Katy

Q2. The two verses from Matthew tell us that everything we say with our tongues comes from the overflow of our hearts. Jeremiah 17 v9 tells us ‘ The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.’ The natural leaning of human nature is towards evil. The only way we can control it is to come in humility to our Lord and Saviour and to ask Him to help us, we cannot do it on our own only in humility and Gods help will it be possible.

Q1.Jesus was warning us all that if we decide to be involved in teaching then we must be very careful to live an appropriate life. The teacher knows how to act because they are teaching it every day. Nobody will take notice of a teacher who teaches one thing but in their own lives acts or speaks in a different way. They must ‘ walk the talk’ otherwise they will be ineffective and cause people to turn away from God rather than encouraging them to come and get to know God. Greater strictness is appropriate because teachers are setting an example and their students look up to them and emulate them. I think God expects the same standard of living from us as from our Pastors but our Pastor has more areas of responsibility, such as presenting and teaching us the word of God . Having written the last sentence I realise we all have responsibility to teach and present the word of God to someone, whether it is someone we are introducing to Jesus, or our children or our grandchildren. I think our standard and that of our Pastor should be the same with different emphasis on different areas of our lives and different responsibilities.

Q16.We are saved by believing that Jesus died for us to redeem us from hell. When we have truly repented and are starting to walk with God, we want to live and work for Him. We then go forth and do good works. James is saying that if we have faith then we must show good works or else our faith is dead. Paul is telling us that our works do not save us , we can only be saved by God’s grace, by Jesus dying on the cross and us accepting that and repenting of our sin. So they are both saying the same thing but approaching it from different angles.

Q3. Demons know God exists and they fear Him. That is all they have no respect or honour for God. A non practising Christian believes there is a God ,they may live an upright life style, but they have no real love for God. Their lives are selfish and revolve around themselves. They have no personal relationship with God. A follower of Jesus, loves Him wholeheartedly, submits to Him and obeys Him with a willing heart. They love to be immersed in the ‘ things’ of God.

Q2. As Christians we are now God’s gloves and must do as Jesus would do. We are responsible to do all within our power to help those both within our church but also in the community at large. This may not only mean giving money but we can give of our time ( maybe help at a soup kitchen or a food bank) etc. Matthew 25 v45 He( Jesus) will reply’ I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these you did not do for me’ .

Q1. Faith comes from God, Faith lives for God, Faith is kept alive by God. Our faith and our lives must be intertwined. If our faith is not ‘worked’ it will become cold and die. It is like a marriage when we get married we have to work at it, otherwise it goes wrong and eventually will die. As our faith grows as we get to know God we love Him more and more and we want to please Him and show our lives by serving Him in various ways.

Q4.Jesus knew the questioners would have a denarius on them as this was the coin which had to be used for the head tax a different coin , a drachma was used to pay the temple tax. It was an offensive coin in that it had on one side the head of Caesar with a reference to him being deity, and on the back a picture of his mother referring to her as the goddess of peace. Q5.We must pay our civil taxes. The only time we can disobey our government is if they ask us to do something which is against God’s Law. Q6.1Corinthians 6 v20 …You were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body. We should honour God with everything we are and everything we possess. He wants us to grow more and more like Him, we can only do this if we spend time learning about Him and spending time with Him. Because we love Him we should spend our time working for Him. This will mean different things for different people depending on our gifting. We owe God everything and must acknowledge that daily.

Q1. Jesus has just told the people the Parable of the Tenants in verses 9 -18, and the teachers of the law and the chief priests realised that Jesus had been referring to them in the parable. This made them look bad before the people so they were looking for a way that they could catch Jesus out and they could then hand Him over to the power and authority of the governor. However they knew the had to be careful as the people might object to their tactics. The chief priests had people watching every move Jesus made and every word to see if they could catch Him out. Jesus of course say through their duplicity and was more than able to answer without incriminating Himself. Q2.The teachers of the law and the chief priests were hypocrites because they got others to go to Jesus and pretend they were interested in what Jesus was saying and they tried to trip Jesus up. They got others to do their “ dirty work “! Those doing the questioning were hypocrites because they pretended to be interested in the things of Jesus, they were not. They were also hypocrites in front of the people because they were trying to deceive them not wanting them to know precisely what they were up to. Q3. I don’t think flattery should ever be used especially in the Lord’s work. Flattery is dishonesty, insincere and it is a lie! All vices that must not be used by Christians. What a terrible testimony we would have if it was based on sin. We would be a disgrace to our Lord and Saviour and people would soon see the dishonesty of our lives and words and want no part of us or the gospel we are speaking about.

Q.12. We should follow the example of Jesus treat everyone the same show no favoritism towards the wealthy. If we are showing favouritism we are being judgemental and giving mercy to one person rather than another. These verses in Matthew and Hosea show us that above anything else God wants us to show mercy to everyone we come in contact with. He puts showing mercy before His desire for sacrifices. That is an example of how great God’s desire for mercy is. And also how He is putting us His people before Himself.

Q.11. James called it the Royal law because Our King Jesus had condensed and capsulated the Mosaic law into the law ‘love your neighbor as yourself’. His law is based on love first to love God with all our heart, mind and soul and then our neighbour as ourselves, and this sums up all of the Mosaic Laws. When we show favouritism to anyone we are committing sin for which there will be judgement one day. If we treat a poor person differently to a wealthier person we are showing the poor person a lack of respect and re enforcing all of their negative feelings and showing them that we judge them to be less deserving of our attention. When we do this we are not being a good ambassador for Christ and may be guilty of driving them away from Christianity.

Q10. Favouritism makes one a judge because we think one person is more deserving of our attention more than another. Unfortunately our motives are not usually sparked by the needs of the people involved but by our own selfish desires. The person I favour is more useful to me or to the church than the other person. Our thoughts are therefore not pure and honest but our actions are being motivated by our evil thoughts and desires. We should also remember the most humble and pure attitudes of Jesus. He treated everyone exactly the same and we should do likewise.

Q.9. I find it hard to be around people who are openly hostile towards God. Especially when they think they are so modern and far too intelligent and educated to believe in “fairytales “! I really don’t like dealing with people who have a superior attitude to others especially if the other person is elderly or more vulnerable in some way. At the same time I am aware that I am a sinner saved by grace and I still sin in ways that I aught not to. My church has very much a welcome policy to whoever comes in the door. There would always be someone at the door to find a seat for whoever came in. This May at times mean the door person gives up their own seat or someone from the church surrenders their seat to our visitor. We then have a policy of the members including the elders to immediately approach any visitors after the service to chat or to bring the up to where coffee is being served, if it is a ‘ coffee Sunday’!

Q.4. The Pharisees and the Religious leaders declared war against Jesus because they didn’t like the way He challenged them on their actions and their pride. Although they were scholars who studied the Torah they didn’t recognize Jesus or maybe wilfully refused to accept who He was! This was a big mistake , even after getting to know Him and observing His ways they rejected Him. Jesus was the cornerstone sent by God . The religious leaders should have been building their lives and the people’s lives around the cornerstone instead they rejected Him. It was this wilful rejection and hardness of heart that brought about their downfall and they are crushed by the cornerstone. It is a lesson for us to learn from if we reject and turn away from our Merciful God we too will stumble and ultimately be crushed by the cornerstone. Q.5.We will be crushed if we reject God. If our hearts are becoming hard towards God we must repent and turn away from bitterness so that we do not allow a root of bitterness to take root in our hearts. We need to question ourselves as to why this is happening: have we been spending time in His presence, seeking His face to help us with the difficulties we have in life. Are we reading His word. Are we spending time in Christian fellowship, and seeking Godly advise from a trusted mentor. Are our eyes fixed firmly on Jesus? If we do these things Jesus will help us not to become hard hearted and bitter towards the things of God.

Q1. In Jesus’s day a wealthy land owner would hire men to work in his farm and the land owner would be entitled to his share of the produce. Now days the land owner would go to a certain place in the town where men would be standing waiting to be hired for the day and they would be paid a days wage. Or a tenant farmer might pay rent to farm the land and give a nominal amount of produce to the owner. Q 2. The vineyard represents Israel. The owner represents God. The tenants represent the religious leaders in Jesus time. The servants represent the prophet that God sent to Israel that were rejected by the people. The Son is Jesus who came to die on the cross to redeem us from our sins. The tenants were ultimately punished with the destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD. Q. 3. The stone is Jesus. The builders are the Religious Leaders. They rejected Jesus because they didn’t believe He was the Messiah. He was different to the Conquering King they expected to deliver them from Roman rule. Jesus called them out on their dishonesty and their lack of integrity and their unrighteousness. They didn’t like this so they planned to get rid of Him. They manipulated the people to call for His death and even though Jesus was sinless and innocent He was condemned to death.

Q.8. We need to tame our tongues so that we don’t drive people away before they open a Bible. NonChristians are always watching us to see how we act and react to life’s situations. They can be drawn to speak to us or be turned off and use our conduct to judge Christian in general. So we have a huge responsibility to tame our tongues and be a good example to those around us. Looking after the poor was just what Jesus did, so this was a good example for us. But the main reason we are told that pure religion is to look after the op hans and widows is that by looking after them we will not get any return because they are poor. By looking after those that are poor we will be blessed. Also we are told not to do our righteous acts in public, where they will be seen by others. Our kind deeds must be done in secret as truly unselfish acts and motivated by love and nothing else.

Q7. The Perfect Law that James talks about has to do with the Mosaic Law being changed so that Gentiles did not have to be circumcised to be Christians. The Perfect Law took over and became the Law that gives freedom. James also called it the Royal Law which means “Love your neighbour as yourself”, and it is part of what Jesus taught “ Love each other as I have loved you”. This law brings liberty from all the rules law and regulations laid down in the Mosaic Law and gives us this command from Jesus to “ Love each other as I have loved you”.

Q6. Satan is called the “the Father of lies”, and he can persuade and fool us into thinking we are doing well because we go to church and read our bibles. He never mentions anything about putting it into practise, because he will try all kinds of distractions to ensure we don’t put anything we have read into practice. We can become overfamiliar with the Scriptures and not give our full attention to them and even less attention to putting them into action. We can confuse knowing the truth and actually doing the right things in everyday life. We can display an exemplary exterior and inside or at home we can be sinful and not doing the things we pretend we are doing.

Q5. The “word of truth” is the gospel, which when we hear it gives us faith which in turn gives us Spiritual life. It is all God’s work and nothing to do with us. When we become Spiritually alive it means that we have turned from sin and been renewed by the Spirit of God.

Q1. Jesus weeps over Jerusalem because He knows what is going to happen to this city in70 AD. The city is going to be totally destroyed, the people are going to suffer and many would die, many of their bodies would be thrown over to city walls just to be rid of them because they were decaying and smelling. All of these terrible things could be avoided if they had just believed that Jesus was their Messiah and King, but they turned away and denied Him. I think Jesus cried because He grieved over the futility of the situation and their utter blindness despite His work among them. Q2.For that one occasion the people treated Jesus like a King by laying their cloaks and branches on the way that Jesus would pass. They were also honour Him by shouting “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” ”Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” Unfortunately Jesus then goes into the temple and find a very different scene, people making money in the temple courts by selling animals for sacrifice and exchanging Roman coins for coins acceptable to pay the temple tax. Those who should be setting a good example were also involved in the corruption. Any joy Jesus may have felt on entering the city was quickly evaporated by this scene. He immediately drove out the offenders and said “My house will be a house of prayer ; but you have made it a den of robbers”. The leaders hearts were hard and they were not prepared to even contemplate the possibility that Jesus could be the Messiah. They had their own ideas about how the Messiah would come and Jesus did not fit their expectations so they would not open their minds to the possibility that this may be the Messiah. Q.3. I answered this in question 2. Q4.The high priest was cutting a cut from extra money that was being made in the Temple before Jesus drove them away. Jesus timing didn’t suit was either because it was Passover and it was a busy time which meant there was more money to be made but now Jesus had put a stop to that. The chief priests, teachers and leaders decided they needed to murder Jesus but they were wary because Jesus had a large following of the local people. These enemies of Jesus were now united together in their bid to get rid of the Messiah! Q5.If we don’t fully trust and follow Jesus we will not see the purpose of tithing or the privilege we have in being able to tithe. We still have a fallen nature and we can still become involved in sin. We can become obsessed by money and the accumulation of it. I think many of our attitudes can come from our childhood experiences eg if your family was very short of money always , this can influence our thinking etc. When we become Christians we must ask God to help us to leave these experiences behind and trust Him to deliver us and to learn right attitudes to money etc. If we truely love God we will want to give Him back as much as possible to further His Kingdom. Q6. Jesus is a great example of how our righteousness indignation should be tempered.Jesus loved those He was angry with, He loved them but disliked their actions. Because of His Holiness He had to deal with sin and wrongful actions. Even if we love people we must correct their sin and make them aware that what they are doing is sinful. If we don’t know the people that we are angry with we must endeavour to love them and share Jesus’s love with them.

Q1. Jesus knew supernaturally that there would be a donkey in that place. He also had many friends who were more than willing to give what they had to help Jesus in any way that they could. If the disciples were challenged Jesus had instructed them to say that “ The Master had need for the donkey”. Once they heard who needed their donkey they were willing to let the disciples take it away with them. Q2.A donkey was an acceptable mode of transport for a Jewish nobleman at this time. There are many references to this in God’s Word, eg Zechariah 9v9. 2Samuel18v9. speaks of Absalom riding a colt. When Jesus told His disciples that He should ride a donkey that has not been ridden before He was declaring Himself to be a King, the Messiah. This donkey was set apart for a particular reason because a King was going to use him. It was also a rabbinical tradition that no one should use a donkey that a King had ridden on. Q3. The fact that Jesus was riding a donkey an acceptable mode of transportation for a King. It was a donkey that had not been ridden by anyone else. All the people knew Jesus was the Messiah and covered the road with their coats and palm branches. They cried out greetings of : “ Hosanna in the Highest”, “ Hosanna to the Son of David”, Blessed is the King of Israel”. These are all signs that the people knew Jesus was the Messiah. Jesus would have stopped them if they were wrong but now was His time to declare who He was as He approached the end of His life having completed the first part of His ministry of preaching teaching and healing both physically and spiritually. Now He was to face the most difficult and gruesome part of His ministry, to rescue us from an eternity spent in hell. Q4.This was the right time to acknowledge that He was the Messiah if He had openly claimed before that He was the Messiah He would not have been allowed by the Pharisees to continue His ministry. Jesus had a certain amount of things He wanted to achieve before He was captured and put to death and if He openly declared who He was too early His ministry would have been cut short. Q5. The people recognised who Jesus was and were praising and glorifying Him. The Pharisees were not happy, maybe they recognised also but were not prepared to accept Jesus as Messiah because He did not fit in to what they expected the Messiah to be. Although they studied the Scriptures they failed to recognise and accept Jesus as Messiah. They just resolved more firmly to get rid of Him, little realising that by so doing they were fulfilling Scripture.

Q4. The promise to claim is Heavenly Wisdom which God gives generously without finding fault. The conditions attached are that we must be firm in our faith no double mindedness and no sin in our hearts. If we have any sin we will not hear God’s wisdom. Trial drive us to spend more time in God’s presence. Trial help us to realise just what is important and helps us to grow in Heavenly Wisdom.

Q3. Doublemindedness means having two minds about something in this case we are thinking about our faith and following God. When we are not 100% convinced about our faith we are double minded and this leaves us vulnerable to temptation. However when trials come and our backs are against the wall , and we don’t know where to turn we turn to God and hold on and pray like never before. Little by little we realise that Jesus is helping us through this difficulty and slowly our faith begins to blossom. We realise how sinful we are and with God’s help we stop sinning and doing wrong. Gradually when trials and temptations come we begin to turn to Jesus first and not wait until all else fails.

Q2. People blame God for evil because they don’t fully understand who God is and everything He stands for. Sometimes it is easier to shift the blame to God rather than accepting that we ourselves have a tendency to evil and it is our own desires that lead us to do evil. God does not tempt us to evil. God is diametrically opposed to everything that is evil.God has given us free will. We can chooses good or evil, unfortunately many times we choose evil over good. All evil comes from satan who is evil through and through. God allows evil in the world, but it will not go on indefinitely it will come to an end. By allowing evil in the world we have the opportunity to choose to follow Jesus and bring Him glory or we can give into our sinful desires and please satan.

Q1.When I was a young Christian I used to ask God why He was allowing me have such difficult times in my life. As I have grown and matured I have learnt that because I am a Christian does not mean I am immune to trials and tribulations. In fact I have more difficulty because I am a Christian following in the footsteps of Jesus! However I now know that God is working out His purposes through each and every difficulty and is honing me into what He wants me to be. I also know that when the way gets really tough once I turn to Him in prayer He always without fail lightens that load.

Q1. The nobleman represents Jesus who will return as King and every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Q2. We are all given gifts and abilities to use for God. Depending on how we use these and how productive we are for the Lord we will be rewarded. Our reward will be far greater than our faithfulness in the small matter we were entrusted with. We are being tested in a small way but the reward for our dedication and faithfulness will be great. Q3.The master was pleased with the servants faithfulness in a small matter because he knew he could trust him with far greater things. It wasn’t about his servants making him more money it was about the master seeing their faithfulness in serving him and knowing they would be faithful in far greater responsibilities. Q4. He was lazy and stubborn and blamed his master by saying he was afraid of him because he was a hard man. He had deliberately done nothing to get any return on his masters money, he didn’t even put it in a bank to gain interest for his master. This really upset his master! Q5.The more productive we are in the service of God the more we will be given. The conditions are that we must be faithful and diligent and single minded. Q6. I am very conscious of the verses in Colossians 3v23 “ Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men.” I work and live my life with this verse in mind and I trust in everything God has promised both good and bad. He loves me and guides me, I can not be anything but victorious. Praise God.