1)Listen to Podcast here
2)GG Question
GG Questions Week 1, 1/28
Seek First: Seekers Matthew 2:1-12
1. Privileged Magi: The magi were part of a select, highly educated, royal class. How does intelligence or education make believing in God or worshipping Him difficult (1 Cor. 8:1; 1 John 2:15-17)? How does it make it easier (Isa. 1:18; Ezra 7:6, 10-12; Matt. 22:37; 2 Pet. 3:15-16)?
2. Powerful Herod: How is God’s involvement in the world a threat to your independence (Rom. 14:8-9; 1 Cor. 6:19-20; 2 Cor. 5:15)? Do you ever find yourself trying to get God out of the picture (Rev.3:15-16) like Herod did in this story?
3. Gentile Response to the King: How do we join a stream of royal Gentiles, like the magi (Matt. 2:11), those who went before them (1 Kings 10:1-13), and those still in the distant future (Isa. 60:3-7, 11; Rev. 21:24) who present gifts to Israel’s king? How does this lofty picture (Heb. 12:1) transform something as mundane as an offering plate?
4. Jewish Response to the King: The magi traveled something like 800 miles to see Israel’s King, yet Herod and “all Jerusalem” wouldn’t make the 6 mile hike to see their own King. How is Matthew using this story to foreshadow what is to come (Matt. 8:11-12; 21:43)? As Gentiles once far away now brought near (Eph. 2:13), how does this account of Jewish indifference to their Messiah speak a warning (Rom. 11:19-21) to the church?
