Adult Sunday School Scope and Sequence
Skip down this page to find links to Bible Studies for Life and Explore the Bible sequence downloads.
LifeWay's adult Sunday School curriculum is designed to help adults know, be, and do all God desires for them. The Bible is the essential handbook. God uses His Word to help adults
- Build Bible knowledge and understanding
- Develop Godly values
- Live with God-given purpose
Biblical Learning Model
Our leader and learner resources are based on a comprehensive, biblical learning model. The goal of disciple making is spiritual transformation, which can be defined as God's work of changing a believer into the likeness of Jesus by creating a new identity in Christ and by empowering a lifelong relationship of love, trust, and obedience to glorify God.
Spiritual transformation is the work of the Holy Spirit and involves three crucial areas of life. All LifeWay Bible studies - lessons and units - seek to address these areas biblically, purposefully, and practically. Over time as learners cooperate with the Holy Spirit, they build a biblical worldview out of which to think, decide, and act in Christlikeness. They develop the values of God who created them and loves them. They are able to face the challenging ups and downs of life at every stage and to live with God-given purpose.

Scope
Based on extensive research involving church leaders, specialists in adult life development, and experienced curriculum designers, LifeWay developed a scope for Sunday School curriculum to help adults connect universal life needs to foundational biblical truth. We address basic adult life needs as they relate to 15 biblical concepts revealing Gods answers to those needs. God has revealed in the Bible all we need in order to understand His answers to our needs.
| WHAT ARE OUR BASIC LIFE NEEDS? |
WHAT ARE THE RELEVANT BIBLICAL CONCEPTS? |
WHAT DOES THE BIBLE TEACH TO ANSWER OUR LIFE NEEDS? |
|---|---|---|
| Who or what has ultimate power in my life? |
GOD
|
God the Father acts out of love, grace, and compassion and desires the best for His creation. Jesus was born of a virgin, died on a cross, was raised from the dead, and ascended to heaven so that we can be saved. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God, who convicts of sin, calls people to the Savior, cultivates character, comforts believers, and bestows spiritual gifts for service. |
| What's really true? | REVELATION AND AUTHORITY/BIBLE | The Bible is God's written revelation: true, trustworthy, authoritative, and final. In the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, God has spoken objectively, personally, and propositionally. His written revelation is intelligent and intelligible, true and trustworthy, authoritative and final. Because it is God who has spoken the words of the Bible, the Bible is authoritative in all that it affirms, teaches, and commands. Hence the Bible has the authority to command our beliefs and order our behavior. |
| Where did I come from? Will I survive and be secure? | CREATION, SOVEREIGNTY, AND PROVIDENCE | God established natural laws to cause His creation to function with order, predictability, and splendor. Creation consists of both material or physical elements and immaterial or spiritual elements. God's creation functions with order, predictability, and splendor. God has established natural laws according to which the universe operates. God is sovereign over His creation. He actively continues to preserve, provide for, and sustain His creation. He providentially controls, guides, and directs the universe toward His purposes. God has assigned human beings accountability in managing and caring for His creation. |
| Am I loved? Do I belong? |
FAMILY
|
God ordained the family to accccomplish His purposes through love, discipline, encouragement, and secucurity. God ordained communities, societies, and nations to accccomplish His purposes. God's reign over His creation is made visible through the church, expressed in the lives of believers as they join together in faith and fellowship. |
| What does it mean to be human? |
HUMANITY/SELF | All people are created in the image of God to love and worship Him, possessing personality, intellect, creativity, self-consciousness, and self-determination. All people are created in the image of God and are, therefore, valuable as individuals. Human beings are total entities consisting of a material body and an immaterial spiritual part. God made human beings male and female. He gave them equality of status but a difference of roles. As the creation of a personal God, people possess personality, intellect, creativity, self-consciousness, and self-determination. Humanity's highest purpose is to love God and worship Him. |
| Can I be forgiven and have a new start? | SALVATION | God offers forgiveness of sin to those who trust in Christ, who suffered and died in our place to atone for sin. God was not thwarted by the rebellion of His creation. God has acted in history to redeem human beings and His creation through His Son, Jesus Christ. In Jesus Christ, God entered into time and space in human form, and He suffered and died to atone for sin in the place of (as a substitute for) human beings. God offers forgiveness of sins and reconciliation to those who will trust in Christ's sacrifice. To them, God promises hope, resurrection, and victory. |
| Do I have a meaningful purpose in life? |
DISCIPLESHIP AND THE CHRISTIAN LIFE | Christian discipleship involves self-denial, obedience, prayer, witnessing, acting on Christian virtues, and remaining faithful. The Christian life is a life of discipleship that involves self-denial, obedience to God's commands, vigilance in prayer, and authentic witness, cultivation of the mind of Christ, production of the fruit of the Spirit, progression in holiness, demonstration of Christian virtues, and perseverance in faithfulness. |
| What's right and what's wrong? Who says so? | ETHICS AND MORALITY | God is the moral standard by which all moral judgments are measured, revealed to us through conscience, Scripture, and the Holy Spirit. God is a holy God. He is the moral standard by which all moral judgments are measured. God created human beings with a moral nature and has established moral absolutes. Human beings are moral agents who are morally responsible to God in terms of both personal and social moral obligations. God has revealed His moral standards through human conscience, Scripture, and the witness of the Holy Spirit. Thus human beings are responsible for abiding by creation ethics and Christian ethics. |
| What's real? And how can I live wisely? | REASON AND FAITH | Because God is intelligent and orderly, much of what can be known is gained by reason, but faith lays hold of a reality and knowledge that cannot be seen. Because God is intelligent and orderly, reality is fixed and knowable to human beings made in His image. Reality involves both material substance and non-material or spiritual substance. Much of what can be known is gained by reason, but faith lays hold of reality and knowledge that is not accessible to the senses. |
| Why are evil, suffering, and death part of life? |
REBELLION AND SIN | Because all have sinned, everyone is fallen and lost; thus sin has resulted in alienation, condemnation, enslavement, depravity, and death. All human beings have sinned against God. Because all have sinned, everyone is fallen and lost. Sin has resulted in alienation, condemnation, enslavement, depravity, and death. Creation itself suffers from the impact of sin and is, therefore, no longer as God created it. |
| Where are time and history ultimately headed? |
TIME AND ETERNITY | God works within time to accccomplish His purposes. Someday Jesus will return to raise the dead, judge the world, punish the lost, reward the redeemed, and establish His eternal kingdom. God is not limited by time. He works within time to accomplish His purposes. Time is moving forward meaningfully and purposely because God is moving time, history, and creation toward a determined end. Someday Jesus will return in power and great glory to raise the dead, judge the world, punish the lost in a place called hell, reward the redeemed in heaven, establish His kingdom, renew heaven and earth, and consummate His redemptive mission. |
Adult Sunday School Curriculum Sequence
Bible Studies for Life
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Bible Studies for Life Scope and Sequence [PDF] - This is a downloadable version of the preceding text, graphic, and table.
Explore the Bible