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HOME GROUP QUESTIONS

FROM SUNDAY 30 MARCH 2008

ROAMING ROMANS SESSION 13: ROMANS 8:1-11

INTRODUCTORY EXERCISE/QUESTION

Are there times when you feel you have come under the condemnation, the judgement, rightly or wrongly, of others? If so, and if you are able to, then talk about some of these occasions together, and how they made you feel.

Read the passage.

QUESTIONS

1. Does anything leap out from the passage at anyone?

(I find this can often be a good place to start! It may be that you want to come back to whatever is raised, but it gets questions out in the open, and often gets you right to the heart of the action!)

2. Verse 1. What's the "therefore" there for?

(Context? What has got us to this point? Chapter 3-7… and especially 7:1-6, as 7:7-25 is a bit of an aside)

3. Verse 1. An amazing verse! No condemnation… for who? how? Who then is condemned? Do you believe this? What are we to do about it?

4. Consider the use of the word "law" in verses 2 and 3. If in verse 2 this refers to a principle, a power, and in verse 3 to The (Old Testament) Law, how does this affect your reading of these verses?

5. Verse 3. What does it mean for Jesus to be "a sin offering"?

6. Verses 5-8. Some pretty straight talking from Paul about "the sinful nature". What do you make of what he has to say? Especially culminating in verse 8?

7. Paul uses the word "controlled" in verse 6, 8 and 9. How do you feel about the idea that we are all under someone, or something's control?

8. Verse 9. Who is it that belongs to Christ?

9. Verses 9-11. What is the work of the Spirit? Do we welcome this work? How can we foster and encourage it in each other?

MEMORY VERSE

Why not memorise Romans 8:1 and see if you can remember it next time! It's a great verse to have stored away in the back of your mind!!

Edward Hobbs
31 March 2008