Bible Study - MATTHEW KING AND KINGDOM: Intervention
Sermon-Based Bible Study – June 19, 2022
- What is something God has done for you that you are thankful for? What is something you are celebrating? How have you experienced God’s love and faithfulness this week?
- Where are you experiencing stress, anxiety or discouragement? How would you like to see God move in your life or in the life of someone close to you?
- What did you hear in this week’s sermon that was new or particularly interesting? Did anything stand out to you as puzzling or troubling?
- Read Matthew 7:1-5. Have you ever had a speck of sawdust in your eye? Did someone have to point it out to you? If you’ve ever had a speck of sawdust in your eye, what was your highest priority? Why do you think Jesus chose a metaphor using the eye instead of something less sensitive like your mouth or chin? (“Don’t try to wipe the spot mustard off the corner of your neighbor’s mouth until you have first washed off the chocolate sauce covering your entire chin”)
- Do you think Jesus is saying that if we don’t judge others God won’t judge us? Do you think people who quote Jesus as saying - “judge not lest ye be judged,” are in essence judging/condemning someone else for making a judgment? Do you think people who quote Jesus in this way think that everything Jesus said is authoritative? Do you?
- Read Matthew 7:15-16; and 18:15. Chris argued that Jesus was not teaching that we should never judge, but that our motive for judging/evaluating others should be restoration not condemnation. Is it easier for you to have your heart in the right place when you are judging/evaluating people who are close to you, or people who are essentially strangers? Why? How is what Jesus is teaching here like an intervention?
- Read Galatians 6:1 and James 5:19. Are these passages suggesting that you should not judge/evaluate at all? In what way to do these passages help to illuminate what Jesus was teaching when it comes to judging others? How do they speak to the heart behind the judgment/evaluation? What do you think Chris meant by saying we judge more in wrong ways than we do in right ways because when we judge people it’s more about us than it is about them?
- Read Matthew 7:6-12. How do you see this passage connected to, and expanding/clarifying Jesus’s teaching on judging others? How do you feel when someone else pushes their “pearls of wisdom” on you, when they think you need correction? How might talking to God (asking, seeking and knocking) help you avoid pushing “pearls of wisdom” on another?
- Before you judge/evaluate others, what questions does Matthew 7:12 suggest you might ask yourself? Are you willing to judged/evaluated by other believers that you trust? How might that be helpful?
- What is a simple, next step you could take in obedience to what the Spirit is saying to you through this time in the Word? Who would benefit, or be interested in hearing about what you’ve learned in this study?