Week 3- NOOMA Sunday- Rob Bell

Watch the Video

Scripture

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: 
“The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. 
So you must obey them and do everything they tell you.  But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.  They tie up heavy loads and put them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.  Everything they do is done for others to see: 
​They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long; they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted in the marketplaces and to have men and women call them ‘Rabbi.’” Matthew 23:1-7
 
I’ve had it with you!  You’re hopeless, you religion scholars, you Pharisees!  Frauds!  Your lives are roadblocks to God’s kingdom.  You refuse to enter, and won’t let anyone else in either.   Matthew 23:13

For Discussion

1. Have you ever attended a church service out of a sense of duty or because you think you’re supposed to?
2. When it comes to church, what do you think God has in mind?
3. How much time do you spend worrying about what other people think of you?
4. Is it possible to be interested in Christian faith but turned off by Christianity?
5. Does God need us to attend a church service once or twice a week?  Why or why not?
6. How do we know that God has our hearts, and that we’re not just going through the motions?
7. Bell says, “God hates it...when we put on a religious show and then we ignore the poor and the broken and the marginalized and the oppressed.”  Have you been part of the show?  What issues in our world today do you think God really cares about?  How do you participate in the healing of the world?
8. What does it mean for our hearts to start beating more and more like God’s?  How could this change the way the world sees Christianity?