29/06/2025

“Ploughing on!”

 

Readings:  Luke 9: 51-62

This reading and the questions below challenge us on our preconceived ideas of discipleship – and of what it means to follow Jesus. 

Questions for Reflection and Application:

  1. How does Luke begin to show the challenges of discipleship in this section?
  2. What is the significance of the story shifting here with the geographical reference to the Samaritan people?
  3. How does Jesus respond to the excuses offered by the three men (verses 57, 59, 61)? In your own words, what do each of Jesus’ sayings mean? What is his point.
  4. What is your reaction to this quote from a sermon by Walter Brueggemann?                              There is nothing ordinary about the key claims of biblical faith. Indeed, there  is almost nothing about biblical faith that can be understood according to our usual analytical, scientific, objective, or commonsense control of life. The Bible is, rather, organized around the explosive moments when the holiness of  God touches down in our midst and changes everything. Such touchdown  moments are not sweet and romantic. They are not pious and religious. Rather, they are moments of threat and risk, when our worlds are shattered and everything is changed (Brueggemann, Collected Sermons, 65)
  5. What is your reaction to the Bonhoeffer quote from his book Discipleship?                                    Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which has to be asked for, the door at which one has to knock. It is costly, because it calls to discipleship; it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly, because it costs people their lives; it is grace, because it thereby makes them live. It is costly, because it condemns sin; it is grace, because it justifies the sinner. Above all, grace is costly, because it was costly to God, because it costs God the life of God’s Son “you were bought with a price” and because nothing can be cheap to us which is costly to God.
  6. In following Jesus, what has challenged you most?

Action: 

Of the issues listed above (comfort, social obligations, family concerns) which one would tempt you to not follow Jesus? 

Closing prayer

God bless, 

Rev Tim 

 With thanks – NKJV Bible Study Bible, Copyright © 2023 by Thomas Nelson.

New Testament Everyday: Luke © 2023 by Scot McKnight

NIV Serendipity Bible, for personal and small group study: pg. 1503; 1998; Zondervan