Moral winners

2 Corinthians 1:3-11

1. How did Paul conquer his situation?

Paul was under great pressure, far beyond ability to endure, feeling the sentence of death. But this happened that they might not rely on themselves but on God, who raises the dead. God has delivered Paul from such a deadly peril. On Him, Paul have set hope that God will continue to deliver them.

Philippians 4:10-13

2. Why can we be more than a conqueror?

It is because we can do anything not by our own strength but through the strength of God.

'Disorganised grammar'

1 Corinthians 2:6-16

1. How can we understand the deep things of God?

No one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us.

This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.

The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment: "For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ.

Ephesians 1:15-23

2. To what does Paul compare God's power?

God's power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.

Old word - new content

Ruth 1:1-18

1. Contrast the love of Ruth and Orpah for Naomi.

When Naomi, their mother in law, sent Ruth and Orpah to go back home after their husbands died, Orpah kissed goodbye to Naomi and left.

But Ruth replied, "Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me."

When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.

Ephesians 5:1-2

2. How are we to love?

Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

New wineskins

Matthew 12:1-14

1. How did the Pharisees respond to Jesus' new teaching?

At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, "Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath."

Going on from that place, he went into their synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, they asked him, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?"

He said to them, "If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a man than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath."

Then he said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." So he stretched it out and it was completely restored, just as sound as the other. But the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus.

1 John 5:4-5

2. What conquers the world?

For everyone born of God overcomes the world.

This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.

The ladder

John 5:16-18; 6:32-42; 10:30-38

1. What links heaven and earth?

Jesus is the bread that came down from heaven to earth. So that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life.

2. Why did the Jews try to kill Jesus?

Because Jesus was doing good things through work on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted him. Jesus said to them, "My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working."

For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. Jesus said "Father is in me, and I in the Father".

'Nothing to equal it'

Hebrews 2:10-18

1. Why did God's Son become human?

Since we have flesh and blood, Jesus too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham's descendants. For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people.

Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

Hebrews 10:1-10

2. What did God prepare for His Son?

God prepared not sacrifices or offerings, but a body so that Jesus can do the Will of God, through crucification and resurrection, that our sins have been forgiven.

'The great divide'

Matthew 1:18-23

1. Why was Jesus given the name Immanuel?

Immanuel means, "God with us."

John 20:24-31

2. Why did John write his gospel?

John write his gospel so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.