Before the Session
Facilitator: In advance of the session
- Have the Bible Background Video ready to view.
- Review today’s scripture text and the session activities to help better facilitate the discussion.
- Encourage your group to listen to the Faithelement podcast ahead of the next session (Share the link via email or social media)
Context (From the Current Session Page)
Share with the group this recent “Thank you notes” session from Jimmy Fallon and ask:
- Think about giving thanks. What percentage of the time do you think you do so from a sincere, heartfelt feeling?
- For whom do you usually pray and why?
- What do you typically pray for when you think of political leaders and why?
- What kinds of prayers might be more or less important when praying about our society as a whole and why?
Content (From the Mind Session Page)
Read 1 Timothy 2:1-7, then watch the Bible Background Video.
Then ask questions like these
- Given his context, why do you think the writer is calling to pray for people in high positions, rather than to them?
- Why is it still important for us to pray for people in high positions?
- How does someone go about offering various types of prayers for “everyone?”
- What do you think the writer means by “a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity” and in what ways might that concept have changed over the centuries?
- The passage talks of God as “savior” and Jesus as “mediator.” How does that compare with your understanding of the New Testament from other books, and why do you think such language might be used here?
- In verse 7, the the writer interrupts the flow of words to reassure us that “I am telling the truth….” Why do you think that such an aside is necessary and in what ways do you think that such assertions affect the way people react to the message they are hearing?
Closure (from the Media Session page)
Play the War Room movie clip and ask:
- What do you think of this presentation of prayer?
- For what is Miss Clara praying?
- Why is she asking for God to show her someone else to help?
- Who in your life, if anyone, does the character of Miss Clara remind you of and why?
- In what ways does this prayer reflect this scripture’s views on what it means to be a proper citizen?
- Based on her example, what are some prayers we need to pray and why?
- Where, or to whom, do you think you need God to send you and why?
Close in prayer.