The Sabbath School lesson

One same Bible study for the whole world church, laid out over seven days and meant to arrive at Sabbath spoken. This is how a week is built and what is done each day.

What it is

Each quarter, the Seventh-day Adventist Church publishes a thirteen-week lesson on a theme or a book of the Bible. The same one all over the world and translated into dozens of languages: what is studied this week in Ensenada is studied this week in Manila.

On Sabbath morning the class gets together to discuss it. That is the point: the lesson is not read to know it, it is studied during the week so that you have something to say on Sabbath.

How the week is laid out

• Sabbath — the opening. It presents the theme of the week and the key text. It is short on purpose: it situates, it does not explain.
• Sunday to Thursday — the five days of study. Each one takes a part of the theme, sends you to some passages and ends with questions to think about. This is where the work is done.
• Friday — “Further thought”. It gathers the week together, usually brings a quote from Ellen G. White and leaves the questions that are taken to the class.

How to really study it

Almost everyone opens it on Friday night or on Sabbath on the way to church. You can, but then it is a reading and not a study, and it shows in the class.

• Open the passages it cites. The lesson sends you to the texts taking for granted that you are going to look them up, and they are half of what it means to say. Reading the lesson without opening the Bible is reading the commentary of a book you did not read.
• Answer its questions in writing. Thinking an answer and writing it are not the same. What is written can be taken to the class; what is thought is forgotten between Thursday and Sabbath.
• Ten minutes a day is enough. A lesson day is one page. The problem is never the time, it is remembering.

Where to find it

The official lesson is published each quarter on paper and digitally. Maná brings it already divided by days, with the passages it cites open where it cites them and a place to write your answer to each question. Free, ad-free, in Spanish, English, Portuguese and French.