Provoking to Peace
Jeremiah
7:11b-20 - New International Version (NIV)
11 . . . But I have been watching! declares the Lord.
12 “‘Go now to the place in Shiloh where I first made a dwelling for
my Name, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of my
people Israel. 13 While you were doing all these things,
declares the Lord, I
spoke to you again and again, but you did not listen; I
called you, but you did not answer. 14 Therefore,
what I did to Shiloh I will now do to the house that bears my
Name, the temple you trust in, the place I gave to you and your
ancestors. 15 I will thrust you from my
presence, just as I did all your fellow Israelites, the people of
Ephraim.’
16 “So do not pray for this people nor offer any plea or
petition for them; do not plead with me, for I will not listen to
you. 17 Do you not see what they are doing in the towns of
Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? 18 The children
gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough and make
cakes to offer to the Queen of Heaven. They pour out drink
offerings to other gods to arouse my anger. 19 But
am I the one they are provoking? declares the Lord. Are they not rather harming themselves, to their own
shame?
20 “‘Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: My anger and my
wrath will be poured out on this place—on man and beast, on the trees of
the field and on the crops of your land—and it will burn and not be quenched.
What
has the Lord been doing (verse 11)?
Where is Jeremiah to go (verse 12)?
What did the Lord do “again and again” while
the people of Judah were doing wicked things (verse 13)?
In your opinion, why would the Lord do “to
the house that bears my Name, the temple you trust in, the place I gave to you
and your ancestors” what he had done in Shiloh (verse 14)?
Where is the Lord going to thrust the people of
Judah (verse 15)?
What will the Lord not listen to (verse 16)?
How do the people “in the towns of Judah and
in the streets of Jerusalem” arouse the Lord’s anger (verses 17 and 18)?
In your opinion, are the people of Judah and
Jerusalem provoking the Lord or harming themselves (verse 19)?
What is going to be poured out (verse 20)?
In
your opinion, what is the basic message of this passage?
Mark 11:27-12:12 - New
International Version (NIV)
27 They arrived again in Jerusalem, and while Jesus was walking in
the temple courts, the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders
came to him. 28 “By what authority are you doing these
things?” they asked. “And who gave you authority to do this?”
29 Jesus replied, “I will ask you one question. Answer me, and I
will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. 30 John’s
baptism—was it from heaven, or of human origin? Tell me!”
31 They discussed it among themselves and said, “If we say, ‘From
heaven,’ he will ask, ‘Then why didn’t you believe him?’ 32 But
if we say, ‘Of human origin’ …” (They feared the people, for everyone held that
John really was a prophet.)
33 So they answered Jesus, “We don’t know.”
Jesus said, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am
doing these things.”
1 Jesus then
began to speak to them in parables: “A man planted a vineyard. He put
a wall around it, dug a pit for the winepress and built a watchtower. Then he
rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place. 2 At
harvest time he sent a servant to the tenants to collect from them some of the
fruit of the vineyard. 3 But they seized him, beat him and
sent him away empty-handed. 4 Then he sent another servant
to them; they struck this man on the head and treated him shamefully. 5 He
sent still another, and that one they killed. He sent many others; some of them
they beat, others they killed.
6 “He had one left to send, a son, whom he loved. He sent him last
of all, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’
7 “But the tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come,
let’s kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ 8 So
they took him and killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard.
9 “What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and
kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others. 10 Haven’t
you read this passage of Scripture:
“‘The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
11 the Lord has done this,
and it is marvelous in our eyes’?”
12 Then the chief priests, the teachers of the law
and the elders looked for a way to arrest him because they knew he had spoken
the parable against them. But they were afraid of the crowd; so they left
him and went away.
Who came up to Jesus in the temple courts
(verse 27)?
What did they ask Jesus (verse 28)?
In your opinion, why did Jesus ask them
for the origin of John’s baptism (verses 29 and 30)?
Why could they not answer “from heaven”
(verse 31)?
Why could they not answer “of human
origin” (verse 32)?
How did they answer (verse 33)?
What did the man do with the vineyard
that he planted and protected (verse 1)?
Who did the man send to collect some of
the fruit of the vineyard (verse 2)?
What happened to that person (verse 3)?
How were the other people sent to the
vineyard treated (verses 4 and 5)?
How did the man think they would respond
to his son (verse 6)?
Why was the son killed (verses 7 and 8)?
“What will the owner of the vineyard do” (verse 9)?
What happens to “the stone the
builders rejected” (verse10)?
What did “the teachers of the law and
elders” know (verse 12)?
In your opinion, what is the basic
message of this passage?
In your opinion, how are the people of Judah
and Jerusalem in Jeremiah 7:11b-20 and the chief priests and elders of Mark 11:27-12:12
similar?
Acts
3:11-15 –
New International Version (NIV)
11 While the man held on to Peter and John, all
the people were astonished and came running to them in the place called
Solomon’s Colonnade. 12 When Peter saw this, he said
to them: “Fellow Israelites, why does this surprise you? Why do you stare at us
as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk? 13 The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God
of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus. You handed him
over to be killed, and you disowned him before Pilate, though he had
decided to let him go. 14 You
disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be
released to you. 15 You killed the
author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of
this.
Where were Peter and John when “the people were astonished and
came running to them” (verse 11)?
In your opinion, why did Peter ask “why do you
stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk” (verse
12)?
Who “has glorified his servant Jesus”
(verse
13)?
Who
“handed him over to be killed” (verse 13)?
Who
had the astonished people verse 11 disowned (verse 14)?
What
did they do to “the author of life” (verse 15)?
What
had God done for “the author of life” (verse 15)?
What
had Peter and John done (verse 15)?
In
your opinion, what is the basic message of this passage?
In your opinion, how does the rejection of God by the people
of Judah and Jerusalem in Jeremiah 7:11b-20 compare to the rejection of God by
the people in the temple in Acts 3:11-15?
In your opinion, how is the question that Jesus asks in Mark
11:27-12:12 “what then will the owner of the vineyard do” and His answer
to that question “he will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard
to others” relevant to Peter’s words in Acts 3:11-15?
Romans 5:1-8 – New International Version (NIV)
1 Therefore,
since we have been justified through faith, we have
peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through
whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now
stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not
only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that
suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance,
character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not
put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still
powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely
will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might
possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love
for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
How do “we have peace with God through
our Lord Jesus Christ” (verse 1)?
What do “we boast in the hope” of (verse 2)?
In your opinion, how can we “also glory in our
sufferings” (verses 3 and 4)?
What “has been poured out into our hearts through
the Holy Spirit” (verse 5)?
When did Christ die “for the ungodly” (verse 6)?
Who might “someone . . . possibly dare to die” for
(verse 7)?
How did God demonstrate “his own love for us” (verse
8)?
In your opinion, what is the basic message of this
passage?
In your opinion, what
is the difference between the people of Judah and Jerusalem in Jeremiah
7:11b-20 who are arousing God’s anger and the people that Paul is speaking to
in Romans 5:1-8 who are boasting “in the hope of the glory of God”?
In your opinion, why is being willing to
answer “John’s baptism-was it from heaven or of human origin” in Mark
11:22-12:12 important to the justification through faith that Paul discusses in
Romans 5:1-8? What does an
unwillingness to answer this question demonstrate?
In your opinion, how do
you think the surprise of the people in Acts 3:11-15 about a lame man being
given the ability to walk would compare with their surprise if they understood
that Jesus, who they handed over to be killed and then disowned, was declared by
Paul in Romans 5:1-8 to have loved them enough to die for them? What does it take to accept that love?
In your
opinion, what do these passages from Jeremiah, Mark, Acts and Romans teach us
about how we, who have sinned, can respond to God?
In your
opinion, how can we move from being people who are “harming themselves”
to being people who “have peace with God”?
(sprucewhispers.blogspot.com)
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