Bible Study for March 31, 2024

Hi everyone,

I pray that each of you and your families are entering Holy Week with joy and excitement in anticipation of Easter.  As our Lenten observance comes to an end, we gather as Christians this week to suffer together with the Three Days of Jesus' betrayal, death and resurrection.  The attached Bible Commentary on the Easter Sunday readings assure us that Jesus is with us, adding us to the list of witnesses.  Empowered by God's Spirit, we can join in wiping away tears from each other's faces.

Pastor Tim

"God has led you to the desert, and spoken to your Heart."

Mount of Olives Lutheran Church

3546 E. Thomas Rd

Phoenix, AZ 85018

602-956-1620 office

Bible Study for March 31, 2024  

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.

John 20:1-18 How do you encounter the Living Jesus?

This Gospel has two scenes: the mystery of the empty tomb (vs. 1-10) and the first post Resurrection appearance of Jesus (vs. 11-18). The empty tomb, by itself, is not sufficient to give rise to Christian faith. There is too much room for misunderstanding. Mary shows us the typical human response to the empty tomb – someone has moved the body. Grave-robbing was quite common in the ancient world, usually looking for valuables. However, in the case of Jesus, malicious vandalism may have been on Mary’s mind, perhaps even by the Jewish or Roman authorities to prevent the gravesite of Jesus becoming a martyr’s shrine. In the second scene, Mary does not recognize Jesus, for she is looking for a corpse, not a resurrected man! The whole concept of a resurrected messiah and a risen Lord was a new interpretation of Hebrew belief grounded in Christian experience. It was only when Jesus called her by name that Mary recognized Jesus.

 Acts 10:34-43 What kinds of people or groups do we tend to try to exclude today? What would it mean for us to practice Jesus’ type of radical impartiality?

This Scripture is chosen for Easter because it speaks of the death and Resurrection of Jesus in a compact way. The Apostle Peter delivered this brief, yet powerful, sermon in the house of a Roman centurion named Cornelius. Cornelius, along with his household, were “God-fearers”, Gentiles who worshipped the God of Israel without converting to Judaism. Peter helps the church to see that God’s plan of salvation extends beyond Israel to all the nations of the earth. The church has spread and grown at this point throughout Judea, Samaria, and Galilee. Now they must fulfill Jesus’ call to go to “the ends of the earth.” For these Jesus-loving Jews, this meant overturning their long-held opinion of Gentiles as unclean. As Peter proclaims in the first verse of this passage, God shows no partiality.

1 Corinthians 15:1-11 What does God’s grace (unmerited favor) mean to you personally?

In this letter, Paul reminds his readers not to lose their salvation by becoming slaves to sin. Behavior and belief are irrevocably linked: your behavior reflects your beliefs and your beliefs are reflected in your behavior. In this passage, Paul recounts the foundational Christian story – in Christ’s death and resurrection, God has laid claim on God’s own creatures. Paul laces his own story into the old story – though he had once persecuted the Church, God saved him and appointed him as apostle. We can see our own lives linked to the creed in similar ways. Like Paul, we had no special merit – indeed we may have turned our backs on God’s grace. The story of our salvation has a direct impact on how we behave and even more fundamentally on why we act as we do.