October 9, 2016 – Teachings from the Rock – Slaves to Sin or Slaves to Righteousness

Slaves to Sin or Slaves to Righteousness

Proverbs 23:29-35 – New International Version (NIV)

²⁹ Who has woe? Who has sorrow?
    Who has strife? Who has complaints?
    Who has needless bruises? Who has bloodshot eyes?
³⁰ Those who linger over wine,
    who go to sample bowls of mixed wine.
³¹ Do not gaze at wine when it is red,
    when it sparkles in the cup,
    when it goes down smoothly!
³² In the end it bites like a snake
    and poisons like a viper.
³³ Your eyes will see strange sights,
    and your mind will imagine confusing things.
³⁴ You will be like one sleeping on the high seas,
    lying on top of the rigging.
³⁵ “They hit me,” you will say, “but I’m not hurt!
    They beat me, but I don’t feel it!
When will I wake up
    so I can find another drink?”

Who do all of these questions describe (verse 29)?

In your opinion, what does it mean to linger over wine (verse 30)?

What should not be gazed out when it sparkles in the cup (verse 31)?

How does wine bite (verse 32)?

What will the mind imagine (verse 33)?

In your opinion, what does it mean to be like one “lying on top of the rigging” (verse 34)?

What does the person want to wake up and find (verse 35)?

In your opinion, what is the basic message of this passage?

John 4:10-26 - New International Version (NIV)

¹⁰ Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

¹¹ “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? ¹² Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”

¹³ Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

¹⁵ The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

¹⁶ He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

¹⁷ “I have no husband,” she replied.

Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. ¹⁸ The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”

¹⁹ “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. ²⁰ Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

²¹ “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ²² You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³ Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. ²⁴ God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

²⁵ The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

²⁶ Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”

What did the woman need to know to ask for living water (verse 10)?

Why did the woman think that Jesus would not be able to get “this living water” (verse 11)?

Who is the woman’s father (verse 12)?

In your opinion, why will everyone who drinks “this water” be thirsty again (verse 13)?

What will the water that Jesus gives become (verse 14)?

Why did the woman want this water (verse 15)?

Who did Jesus ask the woman to get (verse 16)?

What does the woman not have (verse 17)?

How many husbands has the woman had (verse 18)?

In your opinion, why does the woman think that Jesus is a prophet (verse 19)?

What difference did the woman point out between the Samaritans and the Jews (verse 20)?

What is coming (verse 21)?

Who is the salvation from (verse 22)?

How will true worshippers worship (verse 23)?

What does the Samaritan woman know the Messiah will do when He comes (verse 24)?

Who does Jesus claim to be (verse 25)?

In your opinion, what is the basic message of this passage?

In your opinion, why does the drunkard in Proverbs 23:29-35 want to wake up to find another drink but the people in John 4:10-26 who receive the living water from Jesus will not thirst?

Romans 6:15-23 - New International Version (NIV)

¹⁵ What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means! ¹⁶ Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? ¹⁷ But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. ¹⁸ You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.

¹⁹ I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness. ²⁰ When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. ²¹ What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! ²² But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. ²³ For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

How does Paul answer the question “shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace” (verse 15)?

Who are we slaves of (verse 16)?

Why is Paul giving thanks to God for the Romans that he is writing to (verse 17)?

In your opinion, what does it mean to be free from sin but be a slave to righteousness (verse 18)?

Why is Paul using an example from everyday life (verse 19)?

When were the readers “free from the control of righteousness” (verse 20)?

What did the things the readers are ashamed of result in (verse 21)?

What benefit is there from being free from sin and slaves of God (verse 22)?

What is the wages of sin (verse 23)?

What is the gift of God (verse 23)?

In your opinion, what is the basic message of this passage?

In your opinion, how does Jesus’ statement in John 4:10-26 that “the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life” help us to understand the truth that Paul shares in Romans 6:15-23 that “the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord”?

In your opinion, how does the alcoholic of Proverbs 23:29-35 who has woe, sorrow and bloodshot eyes but yearns to wake up and find another drink help us to understand Paul when he says in Romans 6:15-23 that we “are slaves of the one we obey”?

2 Peter 2:17-22 – New International Version (NIV)

¹⁷ These people are springs without water and mists driven by a storm. Blackest darkness is reserved for them. ¹⁸ For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of the flesh, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error. ¹⁹ They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity—for “people are slaves to whatever has mastered them.” ²⁰ If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and are overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. ²¹ It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them. ²² Of them the proverbs are true: “A dog returns to its vomit,” and, “A sow that is washed returns to her wallowing in the mud.”

In your opinion, what is bad about a spring without water (verse 17)?

What is reserved for people who are “springs without water” (verse 17)?

How do they “entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error” (verse 18)?

In your opinion, how can they promise freedom while they are slaves of depravity (verse 19)?

When are they “worse off at the end than they were at the beginning” (verse 20)?

What would have been better for them (verse 21)?

Who returns to its vomit (verse 22)?

In your opinion, what is the basic message of this passage?

In your opinion, what could the people that Peter says promise freedom “while they themselves are slaves of depravity” in 2 Peter 2:17-22 learn from Paul’s statement in Romans 6:15-23 that the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord”?

In your opinion, how are the people that Peter says are “springs without water” in 2 Peter 2:17-22 different from the ones in John 4:10-26 that Jesus promises “whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst”?

In your opinion, how can the one who has strife, complaints and bruises but wants to wake up and find another drink in Proverbs 23:29-35 help us to understand the effect of “lustful desires of the flesh” that the people who are “springs without water” in 2 Peter 2:17-22 appeal to so they may enslave the ones who just escaped from “those who live in error”?

In your opinion, what do these passages from Proverbs, John, Romans, and 2 Peter help us to understand about the choice we have to make between the ones who are empty springs and the One who gives living water?

In your opinion, what do these passages show us about ourselves today?

Next, back to 2 Peter 3:1 – (sprucewhispers.blogspot.com)