Saturday, January 9, 2021

January 17, 2021 - Mark’s Good News about Jesus – The New Thing

 The New Thing

Isaiah 43:18-19 - New International Version (NIV)

18 “Forget the former things;
    do not dwell on the past.
19 See, I am doing a new thing!
    Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
    and streams in the wasteland.

What is to be forgotten (verse 18)?

Where should the hearer not dwell (verse 18)?

What is God doing (verse 19)?

In your opinion, why wouldn’t the hearer perceive what “springs up” (verse 19)?

What is God making in the wilderness (verse 19)?

In your opinion, how will the wasteland be changed by the streams God is making in it (verse 19)?

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

Mark 8:31-9:1 - New International Version (NIV)

31 He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. 32 He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.

33 But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

34 Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. 36 What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? 37 Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? 38 If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.”

1 And he said to them, “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.”

Who did Jesus teach them would reject the Son of Man (verse 31)?

What would happen to the Son of Man three days after He was killed (verse 31)?

Who took Jesus “aside and began to rebuke him” (verse 32)?

In your opinion, why did Jesus tell Peter “you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns” (verse 33)?

What does Jesus tell the disciples that those who want to be His disciple need to do (verse 34)?

Who will lose their life (verse 35)?

Who will save their life (verse 35)?

In your opinion, “what good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” (verse 36)?

Who will the Son of Man be ashamed of (verse 38)?

Who will “see that the kingdom of God has come with power” (verse 1)?

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

In your opinion, how is Isaiah’s prophecy about a “new thing” in Isaiah 43:18-19 reflected in what Jesus is talking about in Mark 8:31-9:1?

Acts 5:17-20 – New International Version (NIV)

17 Then the high priest and all his associates, who were members of the party of the Sadducees, were filled with jealousy. 18 They arrested the apostles and put them in the public jail. 19 But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the jail and brought them out. 20 “Go, stand in the temple courts,” he said, “and tell the people all about this new life.”

Who was filled with jealousy (verse 17)?

What did they do to the apostles (verse 18)?

When did the angel of the Lord open the doors and bring them out (verse 19)?

Where were the disciples to go (verse 20)?

What new thing were the disciples to tell the people about (verse 20)?

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

In your opinion, who in Acts 5:17-20 is not listening to the command in Isaiah 43:18-19 to “forget the former things; do not dwell on the past”?  In your opinion, why would they not want to forget the past?

In your opinion, how is Peter in Mark 8:31-9:1 like the high priest and his associates in Acts 5:17-20?  What can we learn from the fact that Peter went from being rebuked in Mark to being jailed for filling the high priest with jealousy in Acts?

2 Corinthians 5:16-21 – New International Version (NIV)

16 So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Who will Paul now regard from a “worldly point of view” (verse 16)?

How has the way Paul regarded Christ changed (verse 16)?

What has come for anyone who “is in Christ(verse 17)?

What has gone (verse 17)?

How did God reconcile “us to himself” (verse 18)?

In your opinion, what does “not counting people’s sins against them” have to do with God “reconciling the world to himself” (verse 19)?

What has God committed Paul to (verse 19)?

How does Paul view himself (verse 20)?

What can we become through the One who had no sin and was made to be sin (verse 21)?

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

In your opinion, how is God’s message through Isaiah in Isaiah 43:18-19 to “forget the former things” because He is “doing a new thing” echoed by Paul’s discussion about reconciliation in 2 Corinthians 5:16-21? 

In your opinion, how are Jesus’s statements about who will save their lives and who will lose their lives in Mark 8:31-9:1 affirmed by Paul’s discussion of reconciliation and new creations in 2 Corinthians 5:16-21?

In your opinion, who, in Acts 5:17-20, is regarding people from the “worldly point of view” that Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:16-21 he “once regarded Christ” with? 

In your opinion, how could we tell if we were regarding people and the world from the “worldly point of view” today? 

In your opinion, what do these passages from Isaiah, Mark, Acts and 2 Corinthians reveal to us about people are changed by the “new thing” that God is doing?

In your opinion, how do we become “new creations” in an old world today?

 

(sprucewhispers.blogspot.com)

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