Last weekend I was invited to teach a short course on the Book of Romans (my favorite) at the congregation in Prazeres, on the metropolis’ south side. This congregation is a daughter of the Boa Vista (downtown) church and was planted in the eighties to better reach that community, which is fifteen miles distant. Today they have their own building, leadership and fifty active members. About half of these participated in this course.

It’s always a pleasure to speak about God’s grace being the basis of our salvation and not our own good works. No matter how hard we try, we can never be good enough to merit His great salvation in Jesus. The Good News is that we don’t have to be (though we still want to do all the good we can), as Jesus earned this privilege for us. In him, by faith, we offer God all the good fruit we can bear as our gratitude for His free gift. The brethren in Prazeres have invited me to come back in February and teach a short course on Frist Corinthians.

Since I would normally be teaching the course “How to Read the Bible and Understand the Bible” at the School of the Bible on Saturday afternoon, I asked one of the young men in training to teach in my place. Caike, 25, (blue shirt, front row in photo) covered for me and has stayed on to co-teach this course in preparation to becoming one of the School’s regular teachers. This popular co urse is geared toward those beginning to study the Bible. This time it has sixteen adult students, two of which are church members, the rest are visitors from the community. May all of these be blessed in their journey towards the depth of God’s riches for their lives!