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Jul
17

Bible Themes for a Bible Cell Group

angfrayle on July 17th, 2008

_00seminarboardThe seminar for Saturday’s 3 PM session at Olympia I continues the “Bible Themes” portion of the BEC Leaders’ Training Module.  The “Bible Themes” portion was started two weeks ago on the topic of Wisdom.

In the present series, I will be discussing ten concepts that are related to the core message of Jesus’ Gospel of the Kingdom of God.

  1. Gospel
  2. Kingdom of God
  3. Abba
  4. Repentance/Conversion
  5. Christ (christos, messiah, anointed)
  6. Parables
  7. Disciples
  8. Prophet  (* Suffering Servant)
  9. Faith (Hope and Love)
  10. Jerusalem

The topics were chosen on the basis of the Sunday gospel reading.  Since the Parables of the Kingdom found in Matthew 13 are now offered in the liturgy, I thought of presenting the topics mentioned above so that the participants may be more sensitive to the existence of “key words” in the Gospel reading. 

Matthew’s Parables of the Kingdom disclose a mystery to the disciples hiding that same mystery from others.  Like the prophet Isaiah, Jesus’ words create two groups of people:  those who repent and enter the kingdom, and those who do not.  Those who repent are those who have faith in Jesus, and who have begun to experience the reality of the One whom Jesus calls Abba.  The krisis that Jesus provokes with his words partly derives from the resistance of people to the idea that He is the Messiah who would suffer and die.  Even Peter who proclaimed him the Christ, rebuked him for talking about his death in Jerusalem.  The parables of the sower that one finds in Matthew 13, point to another parable, the one about a vineyard owner’s son who gets killed because of workers who would not give him the fruits of the harvest (Matthew 21:33-45).  The seed that is sown, the Gospel, bears fruit in the hearts of those who have taken in Jesus and made Him their own.

Last week, we discussed nn. 1–4.  Depending on the time element, we will discuss the rest of the key words this Saturday.

 

Matthew 21:33-45
View in: NAB NIV KJV NJB Vulg Greek
33Hear ye another parable. There was a man an householder, who planted a vineyard, and made a hedge round about it, and dug in it a press, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen; and went into a strange country.
34And when the time of the fruits drew nigh, he sent his servants to the husbandmen that they might receive the fruits thereof.
35And the husbandmen laying hands on his servants, beat one, and killed another, and stoned another.
36Again he sent other servants more than the former; and they did to them in like manner.
37And last of all he sent to them his son, saying: They will reverence my son.
38But the husbandmen seeing the son, said among themselves: This is the heir: come, let us kill him, and we shall have his inheritance.
39And taking him, they cast him forth out of the vineyard, and killed him.
40When therefore the lord of the vineyard shall come, what will he do to those husbandmen?
41They say to him: He will bring those evil men to an evil end; and will let out his vineyard to other husbandmen, that shall render him the fruit in due season.
42Jesus saith to them: Have you never read in the Scriptures: The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner? By the Lord this has been done; and it is wonderful in our eyes.
43Therefore I say to you, that the kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and shall be given to a nation yielding the fruits thereof.
44And whosoever shall fall on this stone, shall be broken: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it shall grind him to powder.
45And when the chief priests and Pharisees had heard his parables, they knew that he spoke of them.
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