Key Concepts: Humility, Strength, God's Name

Questions to Consider:

1.  How did God get Moses' attention?  How does He get people's attention today?
2.  How can we approach a holy God?
3.  Moses thought he was not competent for the job.  But what was he forgetting?
4.  How can we know God?

Key Concepts: Patience and God's Faithfulness

Questions to Consider:

1. Why did Moses want to be part of the Israelites (a slave people) rather than enjoying the benefits of being part of Pharaoh's household?
2. How did the Israelites react when Moses tried to help them?
3. What happened to Moses in the land of Midian?

Key Concepts: Oppression, God's Power, and God's Promises
Questions to consider:

1. How does the book of Exodus connect to the book of Genesis?
2. How did Pharaoh think he was being shrewd in dealing with the Israelites?
3. How did God use ordinary people to carry out His plans?

In their suffering, God's people are brought back to prayer & repentance.  Still, there is hope in the Lord.

Questions to consider:

1. Why is confession and repentance an important part of the grieving process
2. Why do you think the book of Lamentations ends as it does?
3. The books of Isaiah and Jeremiah both address the same events as do es Lamentations. What passages of comfort from those two books come to mind as you read Lamentations?

Suffering is inescapable in this world.  But when suffering is endured in faith, we are drawn closer to God.  We can plant those seeds of disappointment in the soil of God's promises, and share His faithfulness compassionately with those around us.

Questions to consider:

1. What other Biblical characters experienced the kind of suffering Jeremiah describes?
2. What can we learn from this chapter, especially the middle verses (19-38), about how to handle difficult times?
3. Define the following:  lovingkindness, compassion, faithfulness.

Questions to consider while listening:

• What point does the prophet repeatedly make about the reason for Jerusalem's suffering?
• In the description of Jerusalem's suffering, what jumps out at you the most?
• There is a proverb which says the wheels of God's justice may grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine.  How might you apply that to our world today?
• Read Psalm 103:10-14.  What comfort do you find there?

Lamentations teaches us to face our pain.  It gives us permission to cry out to God and one another.  It points us to Jesus, who bears all our grief in compassion, love, and faithfulness.  In Lamentations we learn to grieve, and in our suffering look with hope to Jesus.

1. What reasons are there for studying a book like Lamentations?
2. Who is "Lady Zion"?  What does she want the LORD to do?
3. What parallels do you see between Lady Zion's suffering and what Jesus suffered as the bearer of our sins?
4. Give some examples from the Bible of times God allows someone's life to fall apart to them an important lesson.

Mark records the first Easter for us,  summing up the true meaning:  In Jesus, we have  forgiveness of all sins.  The proof of our hope is in His resurrection.
Questions to consider:

• Why did the women go to the tomb that morning?
• Why is there no longer a reason to be afraid?
• How does Jesus rising from the dead prove that He will keep His promises?
• What is the Church's task today?

Questions to consider while you listen:

1. What were the people around Jesus doing as he was dying for them?
2. Why did God the Father forsake his Son, Jesus?
3. What did the curtain at the temple symbolize?  What did its tearing symbolize?
4. What led the centurion to his conclusion that Jesus was the Son of God?

Peter seeks self-preservation, but Jesus loves us perfectly, and is willing to suffer all for the sake of our salvation.  The guilty Barabbas goes free.  The innocent Jesus is condemned to death.

Questions to reflect upon:

• Why did Peter deny knowing Jesus?  
• When have we, by our words or by our actions, denied knowing him?
• How is Barabbas' freedom and Jesus' condemnation an illustration of God's plan for our salvation?