11/08/2024

I AM TH BREAD OF LIFE

Please use the questions below as a guide for your devotions this week, and/or for your group meeting if you belong to a small group. You might not get through all the questions – that is Ok – but I pray that they will help you grow in your faith and in your understanding of the Bible.

If you would like me to visit your group, then please let me know – contact Lesley on 0445333430 or admin@plettmethodist.co.za to set up a visit. If you are not part of a group, and would like to join one, then contact Don on 0834129877 and don@prism-ic.co.za

Theme:         “I am the Bread of Life” 

Start

  • Do you have a favourite bread shop or bakery?
  • What type of bread are you today: All natural? Rye? Mouldy? Crusty? Fresh? Easy to butter up? Sour…Dough?

Getting into the Word

Background to the reading[i]:  

This second part of John 6, our reading for the week, opens a number of windows, each window revealing Jesus as Life’s Bread. Some of the crowd on the eastern shore realized Jesus was gone so they took off for Capernaum by boat (6:24, 59). The entire conversation in our passage occurs in the large-ish synagogue in Capernaum (see vs. 59).

Reading for the week:  John 6:35-59[ii]

  • What claims does Jesus make in verses 35-40?
  • What do these claims emphasize about his being the bread of life? About the “Will” of the Father?
  • In verses 41-42 How do the crowds respond to his claims? How is the principle of the hometown prophet (see Ch 4:44) played out here?
  • What part is played by God and by the people in the process of coming to know Jesus (vs.44-45)?
  • What promise is repeated three times for those who do come to him?
  • Why the emphasis on this?
  • How is the “bread” he gives greater than that of Moses (vs 32, 49)?
  • Why does Jesus develop the food analogy even more graph9ically (vs 53-58)?
  • What does Jesus mean by “eating his flesh” and “drinking his blood” (vs 51-58)?

Faith Questions:

  • What is the main reason you follow Jesus?
  • How would you describe your daily spiritual diet: Junk food? Frozen Food? Baby Food? TV Dinner? Leftovers ….?
  • Has your familiarity with Jesus (shaped by the way you read the Bible, the stories you have heard, the sermons…) ever kept you from seeing who he really is?
  • If someone asked, “How do you hunger and thirst after God,” what advice/guidance would you give them?

Focus for the week ahead[iii]:

“Jesus will not play the apologetic game of proving who he is, nor by giving scientific or logical arguments that lead to convincing proof. Jesus calls people to look at him, to listen to him, to watch him, and to trust Who he is. The only way to comprehend Jesus in love is to surrender to him, and so discover who he is. Trusting him for who he is leads to greater understanding. To use philosophical terms, it is an epistemology of faith. C.S. Lewis once said it this way: “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it but because by it, I see everything else

Close the meeting with a time of Prayer

God bless,

Tim. 

[i] New Testament Everyday: John; © 2022 by Scot McKnight hosted in https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+6&version=NLT

[ii]   Study for this week taken from NIV Serendipity Bible For Groups, 4th Edition, C 1996, pgs 1486-1487.

[iii] New Testament Everyday: John © 2022 by Scot McKnight , (C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, 140); hosted in https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+6&version=NLT