There are many distinctions made in the world which divide mankind into groups and classes. Through our social contacts and the news media, we become aware of race discrimination and especially where it pertains to color. Then there is the distinction of class which is judged by wealth, education and culture. There are sex discriminations which legislation endeavors to correct by insuring equal rights and equal pay for the female as for male. There are innumerable divisions created by religious denominations ─groupings which are very confusing to the average man and woman.
But there is really only one distinction which the Bible recognizes─that between the family of Adam and the family of Jesus Christ. The words “generation” or “seed” will occur frequently through this study as these are Bible terms.
The basis for this study is in the first three chapters of Genesis (the first book of the Bible). Read these chapters over at least three times to familiarize yourself with the story of creation and the fall of man.
After the story of creation, the Word of God opens with a statement in Genesis 5:1 which introduces the remainder of the Old Testament with the genealogy followed by the history of Adam’s family during the period of almost 4,000 years. The New Testament opens with almost identical words but introduces us to the Last Adam, Jesus Christ, the Head of a new family. This course material is free and not to be confused with other material for sale in our Family Christian Store.

Introduction

Welcome to the Two Families Correspondence Course

We are glad to make your acquaintance, and we trust that this course of study will bring you to a deeper understanding of God’s purpose for your existence, resulting in a more perfect relationship within the family of God.  We trust you will ask any question which this study might raise in your mind.  We will seek to answer you to the best of our ability.


The Course of Study

THE TWO FAMILIES
(In Adam: In Christ)

1. Their Beginnings
2. The Two Adams
3. The Two Births
4. The Two Dimensions
5. The Two Deaths
6. The Two Courses in Life
7. The Two Destinies

The Bible

Modern manufacturers, when selling a complicated machine, will include with it a book of instructions. It will advise the purchaser on how to operate and maintain that intricate piece of mechanism. It will also tell how to repair some simple fault or give an address to which the owner may write in case of more serious trouble.
God, our Creator, has given to man a very complex machine to operate but has also issued a Book of instructions, the Holy Bible. In this Book, we have the answers to so many of the questions and mysteries which surround us and it explains our complicated make-up. If a specialist in the medical world must acknowledge that after a life-time of intensive research, he has not as yet penetrated all the deeps of just one small organ of this intricate creation called man, how dismally must we fail to understand ourselves and our threefold nature of spirit, soul and body. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” asked the inspired writer of Scripture.
This Book reveals the Maker’s plan for our lives. Here we may find the answer to the problems of sin and suffering and we may read how God made provision for our restoration to the Maker’s first, perfect blue print. It is the only Book which informs us as to what has gone wrong with the human race and how ample is the provision He made for a correction of that wrong. It is the only Book which speaks with certainty of life after death and of God’s great love and care for all men through the Cross of Jesus Christ and His sacrifice for sin. It treats of the ages to come and God’s purposes in the coming of a glorious kingdom. It is our text book.

Our Teacher

We have heard many complain that the Bible seems a very complicated Book, and they do not know how to study it. They do not know that God has not only left the human race an instruction Book but that He has also provided an able Teacher in the Person of His Holy Spirit, Who is nonetheless real because He is invisible. Christ promised, “I will send him unto you . . . He will guide you into all truth . . . he shall receive of mine and shew it unto you” (John 16:7, 13, 15). He is to be our Guide and Interpreter.
A small child starting school needs not only a text book but a teacher to explain and this is provided by the educational authorities. Likewise God has sent His Holy Spirit to open our understanding that we might have the mystery of His Word revealed to us. With the text Book and the Teacher, man should be able to steer his course successfully through the maze and labyrinth of life so as to affect his destiny in the ages upon ages to come.

Our Prayer

Before starting each lesson let us, in a child-like manner, ask for the assistance of this Divine Instructor, for He does not obtrude Himself upon man uninvited. “Ask,” the Good Book promises, “and it shall be given unto you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” May we suggest a simple prayer that you might utter before reading the course of study?
“Dear Father, I ask for the assistance of thy Holy Spirit in order to understand your Holy Book of instruction. Guide me and lead me into all Truth, for Jesus’ sake, Amen.

How to Study

Those who have been familiar with the Bible all their lives will pardon us if we give simple instructions to those who might not have been so privileged. At the beginning of your Bible, you will find a list of sixty-six books of which it is comprised. It is made up of the Old and New Testaments. If you have difficulty in finding a text to which we refer in these lessons, a reference to the contents page will help you to discover its location in the Bible.
If we give you a text, Genesis 3:15, it will mean that it is contained in the first book. The first number (3) is the chapter. A colon divides the chapter number from the verse (15). We prefer the Authorized or Revised Versions of the Bible and our quotations will be taken from the Authorized.
Should you see three periods occur (. . .) in the script you will know that in quoting the text we have omitted some words from the original.
This course material is free and not to be confused with other material for sale in our Family Christian Store.

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