Dive Deeper Into Sunday's Message
As a follow up to Sunday Pastor Cliff is inviting you to ponder the sermon and dive into the Scripture passage a little bit more. Every Monday the office will publish questions that are designed to help you sit with God’s Word, apply it to your daily life and grow in your faith. Whether you reflect on them individually, discuss them with a friend or spouse, or talk about them within your small group, our hope is that these questions will inspire thought and conversation while helping you go deeper into the message and draw closer to God.
Weekly Questions:
1. Read Matthew 5:17-20.
2. Review: what is the Sermon on the Mount? We called 5:3-12 the Jesus Manifesto, why? 5:13-16 is Jesus assigning us an identity with responsibility as "influencers" - what's it mean to be salt and light?
3. Read Romans 8:1-4, 10:3-4 and Galatians 5:14. What is Paul the Apostle saying about the law?
4. Read Exodus 19:4-5. God spoke these words to His people before He gave them the 10 Commandments - these verses give context to the commandments. What is the context?
5. There are 613 laws in the Torah, plus the people of God had rabbis who contextualized these laws (for instance there are 39 laws by rabbis interpreting the sabbath law). This is a normal process based on context, for example as roads and cars have evolved so has the legal speed limit, where on one section of the 416 it is now 110 km/h. Jesus was not coming to "abolish" the law, but to "fulfill" it, or satisfy or complete it. He was saying that He resolving, contextualized, interpreting, living the spirit of the law. Discuss.
6. Jesus said that the law and prophets are to be "accomplished". He implied that the law was not complete and needed to be fulfilled - discuss.
7. Verse 20 is not about the amount of righteousness but the kind of righteousness. Discuss the difference between Jesus-righteousness and Phariseeism.
8. If you are looking for a good biography to read here's a link to the one that I mentioned during the sermon this week.