Download discussion questions: Mark 10; Acts 2; Acts 4
Again this week our group looked at three passages – one in the gospels and two near the beginning of Luke’s account of the church in the Acts of the Apostles. One feature was a degree of repetitiveness in the passages. Someone told me a long time ago, “If God says something once, it’s important. If He says it more than once, we really better pay attention!” Continue reading
Download discussion questions: Jesus’ Family Values
The first comment in our group after looking at the handout with three passages from the gospels was, “I thought we were going to study Philippians.” I explained that we are on our way to Philippians, but we are taking the scenic route. Starting from Obadiah (last week) there are a few stops in between. Those brief detours will make all the difference in understanding what the Apostle Paul meant as we read his letter to the church in Philippi. Continue reading
Download discussion questions: Obadiah 1:10-14
How did we get here – from a Jewish prophet denouncing another nation to a letter from Paul to a Macedonian church? As we finished the letter that James wrote, the plan for our group was to follow the advice James gave to “look to the prophets” (James 5:10). However, the study of one of those prophets led us into a different direction. Continue reading
Last week our discussion group completed our study of the letter that James wrote. I hope the blog entries have been helpful and have encouraged you in your own study of Scripture.
We are beginning a new study this week. Although the original plan was to spend time in the Minor Prophets, a change of plans has brought us to the book of Philippians. (Some of the details behind that change will be in the next blog entry.)
The study in Philippians was partly inspired by a statement from Joseph H. Hellerman, a pastor and professor with a Ph.D. in history as well as theological training:
Paul, in his letter to the Philippians, intentionally subverts the social values of the dominant culture in the Roman colony at Philippi in order to create a radically different relational environment among the Philippian Christians.[1]
Since we are starting a new study, I wanted to remind you to subscribe to that Philippians blog on the main page of GoodNotSafe. Fill in your name and email address, then mark the box for Philippians. Click “Subscribe” and the blog entries for that study will be sent to you automatically.
[1] Joseph H. Hellerman, Embracing Shared Ministry: Power and Status in the Early Church and Why It Matters Today (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Kregel Publications, 2013), 11.
This is only a test