SomeTime Bible Study - Week 1

NOTE TO THE LEADER

*** This study requires preparation ahead of time! You cannot simply print off this study and show up.

This week you will be introducing “SomeTime.”   SomeTime  is a cojourner experience—a time dedicated to exploring the spiritual backstories of your friends. During this experience you will be asking friends, “Sometime, I’d like to hear about your spiritual journey…would you be up for that?” And, during that conversation (or in the next one) you will ask if you can meet to hear his or her story.

PREPARATIONS

To Do:

• Read the article SomeTime – An Overview & Guide.   You can find the article under the “Documents to Print” section

• Review 2 Corinthians 5:14-21 and associated questions

To Bring:

(If you need, information on each of these items can be found through the links below each  resource.) 

• Your copy of this study (One copy just for you)
• SomeTime – An Overview & Guide article (One for each group member)
• Soularium or Perspective Cards  (One for each group member)
• Knowing God Personally or Backstory booklets (One or more for each group member)
• Passages devotional (If provided, one for each group member) 

REVIEW

“Last week we looked at Paul’s response to the idolatry he witnessed in Athens.”

Acts 17:16, 17: “ Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there .”

Question : In what ways, if at all, did you experience an increased awareness of idolatry on campus this last week?

INTRODUCE SOMETIME

“This week’s study is going to look a little different. In fact, we are actually going to start with the application and then work our way back to the heart and ‘why’ behind it.”

Hand out & read the article: SomeTime – An Overview & Guide

Basically SomeTime is about…

1. Asking friends, “Sometime, I’d like to hear about your spiritual journey…would you be up for that?”
2. And meeting with friends who are interested in talking

Question : What are some of your thoughts on this?

(Anticipate questions your group may have. Think about what questions you had when you were first introduced to SomeTime .)

PRACTICE

“It’s helpful to experience what it might feel like to ask a ‘Sometime…’ question in a live conversation. So we’re going to pair up & practice using ‘Sometime…’ in a live situation. Consider starting with, ‘What did you do last weekend?’”

(You may want to consider reviewing the section of the article subtitled: “Asking the Question—A Practical Tip”)

HAND OUT RESOURCES

Provide to your group:

• Soularium or Perspective Cards  (One for each person)
• Passages devotional (If provided, one for each person)

OPEN THE BIBLE

Read : 2 Corinthians 5:14-21

What motivations does Paul give for helping others become reconciled to God? Why do you think Paul felt the way he did?

• The love of Christ, our spiritual view of others, and our calling as ambassadors.

What does the phrase, “we regard no one from a worldly point of view” in verse 16 mean?”

• Paul ceased to make superficial judgments based on external appearances (vs. 12). It was now his custom to view people not primarily in terms of nationality (i.e., Jew or Gentile), but in terms of spiritual status.

In what ways do we view others from a worldly point of view?

• We typically have a difficult time seeing people holistically; we often focus on the physical appearance and demeanor of friends and forget to consider their spiritual well-being.  Friends can seem successful, happy, content, etc. and we can wrongly conclude that they don’t need Christ.

In verse 15, Paul says,

“ And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for  him… ” 

In what ways might we need to die to ourselves and live for him during SomeTime ?

PRAY

• For the friends we started praying for last week and
• For ourselves—that we would take steps of faith to ask friends a “Sometime…” question

CLOSING ESSAY

The following is a fascinating essay that begins by addressing Jesus from a “worldly point of view.” But, as the essay closes, it provokes the reader to consider if he was more than a mere man.

Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman…

He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty.

Then for three years He was an itinerant preacher.

He never owned a home.

He never wrote a book.

He never held an office.

He never had a family.

He never went to college.

He never put His foot inside a big city.

He never traveled two hundred miles from the place He was born.

He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness.

He had no credentials, but Himself…

While still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. One of them denied Him. He was turned over to His enemies. He went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed upon a cross between two thieves.

While He was dying His executioners gambled for the only piece of property He had on earth – His coat. When He was dead, He was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.

Nineteen long centuries have come and gone, and today He is a centerpiece of the human race and leader of the column of progress. I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that were ever built; all the parliaments that ever sat and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as has that one solitary life. *

2 Corinthians 5:16 : “So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.”

* One Solitary Life.  Essay adapted from a sermon by Dr. James Allan Francis in “The Real Jesus and Other Sermons” © 1926 by the Judson Press of Philadelphia (p 123-124 titled “Arise Sir Knight!”).