Welcome to our Bible Ponder for the 29th of July.

This evening we are looking at the very end of the Old Testament and thinking about expectations.

Our questions are:

1. Does Jesus ever frustrate you? What was that like?

2. If the Jews of Jesus’ day were expecting a military king, what do you think the modern Western expectation of Jesus is?  Is it any closer to who Jesus really is?

3. How can we get closer to knowing who Jesus really is?

This evening's Bible Ponder is the whole chapter of Exodus 5.

It's the famous story of the bricks without straw.

Our questions for this evening are:

1. Have you ever been in a situation when doing what you thought was right didn’t work out very well?  Were you still confident that you had done the right thing?

2. Are there any situations in our world today where you think doing the right thing could end up not ‘going well’?

3. How can we know we’re doing the right thing when you can’t judge the decision on the outcome?

Good evening!

Welcome to our Bible Ponder.  We're looking at a famous saying of Jesus and the lead-up to it.

Our questions for the text are:

1. What Kingdom are we expecting Jesus to build and where are we hoping our place will be?

2. What are the Kingdoms in our lives where we expect special treatment? (are we high up in a club, friend group, or church?)

3. How can you be both a servant, and a leader?  The disciples all became de facto leaders of the early church. How do we balance these things?

Hello!

Our Bible Ponder for this evening is looking at Mark 11:12-25 and the two stories about Jesus in Jerusalem.

The questions for tonight are:

1. Have you ever tried this out (praying and believing it will happen)?

What happened?  What did you take away from the experience?

2. If Jesus doesn’t mean literally ‘If you believe 100% then God is obligated to do it’ as if it’s a petition that has enough signatures to be debated in Parliament, then what does he mean?

3. Why doesn’t Jesus just pray that the Temple Courts would be cleared of the money changers?

Good Evening!

Our Bible Ponder for today looks at Hebrews 9 and a bit of a deep-dive into some Jewish History.

My questions are:

1. What are the purposes of Church buildings?

2. If Jesus’ sacrifice was ‘once for all’ and therefore doesn’t need to happen over and over, why do we, as Christians, do things over and over?

3. What would the church look like if this became permanent and we just couldn’t ever have church buildings again?

In our Bible Ponder for this week we are looking at Genesis 22 and 'Abraham's Test'.

Our questions are:

1. What do we make of the Father figures in the Bible? Are there any in the Bible that come to mind who we can point to as good models of Fatherhood? Do we actually need good father figures in the Bible?

2. The test Abraham faces involves choosing his ultimate loyalty; family and legacy or allegiance to the God he worships. How do we balance these same sorts of tests in our lives?

3. What do we make of God in this story? ‘Father’ is one of the more common monikers for God we use. What does it mean to call God ‘Father’? What does that mean for people for whom God as Father is not a welcome idea?

This evening we look at Luke 17:11-19 and the story of the 10 Lepers.

Welcome to our Bible Ponder for this week.

We are taking a look at Acts 15 in light of the recents and ongoing protests against racial injustice and police brutality all over the world. My questions for us are these:

1. Can you name a time in your life where you’ve seen ‘one rule for me, one rule for them’ play out?

2. What are some of the ways we can interrogate ourselves to see the privilege we have over others?

3. As people whose corner of the world is incredibly homogenous how can we keep ourselves getting complacent and backing into comfort when it comes to change in the world on issues of race?

In the lead up to Pentecost we are all joining in the global movement 'Thy Kingdom Come' and what better way to do that than to look at the Lord's Prayer for our Bible Ponder.

My questions for us to ponder are there:

1. What does it mean for God’s Kingdom to come ‘on earth as it is in heaven’?

2. Do we do a good job of forgiving others as we would like to be forgiven? Really? Why or why not?

3. What do we expect to get out of prayer?

This evening we read Luke 18:18-30, the story of the Rich 'Young' Ruler and look into some questions that it brings up for us.

Those questions are:

1. Does this mean that we all should sell everything and give it to the poor?

2. Why do we not assume that Jesus means us as well as the “Ruler”? Are we just trying to talk ourselves out of having to take this story seriously?

3. How can we tell when a passage in the Bible applies to us or just to the characters in the story?