Study Questions - Bible Discovery [24]

Date: September 26, 2004
Passage: Ecclesiastes 7:1-6
Message: How Then Shall We Survive
Series: Bible Discovery [24]

Life is more about survival than we think. Life has many moments that can have a major influence on what happens to us. We need to learn how to survive in a world that is threatening to consume our faith.

1. We all like to think we can ‘come to the rescue’ in a time of need. Share a time when you were able to help in one of life’s worst case scenarios.

2. Solomon gives 3 Survival Truths

(a) Character is better than charisma v1
Describe character
Discuss the importance of a good name.
“It’s hard doing the right thing when noone else around you will!”
Discuss
“It’s hard doing the right thing when it is going to cost you”
Discuss

(b) Sorrow is better than laughter v2-4
“…one of the keys to survival in this world is not to fill up our lives with endless forms of escapism so we don’t have to face issue critical to time and eternity”
Discuss

Read 2 Corinthians 4:7
What is Paul saying here to us?
How do the hard times manage to change us in a far more radical way than the good times?
“Good times tend to make us focus on what we haven’t got…..they make us want for more. Hard times tend to make us focus on what we have got….and need to cherish”
Discuss

(c) Honest rebuke is better than false compliment v5-6
Why don’t we like rebuke?
How does rebuke make us feel?
Share your experience of being rebuked or having to rebuke. What did you learn about all this?
Honest rebuke assumes that there is some defined sense of right and wrong. How do we relate to this in a world where “everyone is doing what is right in their own eyes’?