Exploring The Here and Now of Scripture with Guest Speaker Jenn Richards

John 1:1-5 & 14

How do we come to an application of Scripture that is faithful to the text while also being good news for today? How can we assess if an application of a passage of Scripture is good? This coming Sunday we’ll explore these questions and more.

For reflection & discussion:

1. What is one thing that stuck out to you from the teaching?

2. What is the good news you heard?

3. What remaining questions do you have?

4. Split into groups of 3-4. Have each group separately follow the steps below. Choose a “sticky”/controversial topic among Jesus Followers. Some ideas are:

• Is it ok for Christians to choose to fight in war?

• Should everyone attending a worship service be invited to take communion?

• One specific topic around sexuality or gender

• Women in leadership

• What is the “standards” for someone to be a church leader?

• • Have each person have the opportunity to share a brief personal connection to the topic (experience from their own story, someone they care about etc…).

  • Brainstorm parts of scripture that talk about this topic. Use your Bible and Google to find the exact reference to each example.

• Consider one possible application (i.e. “here and now”) of the passage. Talk about what other passages or themes in scripture flow in the same direction as that application and if there’s are parts that go in a different direction.

• Then consider another possible application and follow the same additional conversation step