To be continued... (Small Group Study)
Small Group Study, week commencing 1st June
Click here for a PDF version of these questions.
1. What key things help you to keep going in your faith journey in the sense that Paul encourages Timothy to continue? Perhaps you have found certain regular patterns / spiritual disciplines or key truths to focus on helpful?
2. If ‘continue’ here means ‘to abide - to unpack and commit for the long haul’, is there anything we can do / say / pray today to have that sense of reaffirming a lifelong commitment to following Jesus?
3. “But as for you”’
If John Stott is correct, that the key aim of 2 Timothy can be summarised by the repeated ‘but as for you’ passages, which ones of these passages are key for you personally to hold on to at this time and why? Note, only 2 Timothy 3:14 is actually translated in the NIV as ‘But as for you’. So read through:
2 Tim 2:1 You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
2 Tim 3:10 You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance
2 Tim 3:14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it
2 Tim 4:5 But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.
4. ‘To be continued’… is an invitation to an adventure – not so much a script to be learnt and recited so much as a loving character to copy and seek to follow’. Can you relate to this idea. If so what does this look like in real life?
5. ‘As we continue we must be willing to change our methods but not our core message’. What does this look like in a healthy church?
6. Ken has shared before how visual prompts help remind him to pray, so this map is just the latest example. What sort of prompts help you to commit people and situations to prayer?
7. The final blessing was from Hebrews 13:15-21. Re-read these words and as each new theme is introduced why not pick up Ken’s challenge to pray:
‘Lord let this continue ...’ ‘Let this continue in CBC and in me’
When you do that, does anything strike you as particularly timely today?
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