Weekly Home Guide
This guide is a tool to help you give your attention to God throughout your week as you gather.
Sermon Series: "Asunder" Oct 17-31, Matt 10:34-36.
Oct 17: Perspective 1
Oct 24: Perspective 2
Oct 31: Perspective 3
Over the course of the next 3 weeks, we will be receiving teaching from 3 different preachers. We will experience 3 different perspectives as we dig into the same Scripture passage each week.
Step 1: Music
Step 2:
Turn to God’s word.
A note before you read this week: Sometimes when a passage in Scripture seems at odds with who we know Christ to be the best course of action is to read the whole chapter to see what is happening in the narrative.
Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.
Matthew 10:34-36
Step 3: Prayer
Seek God through prayer
- Pray for those who are experiencing division and heartache, who miss those they love. Comfort them Lord and draw them always nearer to you.
- Pray for our peace to not conform to society's standards but to be different like Jesus is different.
- Pray that we understand the cost of the gospel as best as we can.
Step 4: Reflection
This passage is tricky! Theologian Scott McKnight calls these types of passages, "Blue Parakeet" passages. These passages are the ones that make us uncomfortable, they call us to examine the way we "practice" the Bible.
As we go through this series, the Weekly Home Guide will remain unchanged. We encourage you to come back to the study questions each week after hearing a new preacher and reflect on them in light of the new perspective you have heard this past week.
This passage is particularly hard. It looks on its surface as if it is pro-authoritarian, pro-violence and that it stands for a type of justice that doesn't make sense in light of the rest of Scripture. And yet, it is important for us to come to God's word as hearers and learners prepared to wrestle with the event the trickiest passages.
This passage is about our obedience in the face of tension, danger, and fear even within the family unit. Christ is for peace and we are his agents of peace, and sometimes that will cost us our comfortability, relationships or more.
Step 5: Benediction
Close your time.
Romans 15:5-6
May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had, so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen
Step 6: Questions
- In what way are you using your power to create peace or division?
- The gospel costs you something. Have you experienced this in your own life?