Category Archives: Bible

Discussion starters, Jn 20:1-18

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(a) Suppose you had known nothing about Jesus, or about the Christian faith. Then, you pick up John’s Gospel and start to read it through. You reach chapter 20. What might be your thoughts and feelings, as you read this chapter for the first time?

(b) Critics sometimes claim that the resurrection accounts found in the four Gospels are hopelessly at odds with one another. What do you think? If there are variations between the different accounts, why might that be so?…

Discussion Starters, Mark 2:1-12, Luke 5:17-26

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1. Which is more important: physical healing, or the forgiveness of sins?  Why?  And why do you think the two are linked together on this occasion?

2. Surely, healing and forgiveness are good things?  So why do you think the Jewish authorities were so resentful of what Jesus did?

3. In what ways can we follow in Jesus’ footsteps by bringing God’s healing and forgiveness to others?

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Discussion Starters, Matt 5:13-16, 21-26 & 38-48

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(a) Suppose a friend says to you, “I’m not interested in church or in organised religion, but I do try to live according to the Sermon on the Mount.”  How might you respond?

(b) What do you think Jesus was getting at in the repeated pattern, first seen in v21, where he says, “You have heard that it was said…but I tell you”?

(c) Supposing we really took verses 13-16, 21-26 and 38-48 to heart during the coming week. …

Discussion starters, Lk 2:41-52

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1. Luke 2:41-52 tells us all we know about Jesus’ childhood. What else do you wish you knew about his childhood and family life in Nazareth?

2. Jesus says to his parents (verse 49), “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” The following verse tells us that his parents ‘did not understand what he was saying to them.’ Do you think they should have understood? What do you think he meant?

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How about preaching a Bible overview?

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We all agree (don’t we?) that it’s great to have a bird’s eye view of the Bible as a whole, and especially its overall storyline.  But what about attempting this in a series of sermons?

John Percival writes on Unashamed Workman about just such an attempt.  His church followed Andrew Reid’s outline of eleven ‘big moments in God’s story’: creation, fall, promise, exodus, conquest, kingship, exile, return, cross, gospel, new creation.…

Did Jesus know Greek?

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‘The New Testament itself is written in a language Jesus never spoke.’

So claims Richard Rohr (The Divine Dance: The Trinity and your transformation) in a throwaway comment.  It is one of a large number of careless and inaccurate statements by this writer.

The two main languages spoken by Jews at the time were Aramaic (in everyday communication) and Hebrew (in more formal religious matters).  But what about Greek?  This language had been spoken in Palestine for several centuries. …

Preaching Christ from the Old Testament

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How can we preach Christ from the Old Testament?  Sydney Greidanus outlines seven ways:-

1. Redemptive-historical progression—seeing the message of the passage in the context of redemptive history from beginning to end, especially following the progression of redemptive history as it moves forward from the text’s historical setting to Jesus’ First and/or Second Coming.  [Example: Gen 3 and the ‘Fall’, finding its remedy in the saving work of Christ]
2. Promise-fulfillment—showing that the promise of a coming Messiah was fulfilled in Jesus’ First Coming or will be fulfilled in his Second Coming.  …

How does Christ rule his church?

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After his resurrection, Jesus declared that ‘all authority is heaven and on earth’ had been given to him (Mt 28:18).  As Christians, then, we confess that ‘Jesus Christ is Lord’ (Phil 2:9-11).

How does Christ exercise his authority in the church today?  Four possible answers have been given:-

  1. The Roman Catholic answer is that Christ rules his church through the magisterium, the teaching of the Pope and his bishops both in the past and in the present.
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Mary Magdalene – fact and fiction

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According to Luke 8:2, Mary Magdalene had been a severely demonised woman whom Jesus had healed.

David Instone-Brewer notes that Mary would have been a former social outcast, feared and despised by the rest of the community.  She occupies a uniquely privileged place in the NT, however, since she is the only person to have witnessed Jesus’ crucifixion, burial, and resurrection (Mt 27:61, 65; 28:1).

Later traditions developed around Mary:-

The Gospel of Thomas (about AD 100) includes her among the disciples.  …

Jesus: a ‘new and improved’ Moses?

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Should we regard the Old Testament and the New Testament as continuous, or discontinuous, with one another?  The standard evangelical approach is to regard the relationship between the two as that between bud and flower, source and stream, promise and fulfilment.

But many are troubled by the moral teaching and actions recorded in the Old Testament, and ask how this can be reconciled with the teaching and actions of Jesus.

Taking the difficult matter of the destruction of the Canaanites as his starting point, Peter Enns looks at Matthew’s Gospel, asking, ‘What would Jesus do?’…