Scripture and the Wesleyan Way Leader Guide: A Bible Study on Real Christianity - Softcover

Jones, Scott J.; Jones, Arthur D.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1501867954 ISBN 13: 9781501867958

Verlag: ABINGDON PR, 2018

Inhaltsangabe

The Bible was central to John Wesley’s faith and the Christian movement he founded. In Scripture and the Wesleyan Way, you will discover a Wesleyan approach to the Bible and the Christian life through a Bible study using Wesley’s own words.In this study, authors Scott and Arthur Jones use John Wesley’s sermons to illuminate the Bible passages at the heart of Wesley’s understanding of what it means to be a real Christian. Each chapter explores a key Scripture text and one of Wesley’s sermons on it. Through their insightful and engaging study, Bishop Jones and his son Arthur show how the teachings of Wesley address questions that many of us in the twenty-first century still struggle with today.The Leader Guide contains everything needed to guide a group through the eight-week study including session plans, activities, and discussion questions, as well as multiple format options.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Arthur Jones is the senior associate pastor and preaching pastor at St. Andrew United Methodist Church in Plano, Texas. His passions involve preaching a real and practical faith, engaging people with the Bible and current issues that affect day-to-day life, and providing leadership and vision for the next phases of church life. Arthur is a fifth-generation Methodist preacher who grew up in churches across North Texas. He is a graduate of the University of Kansas and Duke Divinity School, and the co-author of Ask: Faith Questions in a Skeptical Age. Arthur is married to Becky (a Houston native), and they have recently had their first child Sam.

Scott J. Jones is the Resident Bishop of the Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church and served as Bishop of the Great Plains area of The United Methodist Church. He was formerly the McCreless Associate Professor of Evangelism at Perkins School of Theology, where he taught courses in evangelism and Wesley studies. Previous books include The Wesleyan Way, The Evangelistic Love of God & Neighbor, Staying at the Table, and Wesley and the Quadrilateral, all published by Abingdon Press. of the United Methodist Church and served as Bishop of the Great Plains area of The United Methodist Church.

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Scripture and the Wesleyan Way Leader Guide

A Bible Study on Real Christianity

By Scott J. Jones, Arthur D. Jones

Abingdon Press

Copyright © 2018 Abingdon Press
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-5018-6795-8

Contents

To the Group Leader, 
Chapter 1. What Is the Bible's Message?, 
Chapter 2. How Can I Be Saved?, 
Chapter 3. Am I a Real Christian?, 
Chapter 4. Do I Have to Obey the Law?, 
Chapter 5. Am I a Sinner?, 
Chapter 6. How Can I Connect with God?, 
Chapter 7. Why Is the Christian Life So Hard?, 
Chapter 8. What About My Money?, 
Sermons of John Wesley, 

CHAPTER 1

Session 1

What Is the Bible's Message?

Session Summary

In the introduction to Scripture and the Wesleyan Way, the authors express their conviction that John Wesley's approach to Scripture can help us read the Bible faithfully and renew the church. In each of the chapters of this book, the authors present a spiritual question and explore its importance for us today. They look at biblical texts related to these questions and at a sermon by John Wesley in which he did the same thing.

Chapter 1 focuses on the question "What is the Bible's message?" Scott and Arthur Jones present two truths about the Bible — that it is important and that it is complicated — and explore four Wesleyan principles for acknowledging these truths and discerning the Bible's message. The authors propose that one of the most important messages in the Bible is about the kingdom of God. Wesley's sermon "The Way to the Kingdom" provides us with a vision of what that kingdom is and isn't and affirms the ways the individual believer can experience a true "religion of the heart" through trusting God's life-changing love revealed in Jesus Christ. Charles Wesley's famous hymn "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling" describes how that love can change our hearts.

Before Class

• On a large sheet of paper, write the following incomplete sentence: "The Bible's primary message is ..." Place the sheet in a prominent location in the meeting area that is accessible to participants. Alternatively, write these words on a portion of a whiteboard.

• On another large sheet of paper (or another section of the whiteboard) write the words of Romans 14:17 in the translation used in the book (KJV): "The kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost."

• Post another large sheet of paper (or reserve a third section of whiteboard) for the exercise titled "Understanding the Religion of the Heart."

• Have Bibles available for group members who may not bring their own.

• Provide markers of varied colors, pencils, pens, and blank paper for use during the session.

• Since this is the first session, have name tags available if the participants do not know one another.

Welcome

As persons enter, ask them to make a name tag and put it on. Then, invite them to choose a marker and complete the incomplete sentence on the sheet you placed on the wall before the class began ("The Bible's primary message is ..."), writing their responses below the heading.

Once everyone has arrived, introduce yourself to the group and say that you are going to begin with an exercise to help persons get to know each other a little better. Ask each participant to find a partner, preferably someone they don't know very well. Once they are together, ask them to share their names with each other and then choose which of the pair will go first in the following exercise.

Explain that you are going to ask them to talk about a topic for sixty seconds (you will need to time them). During those sixty seconds, the first person will speak and the other person will listen silently. Then, at your cue, they will switch roles and the second person will talk for sixty seconds on the same subject. When everyone is ready, give the following prompt:

• For sixty seconds, talk about a book, TV show, or movie and why you liked it.

After both persons have shared, have them do the exercise again with a new prompt:

• For sixty seconds, tell a story about a favorite Bible in your house.

Now have each person introduce their partner to the whole group, sharing one thing they learned from listening to them.

Read the following introduction to this first session of the study, or use one of your own:

• Welcome to this study of the book Scripture and the Wesleyan Way by Scott Jones and Arthur Jones. Each time we gather, we are going to be looking at an important spiritual question that you may have wondered about at some point during your life. Using the Bible, the book, and the video segments, we are going to look at those questions and how John Wesley, one of the founders of the Methodist movement, answered them. Our hope is that we will grow closer to God and to one another through this study. Our question for this session is "What Is the Bible's Message?"

Bible Study and Discussion

[This Bible Study may be used at this point or following the exercise titled "Share Experiences with the Bible" in the Book Study and Discussion section.]

One of the key ways that Jesus talks about the kingdom of God in the Gospels is through the use of parables. In the following exercise you will have a chance to look at some of those parables and what they tell us about the nature of the Kingdom.

Divide into four groups, giving each group one of the following Scripture passages to read:

• Matthew 13:31-33: the parables of the mustard seed and yeast

• Mark 4:26-29: the parable of the seed growing in the ground

• Matthew 13:44-46: the parables of the treasure in the field and the pearl

• Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23: the parable of the sower

Ask each group to use the following questions to explore their assigned passage:

• To what is the kingdom of God being compared?

• How might this image upset our expectations of what a kingdom is?

• What do you believe Jesus is trying to say about the nature of God's kingdom?]

After some time of discussion in the small group, gather with the larger group to share observations.

Now read together Romans 14:17 from the paper you prepared and posted on the wall before the group arrived. Say to the group:

• The authors of this study make the point that the kingdom of God is a central message of Jesus' ministry and of the Bible. This verse from Romans is one of the main Bible texts of John Wesley's sermon "The Way to the Kingdom."

Ask the group to reflect on the following questions together:

• What does Romans 14:17 tell us that the kingdom of God is not? What does that mean?

• What does it say that the kingdom of God is?

• How do righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit help us understand Jesus' images of the Kingdom in the parables?

Video Study and Discussion

Play the video for Session 1.

After viewing the video segment, choose some of the following questions to explore with the group:

• The video talks about how Scott Jones helped Arthur learn the fruit of the Spirit from Galatians 5. If you have memorized a part of the Bible, what is it? How did you learn it?

• What does it mean to read, as Wesley did, for the "general tenor" of Scripture?

• What is the Wesleyan way of reading Scripture?

• How can...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: ABINGDON PR
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2018
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1501867954
• ISBN 13: 9781501867958
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 80
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: preigu; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; 49078; Deutschland