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Bible Study for January 12, 2025
Opening Prayer:
Creator of all, we thank you for the opportunity to gather in study. Open our minds and hearts. By the power of the Holy Spirit, unite us in faith, hope, and love. Help us to be faithful to the gospel and to walk humbly with you. Grant us your peace as we grow in wisdom and understanding. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Luke 3:15-17,21-22 How do you respond to those that might question that Jesus is the Messiah in this day and age?
In 1000 B.C.—a millennium before John the Baptist—David became king of Judah and also Israel. The Jews remembered YHWH’s promise to David and looked for a descendant to rise as the anointed king or messiah, reunite the scattered peoples, and establish god’s reign of peace and prosperity.
Each of the Synoptic Gospels treats Jesus’ baptism differently. Luke says only that “Jesus also had been baptized.” His focus is on what happened afterward: Jesus prayed; the heavens opened; and the Spirit descended “in bodily form like a dove”; and a heavenly voice spoke. Rabbis taught that when the last of the prophets of Israel departed, so did the Spirit; but that occasionally God caused a “daughter voice” to speak from heaven. After His baptism, the voice identified Jesus as “my Son,” thus connecting Him to Israel’s past when Isaac was the child of God’s promise to Abraham. Israel’s king was called the Son of God, and Israel itself was called God’s son. Identifying Jesus as God’s son not only points to his special relationship with God but also connects Him with the people’s messianic tradition. Here is the essence of the relationship between God and Jesus—the love that blesses and unites. Coming after Luke’s report that John is imprisoned, the baptism signals the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry.
Acts 8:14-17 What hostile situations exist today in your community or denomination?
A single writer is the author of both the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts. Together they tell a continuous story. Hellenists in this account were Greek-speaking Jewish Christians who probably interpreted the Torah less stringently than the “Hebrews,” who were Aramaic-speaking Jewish Christians in the Jerusalem Church. The appointment of Philip represents the earliest expansion of Christianity into the Greek-speaking world, although he was still in Jerusalem among the Jews. Besides distributing food, Philip traveled north to Samaria on an evangelistic mission. Animosity had long existed between the Jews and Samaritans. They shared a common heritage through Jacob but differed radically in their respective commitments to Jerusalem and Mount Gerzim as sanctuaries and in their laws and purity codes. The Jews considered the Samaritans to be lax in their religious observances. Jews and the Samaritans avoided contact, as Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan demonstrates. For Luke, Jesus’ ministry moved from Galilee (north of Samaria) toward Jerusalem in the south; then Christianity later moved outward from Jerusalem. Philip’s outreach to Samaria signifies the expansion and continuation of that work.
God, your voice moves over the waters.
Immerse us in your grace,
mark us with your images,
and raise us to live our baptismal vows
empowered by the Holy Spirit
and the example of Christ our Lord,
in whose name we pray. Amen.
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