Prep+ Podcast #8

Transcript

(This is a transcript generated by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy or content by Crossroads)

Hello. You're listening to the Prep Plus podcast. Hello, growth group leaders. I'm so glad to have you joining me. If you haven't done the prep yet, it's a pause. Go away and do that because this podcast will be so much more helpful to you, I think, once you've done that, but just as a motivation before you do. I think what's so helpful about this part of God's Word that we're looking at today, Jeremiah 36, is it's a story.

It's really vivid. It's quite visceral, and really, it's a comparison of two kings of King Jehovah, Kim and Jesus. But it means that it really cuts to the heart of how we treat God's Word. And our attitude to God's Word is our attitude to God. We can't really put daylight between those two things. So this is a really core issue.

It's quite a cutting issue. And so it's worth worth the worth the time. And God willing, it will be a great time with your group. So if you haven't already, go do that prep. And how about I pray with you now that this study would be really wonderful and challenging for us and for our groups, our father in heaven, we do.

Yeah, just feel keenly that sometimes we come to your word with the wrong hearts and the wrong attitude, that we can be called to it. We can be disinterested, we can listen kind of standing over it, rather than sitting under it and just wanting to learn from Jesus. And so, father, would you please challenge us through this study?

If there are people in our groups who are struggling with that attitude at the moment, Lord God, please by your spirit, use this time to challenge that in them and to really transform our attitudes to you and your Word. And we pray in Jesus name. Amen. We're in study eight on page 22. Jeremiah 36 all ripped up. And I guess the question is in that box is what happens when the king, who's meant to love God's Word, rips it to shreds?

Now, for this study, I'm just going to give you some extra ideas. Sometimes you have the time and you have the inclination to kind of Jewish study. Or perhaps you've got someone new coming, or I'll even give some ideas. If you have someone who's not Christian or you're not sure if they're Christian, you feel free to kind of adjust the study as you see fit.

You know your group, so do feel free to do that. You've got that hook question how much has it rung true in your life that our attitude to God's Word is our attitude to God? That's asking people to reflect back and say, yes. I've seen times when I was kind of flaky in my attitude to God's Word, and I felt distant from God.

Perhaps it's something like that. If you do have a new person or a non-Christian coming along and you want a more general kind of easy access. Question one which I was thinking of because we might have a non-Christian coming this week, is who's your favourite ruler of all time, real or imagined? Because we will be looking at rulers and kings today.

So as you can see from the structure diagram, we've now moved back into kind of God's judgement, the section of Jeremiah, we're out of the book of consolation, and we're back into thinking about God's judgement. Remember that Jeremiah is not chronological. So the episode that we're looking at today is in the life of King Jehovah, Kim, who's not the last king of Judah by any means, even though we've heard about Zedekiah earlier.

And we'll hear about him again. It's not chronological, it's been organised differently to that, and this study is a bit different. Rather than starting with the passage, we're actually going to start with Deuteronomy. In some ways, the book of Jeremiah sits in the lap of the book of Deuteronomy. It's just it's relying on those promises and curses that are in Deuteronomy and seeing them come true.

And in this context, it it's really set against the context of what a king is meant to look like from Deuteronomy. If you want to get some more picture of what a good king looks like from Deuteronomy 17, you could go back to verse 14 rather than just starting at 18, 18 to 20 really zooms in that a key aspect of a good king is their attitude to God's Word.

But you could zoom out if you wanted to. If you wanted to shoot up this study, you could have a crackling fire in the background. I don't have a fireplace at the ministry centre where I do Bible study. So you could do on your laptop. Just set up a crackling fire on loop and it will become apparent why that will be helpful.

Well, if you've read the passage, you know that he burns up God's Word. You could also use some butcher's paper or a whiteboard to put up that scale of a good king and a bad king, and then invite in the next question where you could split them up into pairs or groups to look up those different kings, and they could look up the two kings passages.

You could also invite them to then go look at the extras on page 34, which describes some of the events of each of those kings lives, and then use two kings, the description, two kings, and those extras, which really also just come mostly from two kings and a few, and also from other sources. You could cut out the pictures of the kings which are in the timeline.

Maybe you'd need to zoom it up, kind of blow up that page first and then cut them out so they're not teeny teeny, and they could blue tack their king on the scale, whether they think they're a good king, a bad king, or somewhere in between. I've called those kings goody Shorty, Batty Shorty and Z the last in that table on page 34.

They're shorty. Not because they're short in stature, but because their reigns were really short, only about three months. So you have that to kind of give you a picture of how the kings have been in Judah. But then we're going to zoom in on King Jehoiakim in chapter 36. So you're going to read those parts of 36 and just summarise what what is what is what does King Jehovah Kim do with Jeremiah Scroll?

And how would you summarise his attitude to God's Word? You could even have a printout of some of Jeremiah and you could rip it up. It feels really bad to do. I actually haven't done it yet because it just it feels wrong. But I think as an illustration, it's not the actual paper which is holy, it's God and his words.

So you could think about doing that, but also then thinking through. Question two, why is it so crucial for Jehovah Kim to listen to God's Word? What was at risk?

And there's a way in which he's stopping his people from being able to turn back to God if they can't hear God's voice. I mean, we know from the rest of Jeremiah's well that actually, if he closed the door, they were very happy for it to stay shut. They actually didn't want to hear God's Word anyway, but he was putting a lot at risk.

I've got a big chatty bonus question there at the bottom of page 23. Is it similarly important for our political leaders to listen to God's Word? Why or why not? Now that could be a big discussion in your group. I know that, Mike, which is what we want. We want people to do back and forth on this stuff.

So don't feel afraid to go for that question. I would say we'll talk about how to manage your time a bit. If you do do that, we want people to be chatting and thinking about the implications of this, and it's probably just helpful to think that we are not in ancient Israel. So there are differences between our context and that.

So yeah, working out, what's that going to mean for our expectations of our leaders. And I'm thinking their political leaders in particular, I do hope that Christian leaders are loving God's Word over the page, pulling the threads together. If you've if you have gone for that bonus discussion and you really are mindful of time, you could cut these questions if you needed to.

But what these two questions are trying to do, three and four is really just sink in. What we've seen about Jehovah, Kim's attitude to God's Word and how dangerous and awful that was, because it's really key that you get to questions 5 to 8, because this is where we do a stark comparison to Jesus. I've listed some passages there.

Do look those up and work out which ones you think are going to be most you think are on target for your group. You could also look at Matthew 517 to 20, which is about how Jesus fulfils God's Word. If you have a non-Christian or you're not sure where they're at Christian in your group, another option would be Colossians 213 to 14, which speaks of you.

Remember that passage? It's where we've been raised with Jesus, and that on the cross he tore up, he nailed to the cross the legal code, the legal record, our debt. So the debt there isn't God's word. He's not kind of nailing God's Word to the cross, but the debt is because we have failed to keep God's Word and he rips that up.

If you could put it that way. All the ways that we haven't loved God and loved His Word, that list Jesus rips up by his death. So if you have a non-Christian or you just think you know what, I think a gospel clarifying moment would be really helpful for my group. You could do that. You could go to that Colossians passage and use it in that way.

How you could even write out a list of ways that we fall short and that gets ripped up. How does Jesus help us listen to his word? You'll have some good thinking on that, I'm sure. Even how he fulfils this promises in Jeremiah that we've seen about new hearts. But seven and eight. Really? Let's leave some time for those, because this is where the rubber hits the road.

What are some ways that we lean away from listening to God's Word? Don't go to that Hebrews passage unless you really think you need it, because I want it's good to have good discussion around this. What techniques do we use to avoid hearing God's Word? And I mean both like actually hearing to it like you keep your Bible closed, but even like just a heart attitude of seeking to actually sitting over it, seeking other pinions with other opinions deliberately when you don't like what it says.

And so what would you like your attitude and habits to be with God's Word? That's a question where why don't you kind of share with one another your goals in that space and make a little note of them? And you could even text your group during the week on how that's going all. Make a note at the start of the next study, study nine and have as your intro question.

How did we go with that? How did you notice your heart towards God's Word over the week? Yeah. Maybe they maybe they said they wanted to read the passage before Bible study or before church. Maybe they said they wanted to actually pray that they would hear God's Word that Sunday or whatever night you have growth group. Or maybe they actually said they wanted to ask for that accountability with starting to read God's Word themselves or with their family or whatever it is.

If they want resources to do that, you go ahead and recommend what you think is helpful or reach out and say, actually, someone's asked for a resource to help them starting to read the Bible, and we can help with that as well. Of course, there is the daily reading guy that we have through the app as well, so point them in that direction as well.

But what a great opportunity this group time could be to think about kings and their attitudes to God's Word, but also think about our attitude to God's Word as well. Praying for your groups this week and so thankful to get to do this together. See ya!