This week: Hope
- What were the key points of the message for you?
- What was the "one thing" you took away?
- What surprised you?
- What bothered you? Why?
Read
- Hebrews 11:1-2
- Thoughts?
- John 11:1-44
- Thoughts?
- 1 Corinthians 11:12-22
- Thoughts?
Discuss
- Explaining it in its simplest form, what would you say followers of Jesus have as the roots of thir belief system, and how does it affect reality?
- What is/was already part of your thinking on this subject?
- What did I learn that was new?
- About God?
- About yourself?
- About others?
- What changes of thought are necessary in light of what you learned?
- What changes of action are needed?
- How would life be different if you/we applied this teaching fully?
- What are the hindrances, and what do we do about those?.
Hope in the Greek is "elpis" a word closer in meaning to certainty than to something yet to be determined. Growing up in the midwest (Missouri) winters were so cold that the ice on our pond would freeze so solid that our cows were unable to break through it to get a drink. So every morning we would chop a hole in the ice for them. If the cows could not break through it was thick enough for us to stand on. My brother and I used to vie for the privilege of chopping the ice because it seemed like a miracle to be able to stand on the ice in spots where we could swim in the hot summertime. Mom and Dad used to warn us, though, to not run out on the ice until we had tested it at the edges to be sure it was thick enough. It was a great illustration of faith and hope to us. If the ice was strong enough then we could "walk on water." By falling through several times at the edge even when we thought it was thick enough, we learned that strong faith in thin ice was not as safe as weak faith in thick ice. Faith and hope are only as good as what we trust in. It is the object of our faith, not the faith itself that was most important. Each tentative step onto that thick ice strengthened our faith in it. If we broke through not even our faith was enough to hold us up. Hope is what we had when we would come home after school and skate on the ice we had tested in the morning. We were certain it would hold us up.
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