These questions are connected to the second part of the message, Deep Faith, Wide Embrace, from Sunday, Nov. 6, 2022. You can watch it here.
- Were you able to enter into the discomfort that the disciples and early Jewish Christians felt with the establishment of a new covenant? If so, how did you gain greater understanding of the tensions at play during Jesus’ ministry and the years following his resurrection?
- Why do you think God only wanted a tabernacle (tent) and not a permanent structure (temple)? What are the downfalls of a permanent structure? What might be some of the “temples” in our faith communities?
- Put yourself in the disciples’ shoes. All the scripture their beliefs rested on, and all the beliefs their faith rested on, were being challenged, resisted, and even overturned. Have you experienced a time when you felt the same way? What was the issue or practice or scripture in question? How did you handle it?
- Discuss ways that you have inadvertently been cherry-picking the Old Testament, blending Old Testament requirements/expectations with the New Testament and commands of Jesus?
- Discuss how scripture can be inspired by God (“God-breathed”) and yet become obsolete. What are the implications for our reading of scripture? Does it make you feel uncomfortable that portions of scripture could be obsolete? Is this a new concept for you? For fun, compare the following verses: Psalm 5:5 & Psalm 11:5 with Matthew 5:43-45 & 1 John 4:8
- Read Galatians 5:1-10. Discuss the implications of this. Do the implications of this make you uncomfortable? If so, how? How does it impact how we read the Old Testament? (How do we read it, weight it, handle it, and discern it?)