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- Herausgeber: IVP Bible Studies
- Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
- Serie: LifeGuide Bible Studies
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
Do you ever find it hard to hope? Many of us feel weighed down by our own failures, a sense of inferiority, guilt from the past, or emotionally exhausting circumstances. Yet when hope seems beyond us, the Bible offers encouragement from stories of those who have gone before. In this six-session LifeGuide® Bible Study, J. I. Packer and Carolyn Nystrom explore how God works through imperfect characters such as Jonah, Martha, and Peter. God loves, redeems, and restores misfits, outsiders, and failures. And he can do the same for you. Through the goodness of the God of hope, you can discover the blessing of hope as a way of life. For over three decades, LifeGuide Bible Studies have provided solid biblical content and raised thought-provoking questions—offering a one-of-a-kind Bible study experience for individuals and groups. This series has more than 145 titles on Old and New Testament books, character studies, and topical studies.
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NEVER BEYOND HOPE
6 STUDIES FOR INDIVIDUALS OR GROUPS
Contents
ONE
Jacob: Hope for the UnhappyGENESIS 32
TWO
Manoah’s Wife: Hope for the IgnoredJUDGES 13
THREE
Jonah: Hope for the AngryJONAH 1; 2:1, 10; 3; 4:1-2, 5-11
FOUR
Martha: Hope for the OverworkedLUKE 10:38-42; JOHN 11:1-44; 12:1-3
FIVE
Thomas: Hope for the Hard to ConvinceJOHN 20:19-31
SIX
Simon Peter: Hope After Doing Something TerribleJOHN 21; 1 PETER 5:8-11
GETTING THE MOST OUT OFNEVER BEYOND HOPE
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:13). This prayer of blessing comes near the end of the apostle Paul’s great letter to Christians in Rome. Can we, his present-day readers, receive that blessing of hope?
We can indeed. But many of us live under the weight of our own failures. We know all too well our flaws, and they rob us of hope. Some of us are burdened with a crushing sense of inferiority. We run scared, afraid of being caught in some folly that we failed to notice. Some of us bear the scars of pain we cannot forget and damage we cannot repair. For some, guilty memories keep shame and self-contempt alive in our hearts. Some feel imprisoned in a loveless home or a soul-destroying routine that encourages us to resent our very existence. In these troubling settings emotional exhaustion leaves our faith as fragile as tissue paper. Hoping for anything is simply beyond us.
The final answer to this condition of hopelessness is that God loves, redeems, pardons, restores, protects, keeps, and uses misfits, outsiders, and failures. Scripture shows God using the oddest, rawest, most lopsided and flawed of his children to further his work, while at the same time he carries on his sanctifying strategy for getting them into better moral and spiritual shape. For sensitive souls who feel they are not fit to serve God, this is a fact of enormous encouragement.
We see God deal with Jacob the cheat; diffident Mrs. Manoah; Jonah the pigheaded patriot; bossy, noisy Martha and quiet, passive Mary; Thomas the stupid-smart professional pessimist; and impulsive, warm-hearted, unstable Simon Peter. God blessed and used these people—even as he led them forward out of the bondage of their own defects into truer godliness than they had previously thought possible. And God wants to do the same with each of us.
Do we need hope? Yes. Can Christians hope? Yes. Are we ever beyond hope? No! Does our hope of salvation bring joy, energy, faithfulness, and a desire to be of use to God? Yes, yes, yes, yes. May we hope that God will use us each day to his glory, even though we are not as yet perfectly sanctified? Yes. Is this glorious good news? Yes.
Good hoping to you—or as some say, here’s hoping!—hoping as a way of life, hoping as a source of strength, and hoping as a fountain of joy in the heart from which praise and prayer will flow out continually.
SUGGESTIONS FOR INDIVIDUAL STUDY
1. As you begin each study, pray that God will speak to you through his Word.
2. Read the introduction to the study and respond to the personal reflection question or exercise. This is designed to help you focus on God and on the theme of the study.
3. Each study deals with a particular passage—so that you can delve into the author’s meaning in that context. Read and reread the passage to be studied. The questions are written using the language of the New International Version, so you may wish to use that version of the Bible. The New Revised Standard Version is also recommended.
4. This is an inductive Bible study, designed to help you discover for yourself what Scripture is saying. The study includes three types of questions. Observation questions ask about the basic facts: who, what, when, where, and how. Interpretation questions delve into the meaning of the passage. Application questions help you discover the implications of the text for growing in Christ. These three keys unlock the treasures of Scripture.
Write your answers to the questions in the spaces provided or in a personal journal. Writing can bring clarity and deeper understanding of yourself and of God’s Word.
5. It might be good to have a Bible dictionary handy. Use it to look up any unfamiliar words, names, or places.
6. Use the prayer suggestion to guide you in thanking God for what you have learned and to pray about the applications that have come to mind.
7. You may want to go on to the suggestion under “Now or Later,” or you may want to use that idea for your next study.
SUGGESTIONS FOR MEMBERS OF A GROUP STUDY
1. Come to the study prepared. Follow the suggestions for individual study mentioned above. You will find that careful preparation will greatly enrich your time spent in group discussion.
2. Be willing to participate in the discussion. The leader of your group will not be lecturing. Instead, he or she will be encouraging the members of the group to discuss what they have learned. The leader will be asking the questions that are found in this guide.
3. Stick to the topic being discussed. Your answers should be based on the verses which are the focus of the discussion and not on outside authorities such as commentaries or speakers. These studies focus on a particular passage of Scripture. Only rarely should you refer to other portions of the Bible. This allows for everyone to participate in in-depth study on equal ground.
4. Be sensitive to the other members of the group. Listen attentively when they describe what they have learned. You may be surprised by their insights! Each question assumes a variety of answers. Many questions do not have “right” answers, particularly questions that aim at meaning or application. Instead the questions push us to explore the passage more thoroughly.
When possible, link what you say to the comments of others. Also, be affirming whenever you can. This will encourage some of the more hesitant members of the group to participate.
5. Be careful not to dominate the discussion. We are sometimes so eager to express our thoughts that we leave too little opportunity for others to respond. By all means participate! But allow others to also.
6. Expect God to teach you through the passage being discussed and through the other members of the group. Pray that you will have an enjoyable and profitable time together, but also that as a result of the study you will find ways that you can take action individually and/or as a group.
7. Remember that anything said in the group is considered confidential and should not be discussed outside the group unless specific permission is given to do so.
8. If you are the group leader, you will find additional suggestions at the back of the guide.
JACOB: HOPE FOR THE UNHAPPY
Genesis 32
When Jacob was born, he came out of his mother’s womb with his hand holding on to his twin brother’s heel. His name means “he grasps the heel” or “deceiver.” Getting ahead was Jacob’s consistent goal. When the twins neared adulthood, Jacob first persuaded Esau, his elder brother (elder by minutes), to sell him his birthright. Then he also stole Esau’s blessing. To which Esau said, “This is too much! I’d like to kill that brother of mine. In due course, I will.” And Rebekah, their mother, said to Jacob, “You’d better leave, or else.” So off went Jacob, who spent twenty years with Uncle Laban.
