Thursday Bible Study

  {sermon on the mount}   FAITHFULNESS IN MARRIAGE & SPEECH_   Matthew 5:1-37 & 19: 3-9     It is said that there is no unhappiness so painful as that of an unhappy marriage. And there is almost no tragedy as great as when a relationship God meant for love and fulfillment degenerates into a non-relationship of bitterness and despair.     [Group discussion starter] You have been asked to write an article for a Christian Magazine, entitled “The Top Ten Reasons Why Marriages Fail”. What reasons will you give for the breakup of marriages?     Divorce is a controversial and complex subject that touches people’s emotions at a deep level. Yet inspite of the painfulness of the subject, Jesus addresses this when he calls us to faithfulness in marriage and honesty in speech...     [Read Matthew 5: 31-37 and 19: 3-9]     How do Jesus’ statements contrast with the questions he was asked?     Rabbi Shammai taught th...

  {sermon on the mount}   WHAT’S WRONG WITH ‘PRIVATE SINS ’?_   Matthew 5:21-30     Anger, rudeness and vengeance can often seem/feel justified when we have been antagonised . Private thoughts of lust may seem/fee l harmless .   Jesus, however, calls these attitudes “murder” and “ adultery”...     [Group discussion starter] What advice would you give to someone who is struggling to get along with an irritating individual?     The scribes and Pharisees calculated that the Law contained 248 commandments and 365 prohibitions. But they were better at maths than obedi ence!   So they tried to make the Law’s demands less demanding and the Law’s permissions more permissive .   Throughout the ‘Sermon on the Mount ’, Jesus seeks to reverse this tendency.   He came to deepen , not destroy the Law’s demands .   In this passage he explains the true meaning of the sixth and seventh commandments...     [Read Matthew...