Study Questions - Bible Discovery [19]

Date: July 25, 2004
Passage: Esther
Message: Rebuilding Community
Series: Bible Discovery [19]

We were born for community. Despite the fact that sin has left us with some serious personal and relational flaws, we still have this insatiable desire to be connected. We have a deep longing to belong, to be recognised, to love and be loved.

1. Discuss what kind of community we live in here in Australia. How has community changed in the last 25 years? What has contributed to that?

2. Read Esther 4:15-16 What stands out to you in these verses? What difference did it make to Esther to have ‘all the Jews who were in Susa’ fasting for her?

3. Esther 4:16 ….if I perish, I perish. Discuss how a Christian differentiates between fate and faith.

4. “Western Christian messengers to Islam need to understand that for Muslims it is more important to belong than to believe… they need to understand that a concept of a personalised, privatised, individualised faith is foreign to their Muslim counterparts.” Discuss

5. Read Mark 2:1-12 Most of us are much happier carrying someone else’s mat than being carried. Why is that? What do we need to learn in all of this?

6. Community has been described as a ‘group which posses and implements an irrational commitment to the well being of its members’. Discuss the meaning of ‘irrational commitment’.

7. Read v5-12 This man was forced to face his sin in the midst of all this. How does community reveal who we really are? Why is it so much easier to believe in love and compassion and forgiveness than to live it out in the reality of community?