We continue this week with the last of the Gospel of Matthew's five teaching sections that started in chapter 23, Jesus' words about God's coming judgement and the end of the age.
- How do you feel about this Biblical concept of God’s judgement? Another way of understanding it is as ‘God’s putting the world right.’ Does this change your feelings about ‘judgement’? Read Psalm 96 which provides an understanding of God's judgement as a hopeful promise.
- Read Matthew 24:32-44. Jesus uses the story of Noah and the Flood as a way to understand God’s promised judgement of the world. What might this say about God’s purpose behind this future judgement?
- Read Matthew 24:45-51 and 25:1-13. These are two parables that serve as illustrations of what it means to be awake and ready for God’s judgement. What do they say to you about what it means to be ready?
- Do any of the words and phrases in these two parables sound familiar to you? Go back and look at the following passages from the Sermon on the Mount: for the parable of faithful and unfaithful slave read Matthew 7:24-27; for the parable of the bridesmaids (or virgins) and their lamps read Matthew 7:21-23 and 5:14-16. What do these parallels suggest about what it means to be ready?
No comments:
Post a Comment