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Exodus 23:1-19: Doing Good Through Truth and Justice

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God has applied the Ten Commandments through a series of case laws that address basic human rights, private property, and social justice. Now he turns to essential matters of truth and justice.

Observation of Exodus 23:1-19

Most repeated words: not (9 times), feast (5x), keep (5), year (5) day (3), donkey (3), eat (3), field (3), lawsuit (3), let (3), nor (3), poor (3), rest (3), sojourner (3), time (3)

  • If we include common stop words, this passage continues the case-law trend of frequently using “you,” “shall,” “of,” “your,” “with,” and “for.”
  • A shift to the sabbath commandment is apparent from “feast,” “keep,” “year,” “day,” “rest,” and “time.”
  • Another theme seems to be oppression or justice (lawsuit, poor, sojourner).

The structure clearly divides into two sections, with a noteworthy conclusion:

  • 10 instructions about truth and justice (applying “don’t bear false witness”)
    • 4 instructions about wicked partiality – Ex 23:1-3
      • Don’t ever join testimony about someone without evidence, even if it will help people in need.
    • 2 instructions about being true to your enemies – Ex 23:4-5
      • Don’t pretend you weren’t aware of their needs.
    • 3 instructions about perverting justice in legal proceedings – Ex 23:6-8
      • Don’t act like the wicked, who are not able to see things clearly.
    • 1 instruction about being true to sojourners – Ex 23:9
      • Don’t feign ignorance of what it’s like to be a sojourner.
  • 6 instructions about work and rest (applying “remember the sabbath”)
    • 2 instructions about working hard so you can rest and provide for others – Ex 23:10-12
    • 1 instruction about crediting the right god (Ex 23:13) – this might be an application of “don’t take Yahweh’s name in vain”
    • 1 instruction, with 3 instances, about keeping Yahweh’s appointed feasts – Ex 23:14-17
    • 2 instructions about authorized offerings – Ex 23:18-19a
  • 1 concluding instruction about how to boil a young goat – Ex 23:19b
    • This final instruction stands apart, as it’s not really about work and rest (goats would not be boiled, but roasted, during an offering at a feast)

In addition, the next verse (Ex 23:20) takes us in a new direction. The rest of chapter 23 doesn’t have any case laws, but more of a vision for obeying the case laws. So the instruction about boiling a young goat takes a prominent place as the last instruction.

Holly Occhipinti (2013), Creative Commons

 

Interpretation of Exodus 23:1-19

Some possible questions:

  1. Why does God give so many instructions about truthful justice?
  2. What does the Lord want to communicate about the purpose of the sabbath?
  3. Why are the culinary habits of young-goat chefs so prominent? What is significant about boiling a young goat in its mother’s milk? Why is this the last case law?

My answers (numbers correspond to the questions):

  1. Clearly, we all are prone to one form of bias or another, so the Lord warns against it from all sides. Watch out for peer pressure (Ex 23:1), social pressure (Ex 23:2), and victimization (Ex 23:3). Don’t let your negative feelings toward someone prevent you from treating them humanely (Ex 23:4-5). Watch out for power-mongering (Ex 23:6), reversing God’s standards (Ex 23:7), and profiting personally from legal outcomes (Ex 23:8). Don’t ever forget what it’s like to be one of the little guys (Ex 23:9). Our sinful hearts will seek any direction away from truth and toward self-preservation. Be on your guard!
  2. The sabbath is not merely about going to church on Sunday, nor about dutiful religious activity. It requires hard work (Ex 23:10). For the Israelites, it’s not just one day per week, but also three weeks out of every year, and one year out of every seven. The purpose is not primarily for you, or even for God, but for others. The sabbath year is so “that the poor of your people may eat” (Ex 23:11). The sabbath day is so “that your ox and your donkey may have rest, and the son of your servant woman, and the alien, may be refreshed” (Ex 23:12). Here in the Old Testament, we learn why Jesus had little patience for people who refused to do good on the sabbath. When Jesus himself did so, he was never breaking the sabbath command, but actually obeying it.
  3. A mother’s milk was created by God to give life to her young. Boiling a young goat in its mother’s milk would be taking what was meant for life and using it as an implement for death. Perhaps this instruction is the last case law, to serve as a metaphor for the entire code of Ex 21-23. This body of instruction is meant to give you life, by showing you how God’s character works itself out in your community. Don’t use it (the law) to kill or destroy. In other words, don’t use it to try to earn God’s favor, which you already have (Ex 20:2). Don’t use it to bludgeon people into submission (as the Pharisees tried to do with Jesus and his disciples). Don’t use it to lay burdens on people without lifting a finger to help them carry those burdens. Instead, use the law to help improve the quality of life for God’s people in God’s world.

Train of thought:

  • Blind justice preserves extreme truthfulness.
  • Hard work promotes true rest.
  • Implements of life must never be twisted into agents for death.

Main point: God’s people diligently employ truth and rest to do good for others.

Connection to Christ: Jesus not only spoke the truth but was himself the embodiment of Truth (John 14:6). And Jesus’ work was never for himself but always for the good of others (Acts 10:38). He died, according to the will of his Father, so self-interested liars like us could have life.

My Application of Exodus 23:1-19

I usually focus on personal/inward application, but this text provokes me to focus more outwardly and culturally. We must apply these truths as a people before God, and God has called me to help influence the world for him.

So as a part of this community, I must fight to prevent channels of life from becoming instruments of death. Truth and justice matter, for the good of others. There is a time and a place for death (such as the field of battle, the hospice, and the execution chamber). But schools are not for shooting. Hospitals are not for euthanizing. Medical clinics are not for aborting. Homes are not for fighting or yelling. Conversations are not for tearing down. Sabbaths are not for coercing. And Bibles are not for thumping or berating.

Click here to see what I’m doing with this sample Bible study and why I’m doing it.

The Real Reason We Don’t Read Our Bibles

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I’ve heard many reasons why people struggle to read their Bibles. My co-blogger Ryan has written about many of them:

Of course, in our most lucid moments, we’ll acknowledge these reasons are lame. But they continue to ensnare us on almost a daily basis.

So I appreciated Brandon Smith’s recent article, “The Real Reason We Don’t Read Our Bibles.” Smith suggests that the underlying excuse behind all the other excuses is that we forget that God’s word is living and active. That the living God is still speaking to us today and meeting with us in the pages of his word.

Want to know what God thinks? Not just what he thought, but what he thinks? Open your Bible. The Spirit lives within you to help you understand God’s will and character, to help you taste and see something fresh and new that you’ve never seen before. A passage you read five years ago might speak to you differently today, because the living God speaks to you through his living Word, right here and right now.

If only this truth would get under our skin, the rest of our excuses might evaporate into the vaporous void of nothingness they are.

Smith gets this just right. Check it out!

Exodus 22:16-31: Social Justice Done God’s Way

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Having established basic human rights, even for society’s least, and basic property rights, to promote peace between one person and another, the Lord’s body of case laws moves on to bigger issues of social justice that will affect the entire community.

Observation of Exodus 22:16-31

Most repeated words: shall (21 times), you (20x), not (9), your (9), for (6), if (6), me (5), any (4), give (4), I (4), cry (3)

  • On this section’s list of repeated words, I’ve included some of the common “stop words” that I normally exclude. Usually, words like shall, you, your, for, me, and I aren’t terribly significant compared to other vocabulary used. But in this section, they take pre-eminence.
  • In particular, we see often in this passage the reasons (“for”) why “you” “shall” “not” do certain things.
    • And those reasons usually have to deal with what is true about “I” and “me” (Yahweh God).

This section is filled with reasons for the case laws—something lacking in the first two sections of instruction

  • We’ve seen the English word “for” before this, but only as a preposition (“it came for its hiring fee,” Ex 22:15), not a conjunction (“for you were sojourners,” Ex 22:21).
  • Ex 22:21: Don’t wrong a sojourner, for you were sojourners in Egypt.
  • Ex 22:23-24: If you mistreat widow and orphans, I (God) will hear their cry and make your wives widows and your children orphans (i.e. I will kill you).
  • Ex 22:27: Don’t take a poor person’s cloak as collateral, for that is his only covering.
  • Ex 22:27: If he cries out, I will hear, for I am compassionate.
  • Ex 22:31: Don’t eat roadkill, for you are consecrated (special) to me.

This section begins with a case of sexual impurity (Ex 23:16), and it ends with a case of dietary impurity (Ex 23:31).

  • In between, we have many cases dealing with broad societal issues, such as who may (not) live in the community (Ex 23:18-20), how the community treats aliens and the weak (Ex 23:21-27), and how the community treats God and its leadership (Ex 23:28-30).
  • All throughout, there are references to fathers, daughters, widows, wives, children, firstborn and sons. Lots of familial terminology.

Structure:

  1. 5 cases dealing with impurity in the community (Ex 23:16-20)
  2. 4 cases dealing with oppressive treatment of society’s weakest (Ex 23:21-27
  3. 4 cases dealing with insubordinate treatment of society’s leadership (Ex 23:28-30)
  4. 1 case demonstrating the implications of being a special people for God (Ex 23:31)

    Chris Potter (2012), Creative Commons

Interpretation of Exodus 22:16-31

Some possible questions:

  1. Which of the Ten Commandments are being applied here?
  2. Does God require a woman to marry her rapist (Ex 22:16, also Deut 22:28-29)?
  3. Why does this passage suddenly give so many reasons and purpose statements?

My answers (numbers correspond to the questions):

  1. Some of the cases are clear applications of “do not commit adultery” (Ex 22:16-17, 19). Ex 22:20 seems to apply “no other gods.” Ex 22:28 seems to apply “don’t take God’s name in vain.” But what do we do with the case of the sorceress (Ex 22:18)? Or moneylending (Ex 22:25-27)—is that about “do not steal”? The cases in Ex 22:16-31 are not as clear as the earlier sections were. But because of all the familial language, the rooting of many of these cases in the character and relationship of God with his people, and the fact that adultery has to do with much more than extramarital human sexual relations (e.g. see Hosea 1:2, 2:2, etc.)—for those three reasons, I’m inclined to see all of Ex 22:16-31 as applying the command “don’t commit adultery.” These cases deal with sexual ethics, as well as the purity of the community as the Bride of God. I wouldn’t fight too hard for this conclusion, but it’s where I’ve come to at this point.
  2. This interpretive question is not critical to understanding the whole passage, but I mention it because I think it’s a common question for those who accuse the Bible’s ethics of being barbaric or inhumane. In Ex 22:16, the sexual activity appears to be consensual and not rape, but I could be wrong; and anyway, Deut 22:28-29 clearly addresses the case of rape. And the focus of the text is not so much to require the victim to marry her attacker, as it is for the attacker to take on the responsibility of providing for his victim for the rest of her life. In ancient Israelite culture, a woman so violated would have been utterly forsaken and destitute for the rest of her life. The requirement for the rapist to marry her was a provision for her well-being. In today’s culture, we would probably apply the principle differently: requiring the attacker to pay lifelong “alimony” to his victim.
  3. This third question moves us much farther in interpretation. When God broadens his instructions out from detailed person-to-person dealings, and into the purity of the community, he makes sure to root the community’s sense of justice in his own love for these people. He is a father to these people. He is a vengeful husband to the oppressed. Nobody messes with his bride and gets away with it. We learn much about God’s compassion and ferocious commitment to those who have no other built-in social protection.

Train of thought:

  1. The community must maintain purity as the status quo.
  2. The community must care for the least.
  3. The community must do these things in submission to the Lord their God.

Main point: Social justice is rooted in God’s just character, and it flows from maintaining purity before him.

Connection to Christ: Jesus shows us the fulness of the character of God. He came to bring justice to the oppressed and declare freedom to captives. He did that by laying down his life to win for himself a true bride, whom he will one day present pure and spotless.

My Application of Exodus 22:16-31

Social justice begins in my home and my church, and it moves out from there to society. If we compromise purity before God, our attempts at justice get nowhere. If we don’t move out to bring justice, our attempts at purity before God are self-serving and ultimately unconvincing. As a husband, father, and church elder, I must persevere in protecting our purity and in persuading folks to keep looking outward to minister Christ’s justice to the nations. Our compassionate God expects it of us.

Click here to see what I’m doing with this sample Bible study and why I’m doing it.

Exodus 21:33-22:15: Private Property and Restitution

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From the start, God’s case laws show that his kingdom is not like the kingdoms of the world, because even the lowest in society have basic human rights. These rights affect the way we treat even one another’s property.

Observation of Exodus 21:33-22:15

Most repeated words: if (17 times), ox (11x), man (10), not (9), make (8), owner (8), beast (7), restitution (7), neighbor (6), sheep (6)

  • The shift from slavery and violence (Ex 20:22-21:32) to non-human property is clear even from the repeated words

As with the previous section, the main unit of grammar remains the sentence, but sentences are grouped into paragraphs that give alternative situations.

The theme of this entire section is restitution: paying someone back for what was lost, broken, or stolen.

  • Owners can be held liable for both active (Ex 21:35) and passive (Ex 21:33) negligence. It doesn’t matter whether they cause damage or simply fail to prevent it.
  • The basic penalty for theft is to repay double (Ex 22:4).
    • But high-handed profiteering from theft (killing or selling stolen beasts) requires much higher restitution, based on the profitability of the stolen goods.
  • Allowing something in your care to steal from another is still a form of theft (Ex 22:5). Owners and managers cannot make the argument that they’re not responsible for the theft that occurred under their leadership.
  • The issue of restitution can get complicated as it involves a “breach of trust” between one person and another (Ex 22:9).
  • Borrowers are responsible to care for possessions in their care, but lenders assume a level of risk they cannot control (Ex 22:7-15).
  • Sometimes there is not enough evidence to assign blame. In such cases, both parties must trust each other’s word and then God with the outcome (Ex 22:11).

Structure:

  • 3 cases of restoring damage from negligence (Ex 21:33-36)
  • 7 cases of restoring damage from theft (Ex 22:1-6)
  • 7 cases of restoring damage to borrowed property (Ex 22:7-15)

Interpretation of Exodus 21:33-22:15

Some possible questions:

  1. Why is it so important to hold people responsible for property damage? Why not just expect people to be generous and to share freely, overlooking any damage to their stuff?
  2. Why must thieves repay double what they stole?
  3. Why are there so many cases dealing with borrowed property?
  4. What are the implications for laws today about negligence or theft?

My answers (numbers correspond to the questions):

  1. From this text, I’m not sure there’s a complete answer, other than the fact that God cares about it. These case laws clearly apply the command “do not steal,” and thus highlight that command’s assumption of the right to hold private property. Of course God is generous, and he calls his people to be always generous and ready to share (1 Tim 6:18). But generosity is not at odds with the expectation that your neighbor will pay for the repairs if he backs his car into the side of your house.
  2. I can only guess at what the text implies, which is that the penalty for theft is to bring on you what you tried to bring on another. If you steal one sheep, you must pay back two sheep—which makes YOU the one who ends up down one sheep.
  3. Since the commands are applying “do not steal,” we might assume “stealing” means causing only intentional property damage. But the concept applies to many other areas, even when our negligence or failure to protect causes damage. God’s people don’t demand that others be generous with them; instead they pay what they owe and return borrowed items in the same or better condition. In fact, God’s standards for restitution involve a generous repayment not only for damaged property but also for lost time and trust.
  4. I’ll leave this question to the legislators, but it does make me wonder whether we’d better disincentivize fraud and theft if we followed these principles. Instead of flat fines, arbitrary fines, or even jail time, the threat of double restitution might cause more citizens and corporations to better count the cost of their negligent or fraudulent actions.

Antony Majanlahti (2005), Creative Commons

Train of thought: 

  • Pay back what you accidentally damage.
  • Pay back what you intentionally damage.
  • Pay back damage that occurs on your watch.

Main point: It is good and God-like to pay restitution for damage done to others’ property.

Connection to Christ: Jesus had everything taken from him (Luke 9:58, Matt 27:35), yet he never demanded payment (Luke 23:34). Jesus repays not double, but a hundredfold to those who suffer damages in his service (Mark 10:29-30).

My Application of Exodus 21:33-22:15

This may sound incredibly mundane, but this passage demands it: I must return the things I have borrowed from others, or pay to replace things damaged under my care. It is so easy for me to presume on the kindness of my friends and forget that I’ve borrowed their property. Eventually, borrowed items just become part of my collection once I forget who loaned them to me, but this is not okay.

Loving my neighbor as myself means I treat other people’s stuff as if it were my own. And I teach my children to do the same.

Yet at the same time, I truly can be graciously generous if others don’t do the same. Jesus is well able to repay whatever I lose in his name and for his service.

Click here to see what I’m doing with this sample Bible study and why I’m doing it.

Bible Study for Ordinary Canadians (And the Rest of Us)

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I recently had the opportunity to appear on Indoubt, a podcast for Back to the Bible Canada, where I spoke with host Isaac Dagneau about Bible study for ordinary people. We spoke about why believers study the Bible, how to do it, and what role the Holy Spirit plays in our Bible study. The 28-minute audio episode could serve as an introduction to the topic of Bible study for ordinary folks.

Check it out!

Exodus 20:22-21:32: Basic Human Rights

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With a few guiding principles in hand, we’re ready to look at the case laws delivered to Moses.

Observation of Exodus 20:22-21:32

Most repeated words: if (20 times), not (15x), slave (14), man (11), go (10), out (9), master (7), ox (7), then (7), when (7)

  • The frequent use of “if,” “then,” and “when” should not surprise us, as we’re dealing with specific applications of the Ten Commandments.
  • A major relationship in this section is that of slaves and their masters.

The grammar of the case laws consists of lists of relatively short statements, each describing a specific scenario. The sentences are arranged into groups, but the essential unit is the sentence.

Ex 20:22 is a narrative introduction (“And Yahweh said to Moses”), framing all the case laws into a single divine speech that doesn’t end until Ex 23:33.

  • However, Ex 20:22-26 appears to be an introduction to the case laws, since Ex 21:1 marks the main body of laws (“Now these are the rules that you shall set before them.”).

Grouping topics into paragraphs, and taking note of the narrative markers, yields the following structure:

  • Introduction to the case laws: The God who speaks from heaven gives 4 instructions about how he is to be worshiped—applying the commands for “no other gods” and “no graven images” (Ex 20:22-26).
  • Slavery: 8 instructions about possessing slaves—applying “do not steal.”
    • 4 instructions about male slaves (Ex 21:1-6)
    • 4 instructions about female slaves (Ex 21:7-11)
  • Violence: 16 instructions about conflict and assault—applying “do not murder.”
    • 3 instructions about murder and manslaughter (Ex 21:12-14)
    • 3 capital offenses involving parents and kidnapping—applying not only “do not murder” but also “honor father and mother” (Ex 21:15-17)
    • 6 instructions about humans assaulting one another (Ex 21:18-27)
      • A: 1 case of direct assault (Ex 21:18-19)
      • B: 2 cases of assaulting a slave (Ex 21:20-21)
      • A’: 2 cases of indirect assault on a pregnant bystander (Ex 21:22-25)
      • B’: 1 case (with 2 examples) of permanently injuring a slave (Ex 21:26-27)
    • 4 instructions about livestock assaulting humans (Ex 21:28-32)

      Les Stockton (2009), Creative Commons

Interpretation of Exodus 20:22-21:32

Some possible questions:

  1. Why do instructions about worship introduce the body of case laws?
  2. Why do the case laws begin with the topic of slavery?
  3. So what should we conclude the Bible teaches about slavery?
  4. What do these laws reveal about God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ?

My answers (numbers correspond to the questions):

  1. The Ten Commandments began with the topic of worship. This suggests that the foundation for everything we do is the worship of God. If we get worship wrong, we get everything else wrong as well. In addition, when the covenant is broken in Exodus 32, the Israelites transgress almost every instruction in Ex 20:22-26. The narrative thus highlights the primacy of these worship matters.
  2. Again, the Ten Commandments help, in that God introduces them with, “I am Yahweh your God…who brought you out of the house of slavery” (Ex 20:2). These people have just been lifted out of slavery; slavery is all they’ve ever known. Yet the Pharaohs were hardly model slave-masters. We could go back over Exodus 1-15 to show how the Pharaohs explicitly violated every one of the principles in Ex 21:1-11. In their new freedom, Israel must not do “slavery” the way it was done to them. They must not drift into what they’re used to. God’s kingdom is altogether different. In particular, slaves have rights. Even female slaves have rights. I believe no other ancient law code gives rights to slaves or to women or to slave women in this way—especially not in the law code’s first article.
  3. Does this mean that slavery is a good idea, commended by the Bible? I will defer this question for another day and another passage, as this text does not address it. But what this passage does teach—and what must be included in any discussion of the Bible’s teaching on slavery—is that slavery always has an end. It was never to be permanent (though we could quibble over the permanence of the voluntary slavery to a generous, humane, and inspirational master in Ex 21:4-6). In the seventh year, slaves were to go free. When mistreated or denied their rights, slaves were to go free. And kidnapping people for the slave trade was a capital offense (Ex 21:16).
  4. God is not like the gods of other nations. God cares about those who usually go uncared for, and who may be unable to care for themselves. God values life, peace, and justice for the oppressed. God instills humanity with basic rights to life and liberty. God holds owners responsible for patterns of behavior even in their animals. God’s justice means, when harm is done, life must be given for life, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. Wrongdoing cannot go unpunished in his kingdom.

Train of thought:

  • Worship the unique God uniquely
  • Protect the rights of even society’s lowest
  • Value life and peace over self-advancement

Main point: God’s kingdom is different from the world’s kingdoms in that all its citizens have rights, and justice is the cost of living.

Connection to Christ: Jesus took on the form of a slave to rescue us from our bondage to sin. By his wounds we are healed. Jesus gave his life to pay for our violation of God’s justice. Jesus is God over all, who is blessed forever. Amen.

My Application of Exodus 20:22-21:32

Though God has given me real authority as a parent, he also expects me to honor the rights of my household members. Even if I feel rushed, annoyed, upset, or discouraged that the same issue keeps coming up, my children deserve to be treated with respect. They have the right to an opinion. They have the right to a hearing. They have the right not to be condemned and punished on the testimony of a single embittered sibling. They have the right to know why I’m asking what I’m asking. When I meditate on how justice works in God’s kingdom, I’m motivated to much greater patience and compassion as a leader.

Click here to see what I’m doing with this sample Bible study and why I’m doing it.

The Myth of Literal Bible Translations

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Because this blog is for ordinary people, who don’t typically know Greek or Hebrew, we don’t write much about translation issues. But once in a while there’s an opportunity to speak to an issue that impacts ordinary Bible readers broadly. One such issue is the popular, yet misleading, assumption that some English Bible translations are more literal than others.

Bill Mounce, Greek scholar and author of one of the best-selling Biblical Greek textbooks, wrote recently about translation philosophies, and the popular misconceptions of what they mean. Mounce has served on translation committees for both the ESV and the NIV, so he’s well qualified to comment on a variety of philosophies.

Speaking about the two main categories, he writes:

Most people say there are two translation camps, formal equivalent [word-for-word] and functional equivalent (or dynamic equivalent) [thought-for-thought]. The longer I am in translation work, the more I see how simplistic this division is.

There actually are five methods on translation with three sub-categories for the handling of gender language. Translations are all on a continuum, overlapping one another, and hence it is misleading to picture them as different points on a line. I am guessing, but for example, about eighty percent of the ESV and the NIV are the same, once you account for different translations of individual words.

Mounce goes on to explain that, except for a few interlinear Bibles (which aren’t really English translations), no English Bible is literal.

The word “literal” should never be used of any other form of translation since all of them, every single one, despite their marketing, rarely translate word-for-word. They will say they translate word-for-word unless it does not make sense or misinforms, but that is a red herring argument. They are never consistently word-for-word, unless you can find a translation that translates John 3:16 as, “in this way for loved the God the world so that the Son the only he gave in order that each the believing into him not perish but have life eternal.” No Bible on the market is “literal.”

Mounce goes on to describe more nuanced categories of translation, which should inform how we think about our English Bibles. In addition, he addresses the matter of gender language, arguing that there is no English translation in existence that is “gender neutral,” and we should not ignorantly use the term to describe any well-known, modern English Bible.

Mounce’s full article is useful and easy to read; it uses no Greek. Check it out!

How to Discuss the Sermon in Your Small Group

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Jon Flobrant (2015), public domain

Sometimes the best solution is the obvious one.

My small group at church was between books. We finished Isaiah and were about to begin Luke, but we needed a topic to fill a gap. Since we meet on Sunday nights and attend the same worship service on Sunday mornings, I realized the answer was staring me in the face. We could discuss the sermon!

A few people in my group had experience with sermon discussions. They knew this wasn’t just a repetition of the preacher’s outline. This was good, hard work. Like strong hands kneading dough, God can use discussions like this to press the application of his word deep into the lives of his people.

Why Discuss the Sermon?

The preacher isn’t the only one with sermon work to do. He studies, prays, and prepares, but the folks in the pews have a job too.

We need to listen carefully and weigh the sermon against Scripture. We’re also called to apply the Bible, and this is where a small group discussion can be helpful.

Consider the benefits of having a conversation about the sermon.

People who anticipate a discussion like this are more likely to pay close attention during the sermon. This greater engagement naturally leads to greater spiritual blessing.

The small group will focus on application, and when several people work hard to apply the sermon together, powerful things can happen. You might see connections or sense conviction you hadn’t noticed on your own. A friend might mention needs in the church or the community that would be an ideal outlet of application.

Think of the benefits to your church if your small group members were diligently discussing the sermon and applying the Word preached! It would mean quite a transformation.

How to Lead a Sermon Discussion

It doesn’t take much to lead a sermon discussion in your small group or Sunday school class. With a little preparation and some good questions, you’ll be ready to go.

  1. Announce it. Let your group know your plans to discuss the sermon. This will encourage them to listen carefully and take notes in preparation.
  2. Apply the sermon yourself. To lead a good discussion, be sure to prepare yourself. Listen to the sermon, think about the connections and implications, and pray for insight and conviction from the Spirit. Bring some personal applications to share in case the group discussion slows down.
  3. Read the Bible passage. If your group meets directly after the worship service, this might not be necessary. But if your group meets hours or days later, reading the Bible passage will start your discussion with the proper focus.
  4. Ask open-ended questions. Begin the discussion by asking for broad takeaways from the passage or sermon. This gives an opportunity for people to share what God is teaching them. Conversations that drift into criticism of the preacher aren’t usually productive, so be prepared to steer the conversation back to the Bible.
  5. Ask application questions. Here is the heart of the discussion. Most of the work of observation and interpretation should be completed by the preacher during the sermon. Your small group provides a great setting to go deep on application. Ask your preacher to write two or three application questions for the congregation to consider; these can be printed in the bulletin along with the sermon outline. Use these questions as starters, but follow the conversation naturally into other areas of application. (You might need to remind your group about the two directions and three spheres of application.)
  6. Ask about obstacles to application. We can dream up all the applications we wish—putting them into practice is the difficult part. Once the group discusses a few concrete applications of the passage, ask what might get in the way of the changes you’re proposing.
  7. Pray! Real change in our lives doesn’t happen because of a sermon, an insight, or a small group discussion. We need the Holy Spirit’s powerful, transforming work to help us glorify God. Before your small group adjourns, be sure to commit your applications to God.

If you use your church’s sermon to propel your small group into the Bible, you’ll have lots of time to wrestle through applications. As you’re confronted with ways you need to change and encourage others to change, it won’t be easy, but it will be worthwhile.

Thanks to Peter for his help in preparing this article.