in the lives of people. They didn’t know a God who ruled the world and judged people. Their major goal for life was pleasure—in the sense of a peaceful life, free from pain, disturbing desires, fear and anxiety about death. They did not believe that Christ was resurrected.

“Stoics” (17:18) believed God was only a governing intelligence in the material, natural world. They were pantheistic, believing that God is just part of the world. The world soul and people should live consistently with nature. They taught that life’s highest purpose was to fulfill one’s duty and be morally virtuous through self-discipline. They believed in individual self-sufficiency through the power of human reason. Like Epicureans, they did not believe that Christ was resurrected. Paul quoted a Stoic poet in verse 28. “Areopagus” (17:19) was a hill where the city leaders of Athens met for hearings, councils and trials. An “altar” (17:23) is a table, block or shelf where people put their idol. They might put food there for the idol. At the altar people burn incense to the idol, and kneel to worship it.

“Repent” (17:30) means to change our mind about the non-Christlike way we live. That includes changing our attitude about not obeying and honoring God. “Resurrection” (17:32) is the act of God restoring a person to life in a new body after his or her first body has died. Jesus rose alive from death on the third day after He died. Sometime in the future God will give a new, indestructible body to everyone after they die.

Acts 17:16-34 16While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. 17So he reasoned in the synagogue with both Jews and God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. 18A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to debate with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. 19Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we would like to know what they mean.” 21(All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.) 22Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you. 24“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. 25And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. 26From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28‘For in him we live and move and have our being. As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring. 29“Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill. 30In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.” 32When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.” 33At that, Paul left the Council. 34Some of the people became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others.

使徒行传 17:16-34 16保罗在雅典等候他们的时候，看见满城都是偶像，心灵十分忿激。17于是在会堂里，同犹太人和虔诚的人辩论；并且天天在市中心和所遇见的人辩论。18还有一些伊壁鸠鲁派和斯多亚派的哲学家也同他争论，有的说：“这个拾人牙慧的人要说甚么呢？”有的说：“他似乎是一个宣传外地鬼神的人。”这是因为保罗传扬耶稣和复活的道理。19他们拉着保罗，把他带到亚略．巴古那里，说：“你所讲的这个新道理，我们可以知道吗？20因为你把一切新奇的事，传到我们耳中，我们愿意知道这些事是甚么意思。”21原来所有雅典人和外侨，专好谈论和打听新奇的事，来打发时间。 22保罗站在亚略．巴古当中，说：“各位雅典人，我看你们在各方面都非常敬畏鬼神。23我走路的时候，仔细看你们所敬拜的，发现有一座坛，上面写着‘献给不认识的神’。我现在把你们不认识而敬拜的这位神，传给你们。24创造宇宙和其中万有的　神，既然是天地的主，就不住在人手所造的殿宇，25也不受人手的服事，好象他缺少甚么；他自己反而把生命、气息和一切，赐给万人。26他从一个本源造出了万族来，使他们住在整个大地上，并且定了他们的期限和居住的疆界，27要他们寻求　神，或者可以摸索而找到他。其实他离我们各人不远，28因着他我们可以生存、活动、存在，就如你们有些诗人说：‘原来我们也是他的子孙。’29我们既然是　神的子孙，就不应该以为他的神性是好象人用手艺、心思所雕刻的金银石头一样。30过去那无知的时代，　神不加以追究；现在，他却吩咐各处的人都要悔改，31因为他已经定好了日子，要借着他所立的人，按公义审判天下，并且使他从死人中复活，给万人作一个可信的凭据。” 32众人一听到死人复活的事，就讥笑他，但有的说：“我们要再听听你讲这件事！”33这样，保罗就离开他们。34但有几个人接近他，并且信了主，其中有亚略．巴古的议员丢尼修，一个名叫戴马里的女子，还有其他在一起的人。

Group with Margreet and Hyeran We now split into three small groups, to discuss the following questions. Group with Margreet and Hyeran Group with Shengxin Group with Ed

Describe the people in Athens to whom Paul spoke in Acts 17:18–24. Which of those characteristics of the people in Athens describe you, if any? How is God described here? What are His nature, works, and relation to us? Summarize in your own words as many of those characteristics as you can. In each of the verse references below, write down the characteristics of God that you find in those verses. At the beginning of this lesson we asked the question, “Where did we, humankind, come from?” What answer is given to that question in Acts 17:24–26, and 28? What answer is given to the question, “Why am I living?” (What is the purpose of my life?) What is most important for us to do in our lives? See Acts 17:27. What answer is introduced (though not fully explained here) to the question, “What will happen to me after my body dies?” See verse 31. Verse God’s character