Bible Fellowship Study Guide 6/5 "Pray and Go!"

IN A NUTSHELL: This story demonstrates that people who pray and are close to the heart of God anticipate “the lost” to be saved, not look down on them and wish them to be destroyed.  Most Jews didn’t seem to notice passages of OT Scripture like these: Ge. 18:18; Ps. 86:9; Is. 42:6; 56:7; 66:19; 49:6.  No doubt these are some of the passages that captivated Simeon and Anna and led them to long for God’s plan of salvation to be revealed. ICE BREAKER

When was the last time you shed a tear for someone you didn’t really know?   What were the circumstances?

 

CONNECTING TO THE TEXT

  1. What is the “consolation of Israel?” Isaiah 51:3-8
  2. What was the “custom of the law?” Lev. 12:1-8
  3. What in Simeon’s words brought “peace” to him?
  4. If the “big picture” was the revelation about the Gentiles and the glory of Israel (Lk. 2:30-32), then what are “the small picture details” in vss. 33-35?

REFLECTING UPON OUR LIVES 

  1. If you knew your days to live were short and could see one thing that would give you “peace with death,” then what would be that one thing you would like to see?
  2. What might be a group, or class of people that many Christians don’t think about being outsiders needing to be won?

CONNECTING WITH THE WAY WE DO CHURCH 

  1. How do you practice  a discipline of praying for others?
  2. When was the last time you participated in a prayer vigil?  What memory stood out about that experience?
  3. Would you prefer to be a prayer warrior throughout the summer or to work on setting up a Prayer Vigil-Ideas-on-How (7) the weekend of our finale’?
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