Thursday Bible Study

  [Grace and Peace] EPHESIANS_   [Activity] Explore the logical flow of Ephesians 6:10-24…   [Read Ephesians 6:10-17]   In verse 10, what strength does Paul tell us we have for this ‘battle’?     What kind of warfare are we engaged in (verses 11-12)?     [Activity] To win battles, God has provided a set of armour for us (verses 13-17). Identify the six pieces of armour and a specific way that we might use each item today…   In what way is the ‘sword of the Spirit’, which is the word of God, an offensive weapon in contrast to the other defensive weapons?     Which piece of the armour is difficult for you to utilize and why?     How can you learn to actively “take up” that weapon?     [Read Ephesians 6:18-20]   The final weapon (if we can class it as one) is prayer. How does prayer help us to fight spiritual battles?   Look at verse 18 again. How is...

  [Grace and Peace] EPHESIANS_   [Activity] Spend some time exploring the logical flow of Ephesians 5:21-6:9…   [Read Ephesians 5:21]   Paul addresses different relationship types (marriage, family, co-workers) when he writes to the Ephesians. Before he gets specific in his instructions, he gives a general one. What attitude are we supposed to have towards others?     What should submission look like in daily life?     [Read Ephesians 5:22-33]   In verses 22-24, why does Paul tell wives to submit to their husbands?     How does remembering that a wife is really submitting to the Lord affect submission to a husband?     In verses 25-33, how are husbands, in turn, to treat their wives?     How does comparing a husband’s love for his wife to how the Messiah loves the church remove any danger of the husband abusing the wife’s submission?       What ...

  [Grace and Peace] EPHESIANS_   [Activity] Spend some time exploring the logical flow of Ephesians 5:3-20…   [Read Ephesians 5:3-10]     In verses 3-4 & 7, what is Paul’s remedy for immorality?     Paul has a real way of getting to the heart of an issue. “Don’t be fooled” he says, “There are a lot of empty words out there…words that sound big and important… which echo and resonate with our culture, but they have nothing inside them, no life, no truth.”     In contrast to the culture of Paul’s day, in verses 8-10, how are we to behave?     [Read Ephesians 5:11-20]     In verse 11, what should our attitude be towards “the works of darkness”?     What are some “works of darkness” that we encounter on a regular basis?     In verses 12-14, how are we told that we can expose those works of darkness to the light or truth?   What commands, doe...

  [Grace and Peace] EPHESIANS_   [Activity] Spend some time exploring the logical flow of Ephesians 4:17-5:2…   [Read Ephesians 4:17-24]   In verses 17-18, how does Paul describe the pagan mind and heart?     What behaviour resulted from that thinking (verse 19)?     How is this kind of thinking similar (or different) to our culture today?     In verses 20-24, in contrast, what teaching did the believers receive?     How can we be “renewed in the spirit of our mind” (verse 23)?     [Read Ephesians 4:25-5:2]   What are the sins that Paul says we are to ‘put off’?     What new behaviours are we to ‘put on’ instead? What reasons does Paul give for each of these?     How wide-spread and evident are these “new behaviours” in our culture today? Why do you think that is?     In verse 30, what’s the main reason to change our t...

  [Grace and Peace] EPHESIANS_   [Activity] Spend some time exploring the logical flow of Ephesians 4:1-16…   Growing up, I was sometimes fortunate enough to receive a new computer console for either my birthday or Christmas… I can remember being so excited to actually unbox and play on this new console, that I didn’t bother to carefully read the set-up instructions before I started ripping all the packaging apart. It didn’t take long to realise I didn’t know what I was doing and this wasn’t going to be as quick or simple as I first thought and inevitably, I would still have to read the instruction manual… I was so keen to operate the computer first and then (maybe) read the instructions later.   [Read Ephesians 4:1-6]   In the second half of this letter, Paul takes his readers back to the very practical and fundamental instructions for living the Christian life. In verse 2, what does Paul mean by the phrase “ bear with one another in love” an...

  [Grace and Peace] EPHESIANS_   [Activity] Spend some time exploring the logical flow of Ephesians 3:1-13…   [Read Ephesians 3:1-13]   In the first section of this chapter, how does Paul describe God’s secret plan?   In verses 2-5 how did God reveal this plan?   What three privileges did the Gentiles attain (together with the Jews) within this plan?       Imagine hearing the news that a family in your street has come into a big inheritance… and then being told that you’re going to become members of that family and instant inheritors of the same wealth and privileges as them! That’s the situation that Christian Gentiles now find themselves in…   In verse 7, how did God accomplish this plan?     What does this plan of God’s (the plan itself, the fact that God kept it hidden and then revealed it, the way God accomplished it) reveal about the character of God?   In verses 8-9, what t...

  [Grace and Peace] EPHESIANS_   [Activity] Spend some time exploring the logical flow of Ephesians 2:11-22…   When have you tried (or wanted to) join a new group… an new circle of friends or a new job or club. Describe your experience…   [Read Ephesians 2:11-16]   Spiritually, Paul tells us that we become part of a new group too. In verses 11-13, how does Paul describe the Gentiles before they became part of this new group?   The word that Paul uses, in verse 12, to describe them as having no god is the word we get our modern word ‘atheists’. This is ironic because this is the same word that Gentiles used to refer to Jews (and then later Christians) because they refused to acknowledge the Gentile’s pantheon of gods and goddesses. What did Jesus do specifically for the Gentiles on the one hand (verses 12-14) and for the Jewish people on the other (verses 14-15)?   How might the original audience of this letter reacted to thes...