The Kingdom Study Group Questions -8A

‘Thy Kingdom Comes’ by Brother Gregory Williams

‘The Kingdom’ Study Group

Chapter 8A– p. 69- 72

A King is Born

Questions for Discussion

A King is Born

1. “Everyone knew a king was to be born. Herod knew it. The Magi, angels and shepherds know it. At Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, thousands of people hailed him as the highest son of David, the Messiah, the King, the Anointed. Jesus said it was for this cause that he came into the world, and even the Procurator of Rome admitted that this was the King and officially proclaimed it so on the epigraph nailed to the cross.”

a) What passage in the text shows that someone followed Christ’s star in the east and ‘knew a king was to be born?’

b) What passage in the text shows that ‘the Procurator of Rome admitted this was the King?’

c) What does ‘Jesus Christ’ mean, according to the text?

d) Questions for discussion: What might it have meant to be recognized as the King of the Judeans?

e) Why do you think that some critics today claim that the story of Jesus in the Bible is simply a rewrite of some of the mythological stories of paganism?

f) What evidence have you found in your own personal studies that would encourage people who have been told that the New Testament isn’t true, to reconsider their position?

2. Question for thought and discussion: What principles might the author have been wanting us to recognize in the paragraphs regarding Zacharias and the stone temples that God originally intended his people not to build.

a) What might we learn regarding His original plan for government with the moveable temple?

b) What does the author identify as the ‘gentile’ organization of government?

c) What happened when the people betrayed the truth of our Creator’s love for them, and believed a lie?

3. Christ, as the good Shepherd, brought his flock together to minister to one another. What does this look like, according to the Scriptural passage in Ephesians quoted in the text?

What is Redemption?

4. According to the text, what is redemption?

a) According to the text, why were the people of Judea in bondage?

b) To what were the people of Judea in bondage?

c) How was the recognition of Jesus as the King of Judea, able to set the children of Israel free from their bondage?

d) How was Jesus setting them free indeed, in spirit and in truth?

e) How were the people to receive the freedom Jesus came to give them?

f) What do we need to do to receive that freedom our Saviour came to give us?

Kingdom in Turmoil

5. Why did Herod want to kill the baby Jesus?

a) Why was it not lawful for Herod to be on the throne of Judea?

b) What did Herod do to please himself and the Romans, while placating the Jews?

6. The Jews desired to be separate. What benefits and difficulties did this focus on separation give them in the political world?

7. Why were the Romans having trouble with the dissipation in their own nation?

a) What were the Romans doing that Christ forbade in Matthew 23:9?

b) What were the Hellenized Jews doing, along with the Romans, that did not uphold our Creator’s loving ways of government?

c) How did the religious orders and state sanctioned religions make a mockery of our Creator’s ways?

d) “The various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher as equally false; and by the magistrate as equally useful.”

Where is this quotation found?

e) Rome incorporated the temples. How did this benefit the government?