Philippians 3

A few questions to consider for Thursday morning in Philippians chapter 3:

1. Would you be more nervous standing next to a 3rd grader or next to the President of the United States?
2. After you have helped serve meals to the homeless, does it make you more or less inclined to do so again?
3. Where in the gospels does Jesus refer to a set of people as dogs?
4. What things do you consider as positives, as "gains," but which are really negative when compared to the Lord?
5. Did St. Thomas Aquinas ever get to this point, where he forgot about all his good work behind him and stretched forward to the prize?
6. Is it impossible to live the life of a great saint?

Let's dig into chapter 3 with a few of these questions.

More questions from Philippians Ch. 2

We will dig deeper into the meaning of Phil. 2:5-11, using a few more questions:

1. Do you have to strive and build up an argument to establish that you are in fact a human being?
2. What group of humans are subject to this predicament, that other humans must strive and build up an argument to establish that the individuals in that subgroup are in fact human beings, and that still other humans do not accept this argument?
3. Are there beings that are fully human and other beings only a fraction human?
4. Do we claim that, like the Greeks claimed about their gods, that God the Father is a little bit larger or greater than God the Son?
5. Does humility reside in the strong chains of a humbled slave, or does it exist elsewhere?
6. Is there any humility in the Eucharist?

Let's begin with these questions on Thursday morning, and thereby gaze deeply into the perfect law of freedom.

Questions

A few more questions to finish up ch. 26 of Matthew:

1. How does Jesus celebrate this new action, the Eucharist? With joy or with fear?
   
2. Why does Jesus initiate the new covenant from within the Passover celebration of the old covenant?
   
3. Why should the gospel include the accounts of the Twelve abandoning the Messiah in this time of suffering?
   
4. How is Peter's denial different from the actions of Judas?
   
5. Why did Jesus rebuke Peter for having a sword?

Sea of Galilee and chapter 9

We have still not finished tackling some of the chapter 8 questions concerning the Sea of Galilee.

8. The scribe and the disciple in vv. 19 - 22 got different lessons from the Messiah -- different but similar, too. How were they similar? How was Jesus using his word like a scalpel to differentiate each individual from other things?
9. Is the Sea of Galilee dangerous? How does it figure into the story of the men crossing in the boat and into the story of the two demon possessed men?
10. How does this sea figure into Jesus' teaching? Does it relate to the previous stories of healing and freedom from possession?

This is OK, because we have some Sea of Galilee information in chapter 9, which we will also discuss tomorrow. Here are some questions to use for reading ahead.

1. In verse 1, we see that Jesus embarked in ship again and came to his own city. How long was He over in the Gadarene side of the Sea of Galilee, five minutes or so?
2. How is the story of the paralytic a model for prayer for us who are not paralytics?
3. Did Jesus challenge the paralytic to get up and follow as a disciple?
4. At the banquet with the IRS men, the Pharisees make an inquiry with the disciples. Why didn't they inquire with Jesus?
5. How is Matthew the tax man connected to the paralytic?
6. Does Barack Obama do his own mending of worn out clothes? How many household chores does he handle each day?
7. What is the relation between the idea of "new wine" and the Bridegroom Jesus?
8. Consider the centurion in chapter 8 and the ruler in chapter 9 -- two very different men, yet there are some similarities in their stories. What similarities can you see?
9. How is the woman cured of hemorrhage connected to the ruler's daughter whom Jesus raises back to life?

There is a lot to learn, and it will be good to gaze carefully into this section of God's message tomorrow morning. Be ready and expect the unexpected.

More to think about

We will finish our stroll through Matthew 3 tomorrow, with some of the following questions, and then dip forward into the fourth chapter.

1. What does it mean to bear a winnowing fan by the threshing floor?
2. What does it mean to be baptized with the Holy Spirit?
3. What does it mean to baptized with fire?
4. What does Jesus' statement in v. 15 tell you about his relationship to John the Baptist and his relationship to the Torah?
5. How does John's reluctance to baptize compare to Peter's reluctance to have his feet washed?
6. Should the people have believed after hearing God's voice from on high? Why didn't they?
7. In the temptation tests of chapter 4, the enemy keeps saying, "If you are the Son of God..." and Jesus dumps the enemy's test by calling on actions
   1. obedient life by God's word
   2. obediently avoiding show and displays of power
   Was Jesus the only person who could fulfill those actions?
8. Who was intended by God to become ruler over the nations? Why was this a test for Jesus?

There is a fair start for tomorrow. We are heading deeper into God's message, the gospel of Matthew.

Questions for this Thursday

We will go into a few questions from last week, viz.

1. How is the intention of the magi, to worship the newborn king (verses 2, 11), different from Herod's similarly stated intention?
2. In v. 13, Herod sets out a plan to destroy the innocent children near Bethlehem, but re-read Rev. 9:1-11, where another king has the name of Destroyer. How did people suffer when that destroyer in Revelation went to work? Was its intention similar to Herod's?

...because we have hardly talked about Herod yet.

Also, we will probably dip into chapter 3 this week, for which a few extra questions might be reasonable:

1. John the Baptist had a diet of locusts and honey. It is a curious menus and a curious symbolism in that the Bible uses honey and locusts in very different ways. What does honey signify in the scriptures, usually? What do locusts usually signify in the scriptures?
2. What does John the Baptist look for in his flock of Israelites?
3. When was the last time God raised up a human being from a stone?
4. What does it mean to the people flocking to the Jordan that the axe is laid to the root of the tree?
5. What does it mean to bear a winnowing fan by the threshing floor?
6. What does it mean to be baptized with the Holy Spirit?
7. What does it mean to baptized with fire?
8. What does Jesus' statement in v. 15 tell you about his relationship to John the Baptist and his relationship to the Torah?

As you can see, there are some big ideas in this part of Matthew's gospel, and this is just a short list, but we will start here on Thursday morning!

We conclude Amos.

In Amos' 9th chapter, we still have a few questions to settle, viz.

1. From last time: Which is the greater trouble, earthquake or famine of God's word?
2. The LORD denied the promised land an entire generation of Israelites after they exited Egypt. How does Israel's murmuring in Amos 9:10 compare to their attitude in Exodus?
3. In v. 11, we see the word "breaches" in a wall. What would be the breaches in the Church?
4. Is the nation of Israel doomed?
5. How is the prophecy of Amos applicable to our present situation?

Let's sort these out and dive into the perfect Law of freedom this morning.

One question

This chapter has a slough of familiar things: locusts, bargaining, fire. We can all think back into the Old Testament and forward into the New Testament to recall famous instances of locusts, bargaining with God and fire.

But there is one study question that is all we need to think about, because it is God's question to Amos.

1. "What do you see, Amos?" And we can ask ourselves the same thing, what is the plumb line that God is setting up in the midst of His people?

That should occupy us for at least an hour on Thursday morning!

Study questions for Amos, chapter 6

There are several streams of meaning in this part of the message of Amos. Here are some questions to help you dip into it.

1. What is the evil day that Israel would like to postpone? What is it that they fear?
2. In chapter 3, Amos wrote some questions of the type we refer to as "Is the pope Catholic?" Here in chapter 6, he uses the opposite type of rhetorical question, an oxymoron, e.g., "Can a horse run across a cliff?" What contradiction in terms does Amos see in Israel?
3. Count the number of references to housing of various types. What kind of housing would a shepherd like Amos have?
4. Count the number of references to luxury furnishings and provisions. What kind of provision would a shepherd like Amos have?
5. Why would God use a shepherd -- as opposed to a Levite, for example -- to prophesy to these people?
6. What is the word you would use to identify the sin of Israel that God condemns in this prophecy?
7. What would God's prescription be for countering that sin?

Let's be ready to gaze into this message and let the Holy Ghost work it down into our bones where it will do some good.

More questions -- but can you answer them?

We study Nahum's prophecy, the third chapter. Here are some questions to consider: The Lord considers Nineveh a bloody city. Is there any city on Earth today that you consider to be a bloody city? Is it like Nineveh? How can a nation like Assyria enslave another nation by prostitution? What kind of prostitution would that be? Same question, regarding witchcraft: What kind of witchcraft can enslave a nation and end with bloody subjugation? The prophetic word compares the ruin of Nineveh to what action in verses 5 and 6? Does the Lord expect Nineveh to get a dose of its own medicine, regarding its earlier conquest of No-ammon a.k.a. Thebes on the the Nile? How does the last verse, 3:19, relate to the book of Tobit?

Inscription of Assyrian king Sargon II, describing a conquest after which he flayed the skin of the conquered governor, Assur-Lei.

We will take a walk through these questions, and see whether the perfect law of freedom, God's word, can speak clearly in this our day and help us become doers of the Word.

Here is a set of chapter 2 questions for finding God's wisdom in the prophecy of Nahum: How important is the vision of Israel as the vineyard? Who is the destroyer or hammer mentioned in v. 2? What was the military technology that this advancing army uses? Who could have destroyed Nineveh in Jonah's day? Is the lion a symbol of Assyria?

QUESTION one can ask in each chapter in Nahum: How is it that Nahum saw this message in a vision? What did Nahum see?

Let's start with these questions on Thursday morning.

Hebrews 12 questions

We will study a bit of chapter 11 and then dip into chapter 12 this morning. Here are a few questions.

1. From chapter 11, what kind of miracle did the writer keep mentioning in the lives of so many of the old testament saints? There was one kind that was mentioned several times.
2. The cloud of witnesses: does anything about it change with the passage of years?
3. Name the top two witnesses in the cloud of witnesses, in your opinion. Why did you focus on those two?
4. How does the cloud of witnesses affect our conduct at prayer?
5. How does the cloud of witnesses affect our actions as we go about our day?
6. At Sunday Mass, how do our prayers and actions reflect the presence of the cloud of witnesses?
7. If someone works one of the ordinary works of mercy, even evangelization by hospitalization, does that action exist in isolation, unconnected with anyone else?

WHAT!? Those questions only cover verse 1! We might not get very far into chapter 12 this morning. :)

One question

There are a lot of lessons in Hebrews 11, but for tomorrow morning, only one question to start things off:

1. Look at all the heroes of faith in this chapter:
   1. Abel
   2. Enoch
   3. Noah
   4. Abraham
   5. Isaac
   6. Jacob
   7. Sarah
   8. Joseph
   9. the parents of Moses
   10. Moses himself
   11. Joshua at the walls of Jericho
   12. Rahab the prostitute
   13. Gideon
   14. Barak
   15. Samson
   16. Jephthah
   17. David
   18. Samuel
   19. the prophets
   There is something special about Abel. There's something about his life that cannot be said of any of the others. Also, the words in this chapter attached to Abel have a subtle difference compared to the words used with all the other heroes. Can you spot the differences?

James 5 questions, true or false

Here are a medium difficulty questions to help you wade through the advanced concepts of James 5.

1. TRUE or FALSE: "James gives rich folks an easy ride, no problems."
2. TRUE or FALSE: "Sharp business practices are encouraged by James, especially saving money on wages."
3. TRUE or FALSE: "Jesus will overlook unfairness and will say, Tut, tut! to rapacious dealing when Judgement Day appears."
4. TRUE or FALSE: "Sins that cry out to God are no great matter, and the following passages of sacred scripture
   1. Genesis 4:10
      
   2. Genesis 18:20
      
   3. Genesis 19:13
      
   4. Exodus 3:7
      
   5. Exodus 20:22
      
   6. Deuteronomy 24:15
   7. Revelation 6:10
   can be safely ignored."
   
5. TRUE or FALSE: "Praying for a person in trouble is useless and James does not recommend this."

After we get the TRUE/FALSE answers sorted out on Thursday morning, we will discuss why the answers sort out the way they have.

Some questions in chapter 2

Berlin airlift, 1948

We are gazing into the perfect law of freedom, God's Word. Here are some questions to get you thinking more about this part of James' letter.

1. Can one truly be a doer of the Word if one plays favorites?
2. James talks about words and actions. Other people can be deceived by words, but can God be deceived?
3. James writes in v. 26 about body, spirit, faith and works, viz.

   For just as a body without a spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.

   Do you notice anything unusual in this double comparison?

We will dig into God's Word early this Thursday morning, starting with these questions, but let's also be open to God's direction elsewhere if necessary.

Berlin wall is down, 1989

Questions for this morning

We will finish up 1 John 5 this morning, then dive into 2 John, which has only one chapter. Here are some questions to consider:

1. Again, John enjoins his "little ones" to be wary of deceivers, the antichrists. What are the little ones supposed to hold onto?
2. Another reprise: John challenges the little ones to love, with obedience to the commandment, which is not new. Why does he keep writing about this?

Let's start with these questions today, and gaze once again into the Word, God's perfect law of freedom.

A few questions

Here are some questions for today.

1. What does it mean to confess Jesus?
2. Does God act based on our love or lack thereof?
3. How does on recognize the Holy Spirit has been given to someone?
4. How is fear cast out?

Today's questions

Questions

1. What is the meaning of "hell" that one can discern in 1 John 3?
2. What are signs of the power of the Holy Spirit?

Progression, confidence

During our discussion last Thursday, we talked about one question at length: Why should we be confident before the judgement of God?

And now, children, remain in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not be put to shame by him at his coming. 1 John 2:28

Here is the progression of answers we came up with, each answer getting closer and closer to the center of the question.

1. Confident if we keep the commandments.
2. Confident if we acknowledge the Lamb.
3. Confident because it is nor a surprise -- it is something foretold.
4. Confident because of faith.
5. Confident because of the Messiah's sacrifice on the Cross.
6. Confident because it is based on God's love for us.

At that point, we could go no deeper into the matter: God's love for us is a sure and solid bedrock.

Or, as St. Paul said in the city of Athens, "in Him we live and move and have our being."

1 John 2 questions

To read through 1 John chapter 2, here are a few questions to get you thinking:

1. If Jesus is our advocate, our defense attorney before God the Father, then how is it that He is also the expiation of our sins? How many lawyers volunteer for that duty?
2. When you confess sins to God, does the power of the forgiveness depend on your personal power or skill?
3. Re-read Romans 8:26-32. Does this inspire confidence in God's power to forgive?
4. There is an unusual pair of sets of three questions in vv. 12-14. What do you make of them?
5. In v. 18, John mentions several antichrists. What are these antichrists attempting to do to John's flock?

These questions are only the beginning of our quest for God's wisdom and grace this Thursday morning.