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- How did the weather in the last few weeks effect you, your thinking and your family?
- What might any negative affects that the weather had on you have to do with your lack of comfort with simplicity and stillness and a loss of control?
Read
- John 5:1-18
- Thoughts?
Leader note: As stated in the message, this passage is highly problematic if Jesus was saying any future sins will create a scenario for this man where 38 years of paralysis would be topped by something more terrible. It suggests sin causes physical maladies, a common motif in all religions, rejected by Jesus later in the first verses of John 9. It's also terrible for psychological health and sound doctrine, because it makes anxiety the driver for better decisions, not Love and Life. Be sure to give this part of the discussion the time it needs, as you may find some in your group not trying to be a student of the Master of Life, but dodgers of consequences, depending on their view of God. You may also find that members of your group believe the bad, even terrible, things that have occurred to them as divine wrath and judgment for some other act or thought. This is a different religion and is one for Christ to save them from for sure!
- Why would Jesus ask this man if he wanted to be made well? How does it affect your answer to consider the man may have been a stand-in for all of Israel (the people of God)?
- What is the significance for us, John's reader, all these years later, to be told the story of a paralyzed Jew in the temple being given the ability to not only walk, but to do so on the day of rest, with his bed under his arm?
Discuss
- What does rest mean to you?
- How important is control over your circumstances, surroundings, relationships, destiny, to you?
- How might this be an issue God wants to help you with, whether you consider yourself a person of faith or a person who is not interested in faith?
Read
- Jeremiah 17:19-27
- Thoughts?
- Jesus told the paralyzed man to sin no more, after healing him on the sabbath, in the gate and ordering him to "take up his bed" (carry his load). How can we interpret what Jesus meant by "sin" if, according to a plain reading of the Bible he also had, he was the one acting in violation of the scriptures?
Leader note: This question strikes at the heart of how we understand God's law. Do we understand it simply as rules to be read and followed and then be rewarded for, or do we come to understand the ultimate emptiness of that (even if initially it's necessary) and instead see the laws as road signs for the awakening mind to follow toward Life. You may want to read Colossians 2:16-17 to discuss the idea further.
Discuss
- What's the difference between a righteous sinner and an unrighteous sinner?
- What do Christ's invitation sound like to each?
- Why would a righteous sinner begin to believe that they were somehow closer to the heart of God than an unrighteous sinner?
- Why would an unrighteous sinner believe they were better for doing their own thing?
- If love, wisdom, compassion and awakened minds come to rest in the center, away from the extremes of religion and anti-religion, how might this group be more a centering place, where its members can mature as awakened students?
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