Gethsemane Ev. Lutheran Church
A thirteen week self study journey through the Old Testament to help you better understand Old Testament life and God's relationship with his people. Each week will present new thought provoking questions for your review. In some cases there is no "right" answer but further study of the Bible will help you chose the best answer. A free copy of the discussion guide can be found at www.nph.net/sani2calvary.
Chapter 1 - God Identified Himself by Name
Chapter 2 - Living Under God's Covenant
Chapter 3 - A Special Homeland
Chapter 4 - A Table Set by God
Chapter 5 - Living Under Law and Gospel
Chapter 6 - God's Path of Worship
Chapter 7 - Leaders Appointed by God
Chapter 8 - Custodians of God's Word
Chapter 9 - A Preview of the Promised Savior
Chapter 11 - Disciplined by God
Chapter 12 - A Song on Their Lips
Chapter 13 - A Future Life in a Better World
Chapter 1 - God Identified Himself by Name
1. How did you come to know God? Did that process start in your mind? Explain.
2. If a friend of yours denies that there is a God, could you prove your friend is wrong?
3. If you can't prove that God exists, then why do you believe in him?
4. In what different ways did God make himself known to Abraham's descendants?
5. Why would God do something for Israel that he hadn't done for any other nation?
6. In what way does God speak to people today?
7. Why do some people not hear God's voice when he speaks?
8. How has your faith changed since you were a little child? How has it not changed.
1. What is God telling you about himself when he identifies himself as Elohim?
2. What does the creation account tell you about God?
3. What adjectives would you use to describe God?
4. When in your life did you underestimate the power of God?
5. What differences does it make in your life today that God is still Elohim?
6. Respond to the person who says to you, "If God is s all-knowing and all-powerful and as good as you say he is, he would punish evildoers."
7. Would you say more things in this world are going badly than are going well?
8. What evidence do you see that God cares about the world he created?
9. Why aren't you terrified by the wickedness of the devil and all his terrorist agents?
1. In what way does the message announced by his name humble us?
2. How does the name help you define what sin is?
3. Why does God hate sin?
4. According to Isaiah 43: 21, for what purpose were we created? How do you do that?
1. Which two characteristics of God does this name emphasize?
2. Why do we call this God's covenant name?
3. What does Yahweh mean when he calls himself a jealous God (Exodus 20:5)?
4. As you read the Old Testament, why must you distinguish between God as Lord and God as LORD?
El Shaddai, "God Almighty"
1. What comfort can we take from knowing that our God is also El Shaddai?
2. Describe the most awesome of El Shaddai's almighty acts.
1. I what way is Jesus the same as us? I what way is Jesus totally different from us?
2. Why do some people find it hard to believe tha the Bethlehem baby is God?
3. Is it really correct to say that God, the King of the universe, had to beburped and had to have his diapers chnged? Why aren't you embarrassed at that thought?
4. Read Hebrews 2:14-18 and 4:14-16. When life is difficult or when you're hurting, why is it reassuring for you to know that Jesus is a human being?
5. In order to be our Savior, why did Jesus have to be a real human being? (2 answers)
6. In order to be our savior, why did Jesus have to be God?
Questions - send an email to Pastor Finn - GETHSEMANE144@MSN.COM
Chapter 2 - God Identified Himself by Name
1.
What were the differences between the religion of Old Testament Israel
and the religion of its heathen neighbors?
3.
How did their gods supposedly look upon human beings?
4.
By contrast, how does the Old Testament describe the relationship
between God and his human creatures?
1.
What was the covenant God made when he called Abraham?
3.
Why did God obligate himself by making a covenant with the descendants
of Abraham?
4.
What evidence of God’s mercy do you see in that covenant?
5.
Why did God establish circumcision as a sign of his covenant with
Abraham?
6.
If you had been an Israelite, what difference would this covenant have
made to you personally?
7.
During the time of the Old Testament, did God limit his love only to
ancient Israel?
8.
What good news is in the Old Testament for non-Jews like us?
9.
What good news is on the first page of the New Testament for non-Jews
like us?
10.
What good news did God’s covenant with Abraham have for his
descendants when they fell into sin? when it seemed God had forgotten about his
promise (Genesis 22:2; 37:28)?
11.
Why do we call the covenant with Abraham an unconditional covenant?
1.
Why did God make a second covenant with Israel four hundred years
later?
2.
As they marched toward the Promised Land, what message did the
Israelites’ behavior send to God?
3.
How did the Sinai covenant serve as a necessary discipline for some
stubborn children?
4.
How did it serve as a teaching tool for some immature children?
5.
What were the two conditions God attached to the Sinai covenant?
6.
Did the Sinai covenant replace the Abraham covenant for the people of
Israel?
7.
What three purposes did the Sinai covenant serve
for them?
8.
Some people consider the message announced at Mount Sinai to be the
heart of all religion. Why is it important to remember that God’s law is only
a preliminary message?
9.
How can you know for sure how God feels about you?
10.
When you feel insecure, unwanted, and unneeded, what does it mean for
you to live under God’s covenant of grace?
11.
How is your sense of worth affected by knowing God has promised:
“You’re special”?
Questions - send an email to Pastor Finn - GETHSEMANE144@MSN.COM
Chapter 3 - God Identified Himself by Name
1.
Much of the Middle East is sandy desert. In the middle of that region,
however, is a horseshoe-shaped area extending from the Persian Gulf in the east
to the Mediterranean in the west. Since this region, watered by two large river
systems, can support agriculture, what name have historians given to it?
2.
Palestine lies at the southwest end of this area. If you had been an
Israelite farmer, why would you probably not have picked this land as your home?
1.
The ancient homeland of Abraham’s descendants was very small.
Compare its size to a US state.
2.
In spite of the country’s small size, however,
why was its location so strategic?
(2 answers)
3.
Why do you think the Lord chose to place his people there?
4.
Israel’s homeland was located along the major trade routes of that
day. What difference did that make in the lives of the Israelites?
5.
In time of war, those trade routes became invasion corridors. What
difference did that make in the lives of the Israelites?
1.
List the five natural regions of Palestine, from west to east.
2.
Which four bodies of water form the east and west borders of
Palestine?
3.
When the Israelites entered their new homeland, how was the way they
farmed completely different from farming in Egypt?
4.
How did Palestine’s rainfall pattern regulate its planting and
growing seasons?
5.
In their new homeland, when did a farmer’s fieldwork begin?
6.
Distinguish between what the prophets called the early rains and the
latter rains.
7.
What may be one reason why God gave his people a homeland with this
unusual rainfall pattern?
8.
How did God sometimes alter this rainfall pattern to discipline his
forgetful or backsliding people (Amos 4:7,8)?
1.
What two factors made the Promised Land less than a farmer’s dream?
2.
Why did God settle his people in a land with next-door neighbors who
hated them?
1.
How did the Sabbath year fit into God’s training program for his
people?
2.
In what way is God’s promise to provide us with daily bread similar
to the promise he made to the Israelites? (Compare Leviticus 26:3,4 with Matthew
6:33.)
3.
Which of God’s earthly blessings that you have enjoyed since you got
up this morning might you be taking for granted?
4.
Which of God’s spiritual blessings that you enjoy might easily be
taken for granted?
5.
How might we guard against taking God’s precious gifts for granted?
Questions - send an email to Pastor Finn - GETHSEMANE144@MSN.COM
Chapter 4 - God Identified Himself by Name
1.
After the Israelites left Egypt, how did a gracious God respond to
their complaint that they had nothing to eat (Exodus 16:12,13)?
2.
With his instructions about gathering manna day by day (Exodus
16:14,16), what was God teaching his people about the way he provides for us?
3.
What did Jesus say about this in his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew
6:31-34)?
4.
How does the Lord’s Prayer teach the same truth (Luke 11:3)?
1.
Which three staple crops dominated the agriculture and the diet of the
Israelites?
2.
What were their fruit crops?
3.
What do you think of the foods they ate?
4.
What does the food they ate say about their diet?
5.
What do the foods we eat say about our diets?
6.
Why do you suppose God gave his chosen people a modest standard of
living (Deuteronomy 8:3)?
7.
If God asked you to live that way, how might you react?
8.
Why is God so concerned about our attitudes toward food, clothing, and
shelter?
9.
Satan tempts us to eat and drink without thinking just as horses and
donkeys do. God gives us earthly blessings so that we will realize that he is
loving and kind. He hopes that the earthly provision he gives us will remind us
of a much greater gift he has for us. What is that?
10.
What dangers go with enjoying a higher standard of living?
1.
God wanted the Israelites to remember that their world did not revolve
around them but around him. How was their culture a reminder of that?
2.
What purpose did the laws about clean and unclean foods serve?
3.
If God commanded those food laws, why don’t we obey them (Colossians
2:16,17)?
1.
Read Numbers 11:4-6. Describe the Israelites’ attitude toward the
food God provided for them as they marched toward the Promised Land.
2.
What does their request say about their priorities in life?
3.
How might we make the same mistake that the Israelites made?
4.
God wants us to learn that if he doesn’t give us what we want, we
can want what he gives us. What role does gratitude play in your life?
5.
What promise has God given you about providing for your daily needs
(Matthew 6:25-27)?
6.
What is the goal of your life for the 24-hour period we call today (1
Corinthians 10:31)?
Questions - send an email to Pastor Finn - GETHSEMANE144@MSN.COM
Chapter 5 - God Identified Himself by Name
1.
Where do most people get their ideas of what God is like?
2.
If their ideas of God turn out to be wrong, what are the consequences?
1.
How did the descendants of Abraham find out what God is really like?
2.
Wherever God’s dealings with people are recorded in the Old
Testament, we recognize two big emotions in the heart of God. Which are they?
3.
What terms do we use to identify these two big truths of Scripture?
1.
In what way was the law God announced from Mount Sinai similar to
other law codes that were followed by ancient civilizations?
2.
Name several ways in which God’s law was different from pagan law
codes.
3.
How do you answer a person who says, “Majority opinion determines
good and evil”?
4.
What does God demand by announcing, “No other gods”?
5.
Describe a form of idolatry that may be much more insidious than
kneeling in front of an image.
6.
Would it be correct to say that the basic sin of Adam and Eve was
disobedience?
7.
How were they tempted to “play God”?
8.
Maybe when you were a child you thought: “If only God hadn’t put
that one tree in the garden, he could’ve avoided so much trouble.” Why did
God put the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden?
9.
What did Luther mean by calling that tree Adam’s and Eve’s
“church, altar, and pulpit”?
10.
How might you and I be tempted to “play God”?
1.
In what way is God’s idea of sin different from the idea most people
have?
2.
Complete the sentence: God is more interested in our _________ than he
is in our actions.
3.
What Hebrew word pictures are used in the Old Testament to describe
sin?
(3 answers)
4.
How does Adam’s and Eve’s rebellion affect your life today?
5.
Agree or disagree: When a baby is born, he or she is neither bad nor
good; the child chooses between the two as he or she grows up.
6.
How does the Bible describe the nature with which we were brought into
the world?
7.
Do we still have that nature?
8.
What evidence of the rebellion of Adam and Eve will you see on
tonight’s evening news?
9.
Some people have difficulty understanding God’s anger over sin
because they confuse it with the anger of a human being. What is the difference?
10.
Read Psalm 5:5, and supply the missing verb in this sentence: God
_____ sinners.
11.
Read John 3:16 and Romans 5:8, and supply the missing verb in this
sentence: God _____ sinners.
12.
Can both of those statements be true? How can hatred and love coexist
in God?
1.
In addition to his holy law, what other message did God announce to
the descendants of Abraham?
2.
What was the problem that faced God as he set out to rescue a sinful
world?
3.
If God cannot ignore our sin and if he cannot lower his standards, how
is it possible for him to forgive sin?
4.
Would you want a God who changes the rules and makes exceptions? Why
not?
5.
What was the solution God found to the problem that faced him?
1.
Illustrate the principle of substitution from the Old Testament.
2.
How did Christ, God’s substitute, satisfy God’s demand for perfect
obedience?
3.
How did Christ, God’s substitute, meet God’s threat to punish
disobedience?
1.
Jesus Christ has told us, “Anybody who wants to know the truth about
God will have to come to me to get it.” In view of that, what’s ahead for
anybody who looks for God apart from Jesus Christ?
2.
How does the benefit of Christ’s work become ours?
3.
Martin Luther said, “We can climb to God the Father only on the
shoulders of Jesus Christ.” What significance do you see for yourself in that
statement?
4.
What difference in your life does God’s verdict: “I pronounce you
innocent!” make for you today?
Questions - send an email to Pastor Finn - GETHSEMANE144@MSN.COM
Chapter 6 - God Identified Himself by Name
1.
Why did God consider it necessary to teach the Israelites how to
worship him?
2.
What would be wrong reasons for a person to worship God?
3.
What are the proper reasons to worship God?
4.
What similarities, if any, do you see between your worship and the
worship practices of Cain and Abel?
5.
In what way is your worship different from theirs?
6.
What new feature did the Sethites introduce into the worship of God
(Genesis 4:26)?
7.
Characterize the worship of Noah’s family after they left the ark.
(2 answers)
1.
What heathen religion did the Israelites encounter when they entered
their new homeland?
2.
Why is Canaanite worship described as a “fertility cult”?
3.
Can you think of a couple reasons why the Israelites might have been
tempted to practice Baal worship?
4.
How did God make it clear that he did not allow Baal worship?
1.
Saint Paul tells us that God treated the Israelites like immature
children (Galatians 4). How does this become clear in the worship instructions
he gave them?
2.
Can you think of a reason why God insisted that they worship him at
one central site?
3.
Name a couple reasons why the tabernacle was ideally suited to be the
place of worship for the descendants of Abraham for almost five hundred years.
4.
Of which two great events, both in the future, was the tabernacle a
foreshadow?
1.
Which important truth, at the very heart of Christianity, did the
altar represent?
2.
Explain how each piece of furniture in the tabernacle expressed a
sinner’s relationship with God.
1.
What similarities were there between the tabernacle and Solomon’s
temple as a place of worship?
2.
In what way, however, were the two completely dissimilar?
3.
Since God had chosen the temple as his earthly dwelling place, why did
he permit the Babylonians to plunder and destroy it?
4.
When the Jewish exiles returned home after 70 years in exile, what
types of problems accompanied the rebuilding of their temple?
1.
By instituting the priesthood, what important truth was God teaching
his people?
2.
What surprising truth did Saint Peter teach the early Jewish
Christians (1 Peter 2:9)?
3.
How did Martin Luther’s teaching of the priesthood conflict with the
Roman Catholic Church’s teaching about it?
4.
What does it mean for you that God has called you and equipped you to
be a priest?
5.
What specific act of priesthood do you think God has equipped you
personally to carry out for him today?
1.
In what sense did an Israelite worshiper participate less actively in
the worship service than we do in our worship?
2.
In what sense did an Israelite worshiper participate more fully in
worship than we do?
3.
Why did God ask the Israelites to kill and sacrifice perfectly good
lambs and goats?
4.
In what ways were the four blood sacrifices similar?
5.
What is the significance of the fact that all four were blood
sacrifices?
1.
What made the burnt offering different from the other three blood
sacrifices?
2.
When an Israelite brought a burnt offering, what was he saying to God?
1.
When an Israelite brought a fellowship offering, what was he telling
God? What was God saying to him?
2.
Where in our New Testament worship is this same truth emphasized?
1.
What was the specific purpose of the sin offering?
2.
Why was the ceremonial use of blood especially prominent in this
offering?
3.
What symbolism do you see in the ceremony involving the scapegoat?
1.
When an Israelite brought a guilt offering, what was its special
emphasis?
2.
Why did God command four different blood sacrifices?
3.
Read Isaiah 1:13. Since God had commanded the Israelites to bring
animal sacrifices, why did he tell the people of Isaiah’s time to stop
bringing them?
4.
By designing the path of worship for his Old Testament people, how was
God equipping them to resist the falsehood of idolatry?
1.
In what way was Israel’s worship completely different from our
Christian worship?
2.
In what way was Israel’s worship remarkably similar to ours?
3.
How is a Christian to know which of the Old Testament worship
regulations are still binding on us today?
4.
Is it possible for you to participate in a worship service and not see
Christ? (Have you ever attended church, and God was there, and you were there,
but you never met?)
5.
Luther said: “A heart which believes that God has been reconciled to
us on account of Christ will produce a cheerful countenance and happy eyes. It
will loosen the tongue for praising God.” How does your worship affect your
voice? your face? your hands?
6.
What might you do to improve your own worship life?
Questions - send an email to Pastor Finn - GETHSEMANE144@MSN.COM