How Does the Cross Work - Study 2
Pray: Ask God to speak
Read Passage Aloud Colossians 2:6-15 (perhaps ask two different people to read from two different translations)
Re-tell the passage in your own words.
General Questions
What do you like about the passage?
What do you find interesting and or challenging about the passage?
Read Passage Aloud Colossians 2:6-15 (perhaps ask two different people to read from two different translations)
Re-tell the passage in your own words.
General Questions
What do you like about the passage?
What do you find interesting and or challenging about the passage?
Specific Questions
- What does Paul say (v. 9) about Jesus that elevates him as being more than a prophet?
- According to verse 12, what does human baptism signify ‘spiritually’?
- According to verse 13, how did God make you alive, together with him?
- Read verses 13 and 14 together. What you make of these verses requires a little bit of interpretive work. Did God forgive and then place the erased record (charge sheet) on the cross? Or did God forgive by placing the charge sheet of our wrongs on the cross? What makes you lean toward one or the other?
- The word ‘triumphing over’ in verse 15 relates to a Roman victory parade. In what sense does a ‘nailed charge sheet’ that declares forgiveness for human ‘disarm’ rules (seen and unseen)?
- According to this cluster of ideas, what confidence can a Christian hold regarding their status with God? In the context of verses 16 and 17, what is Paul trying to emphasise?
How Does the Cross Work - Study 1
Pray: Ask God to speak
Read Passage Aloud Romans 3:21-26 (perhaps ask two different people to read from two different translations)
Re-tell the passage in your own words.
Idea: This passage emphasizes how Jesus’ blood purifies people before God
General Questions
What do you like about the passage?
What do you find interesting and or challenging about the passage?
Read Passage Aloud Romans 3:21-26 (perhaps ask two different people to read from two different translations)
Re-tell the passage in your own words.
Idea: This passage emphasizes how Jesus’ blood purifies people before God
General Questions
What do you like about the passage?
What do you find interesting and or challenging about the passage?
Specific Questions
- Try paraphrasing this dense set of ideas into a few sentences to one another.
- The ‘righteousness of God’ is an important term. The word for ‘righteous’ can equally be termed ‘justice.’ So, if someone is ‘righteous’ or ‘just,’ then what does that mean in simple language?
- ‘Through faith in Jesus Christ’ v. 22 can be read as either something I do or that Jesus does. I am persuaded toward the latter, as it conveys something about the ‘faithfulness of Jesus.’ If so, then what Paul say Jesus’ faithfulness has accomplished?
- Two definitions:
- Justification is legal talk. It means that someone is declared to be ‘in the right’ with God ahead of the final judgement.
- Redemption is slave market language. To ‘redeem’ a slave was to purchase their freedom from slavery.
- What was the ‘slavery’ from which Paul says humans were rescued?
- How might being declared ‘right with God’ impact your walk with God or the way you perceive yourself?
- Verse 25 uses the word ‘atonement.’ It is an idea that reaches back to the Day of Atonement described in Leviticus 16. To achieve atonement was to repair relations between humans and God. Read Lev 16:1-20. It will sound foreign. Try and visualise (not too closely for the second goat) the two things that are happening to the goats. We call the whole process an elimination rite. I.e. it gets rid of the pollutants of sin that threaten God’s presence to his people. Blood, as an ancient ritual detergent, washes away impurities from the temple. With these ideas in mind, read 1 John 1:9. John is writing to Christians. Why should Christians be in the habit of confessing even when they have already been ‘justified’? What does it mean to you to know that our sins are washed clean or purified?