4. 9. We must not make settled, final decisions about anyone’s spiritual state or fate” [p. 80]. Grand Rapids, MI 49546 Keller proposes, “All doubts, however skeptical and cynical they may seem, are really a set of alternate beliefs.” To doubt one idea is to have faith in another. Chapter 7. Did you see it at the time? 18. 8. Please contact the church office if you need access to the building. Do you believe that right doctrine and proper moral behavior will assure your relationship with God? Do you find the three reasons amounting to a compelling argument? If you haven’t noticed this dichotomy, why haven’t you? We all know of examples of how skeptics give ridiculous or offensive arguments against Christianity—ignoring for a moment the proper offense of the cross, give five examples of arguments against skepticism or for Christian faith where either the argument or the Christian are ridiculous or offensive to unbelievers. Utilizamos cookies para personalizar contenido y anuncios, proporcionar funciones de redes sociales y analizar nuestro tráfico. Everyday low … What plans do your small group need to make to create a safe place? What does Keller identify as the flaw in each approach? What troubles you most about its beliefs or how it is practiced?” [p. 3] Do you make a habit of asking non-Christians questions similar to that? [59-60]. 7. PDF Study Guide The Reason For God, discussion guide, softcover (9780310330479) by Timothy Keller Why or why not? The Reason for God small group Bible study can be used individually, with groups, or by any believer who is engaging with friends who don’t share his or her beliefs. 4. “Ironically, the insistence that doctrines do not matter is really a doctrine itself” [p. 8]. Indeed, you can’t have it both ways” [p. 25]. Do you find them compelling? How have you resolved it for yourself? I will change for you. To what extent is it true of you? Have you met people who question whether intelligent people can “take the Bible literally”? 8. What should you have done differently? Robert Bellah “concludes that the most fundamental belief in American culture is that moral truth is relative to individual consciousness” [p. 70]. Do you agree? What might this suggest for your next reading of the four gospels? 4. “Good character,” Keller says, “is largely attributable to a loving, safe, and stable family and social environment—conditions for which we were not responsible.” Because people with greater needs are often the ones attracted to Christianity, Keller concludes, “we should expect that many Christians’ lives would not compare well to those of the nonreligious” [p. 54]. 16. What about injustice? Do you find this argument convincing? What’s the solution? Why then do many American middle-class evangelical Christians seem both indistinguishable from their non-Christian conservative neighbors and so profoundly comfortable with both Christianity and their middle-class consumerist lifestyle? In response to the objection that a good God could not possibly allow hell, Keller responds: “Modern people inevitably think that hell works like this: God gives us time, but if we haven’t made the right choices by the end of our lives, he casts our souls into hell for all eternity. What does it mean for “Heaven to work backwards”? ¡Descárgate ya la versión de eBook! REASON FOR GOD DISCUSSION PB: REASON FOR GOD DISCUSSION PB -: Amazon.com.mx: Libros. How would you respond? Christians will be challenged to wrestle with their friends and neighbors’ hardest questions, and to engage those questions in ways that will spark an honest, enriching, and humbling dialogue. 9. Since so many highly knowledgeable scholars are convinced this is the only possible conclusion, given the historical evidence, does this make you nervous? 16. Why? To what extent is your church characterized by these three qualities? Should they? 11. Do you find this compelling? 13. “The human impulse to make perpetrators of violence pay for their crimes is almost an overwhelming one,” Keller says. 8. 9. As the poor souls fall through space, they cry out for mercy, but God says ‘Too late! I know what they are like. 25.] Have the culture wars produced positive results? All of these beliefs are foreign to many other cultures” [p. 39]. Are you convinced this is true? How does our setting require a change in the reasons we give for belief? “You never see him [Jesus] say something like: ‘See that tree over there? 2. “The people most passionate about social justice were moral relativists,” Keller says, remembering his pilgrimage of faith as a young man, “while the morally upright didn’t seem to care about the oppression going on all over the world” [p. xii]. Define freedom (saying “being in Christ” is not allowed—though true, in this setting it is a platitude). Is this common knowledge among Christians? What role should sincerity play in our view of God? Should Christians take the lead in demonstrating civility in the public square? In an effort to further that, Ransom Fellowship has prepared detailed reflection and discussion questions for each section and chapter of the book. In a sun-scorched land, soaked in the blood of the innocent, it will invariably die… [with] other pleasant captivities of the liberal mind” [p. 74]. Sometimes such questions evoke strong emotions—where do these come from? Ransom Fellowship was founded by Denis and Margie Haack in 1981. 21. 8. “Violence done in the name of Christianity is a terrible reality and must be both addressed and redressed. His miracles are not just proofs that he has power but also wonderful foretastes of what he is going to do with that power. The COS building is currently closed. Why or why not? I know none of them are like this. Keller lists three reasons why the four gospel records of Jesus life, death, and resurrection should be taken as historically reliable [p. 100-109]. If not, can you see why some people might? 10. Do Christians ever fail to understand this distinction? Explaining why believing in something makes sense will make little or no sense if my explanation is not in categories my companion can understand and appreciate. 3. This touches on one of the reasons many of the postmodern generation find biblically orthodox Christianity to be irrelevant. Give examples of rhetoric from the side of skepticism; from the side of Christian faith; from the side of faiths other than Christianity. Might this list surprise some evangelical Christians? [p. 59]. Why or why not? When the apostle wrote to the Church in Ephesus, he pointed out that God provides leaders “to equip” Christians for faithful service in a fallen world (Ephesians 4:11-16). In the past, when you read such details in the gospel records did you see that the author meant this? One person is quoted as saying that “the difference between Redeemer and other churches was profound and lay in ‘irony, charity, and humility’” [p. 43]. Why? How are notions of freedom (individual and otherwise) foundational to our society’s values? Christians will be challenged to wrestle with their friends and neighbors’ hardest questions, and to engage those questions in ways that will spark an honest, enriching, and humbling dialogue. Have Christians always fared well in taking their faith into different cultures? If you find that little or nothing in the world angers you, what does this say about you? It would mean that no one could really know what Jesus said and did, and that the Bible could not be the authoritative norm over our life and beliefs. The Reason for God Discussion Guide: Conversations on Faith and Life (English Edition) eBook: Keller, Timothy : Amazon.es: Tienda Kindle 1. “Skepticism, fear, and anger toward traditional religion are growing in power and influence. Have you heard Christians raise this issue as a problem in their faith? The Reason for God is worth reading, reflecting on, and discussing with friends—both Christians and non-Christians. 25-27]. The normal way Christians act in the public square in America? Do you agree they are flaws? Yes, there is. The perennial issues may not change, but different generations in different cultures may raise strikingly different questions in their quest to make sense of things. "The Reason For God" Discussion Questions Index Posted January 2, 2009 by Church of the Servant On October 1 a class began to review Tim Keller’s thought-provoking book, “The Reason for God”. Define each. 11. The Church is Responsible for so Much Injustice. Why or why not? Is there then no way to judge whether a community is open and caring rather than narrow and oppressive? Anyone interested may order a book through COS or purchase one on your own. Read each of the three texts and note similarities and differences. The questions are designed to get the group discussing the substance of Keller’s book, and may cover more detail than any particular group will be interested in covering. Define, as objectively and carefully as possible, the three approaches to try to deal with the divisiveness of religion: to outlaw it [p. 5-6], to condemn it [p. 7-13], and to restrict it the private sphere of life [p. 13-18]. 5. Take the time to read (at least sections of) Beowulf or The Iliad and compare them to sections of Mark’s gospel. Why? Why or why not? 19. “Today’s outspoken believer,” Keller says, “may be tomorrow’s apostate, and today’s outspoken unbeliever may be tomorrow’s convert. The Reason for God Discussion Guide: Conversations on Faith and Life: Amazon.es: Keller, Timothy: Libros en idiomas extranjeros Some kind of truth-claim, then, seems unavoidable” [p. 38]. Christians will be challenged to wrestle with their friends and neighbors’ hardest questions, and to engage those questions in ways that will spark an honest, enriching, and humbling dialogue. On October 1 a class began to review Tim Keller’s thought-provoking book, “The Reason for God”. 17. What reasons would you give if a non-Christian challenged it as untrue or implausible? Many Christians might find this statement to be unsettling. 1. To what extent would a stranger who follows you around for several months say this sort of love is your primary characteristic? If you are a visual person, and you imagine science and religion as two circles, how will they interact/intersect? Does it surprise you that “Christianity does not provide a reason for each experience of pain?” [p. 27]. Do you agree it is a decisive refutation? When Christianity arrived via missionaries, it did not destroy the traditional African worldview but rather revealed how it was fulfilled in Christ. Keller claims, “an authoritative Bible is not the enemy of a personal relationship with God. If you are a non-Christian, how would you respond to this definition of hell? Discussion leaders will be wise to pick which questions to raise, and which topics, once raised, should be pursued … But we should not criticize churches when they maintain standards for membership in accord with their beliefs. Croatian theologian Miroslav Volf says, “If God were not angry at injustice and deception and did not make a final end to violence—that God would not be worthy of worship… The only means of prohibiting all recourse to violence by ourselves is to insist that violence is legitimate only when it comes from God… My thesis that the practice of non-violence requires a belief in divine vengeance will be unpopular with many… in the West… [But] it takes the quiet of a suburban home for the birth of the thesis that human non-violence [results from the belief in] God’s refusal to judge. 4. The Reason for God Discussion Guide: Conversations on Faith and Life by Timothy Keller (9780310330479) If you argue that Christians don’t look down on non-Christians, why then do Christian parents believe non-Christians are not good enough to marry their children? Why or why not? Do you agree? The Reason for God Discussion Guide: Conversations on Faith and Life $ 8.57. Watch me make it burst into flames!’ Instead, he used miraculous power to heal the sick, feed the hungry, and raise the dead. Amazon.in - Buy The Reason for God Discussion Guide: Conversations on Faith and Life book online at best prices in India on Amazon.in. There is no excusing it” [p. 56]. A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death—the huge solace of thinking that our betrayals, greed, cowardice, murders are not going to be judged… [but] all religions recognize that our deeds are imperishable” [p. 75]. Do you find this true in your personal experience? Thus we can grow together in being renewed in mind and discerning in life. How does this challenge make you feel about the Christian faith? It is good for three reasons. [p. 95] What other texts of Scripture reveal similar doubts about a miracle occurring? Please note: This posting includes questions for the first half of the book, chapters 1-7, which covers Part 1: The Leap of Doubt. The Reason for God Discussion Guide, eBook de . Hola, Identifícate. Cuenta y Listas Cuenta Devoluciones y Pedidos. Lee "The Reason for God Discussion Guide Conversations on Faith and Life" de Timothy Keller disponible en Rakuten Kobo. Do you share it? We only become ourselves in love, yet healthy love relationships involve mutual, unselfish service, a mutual loss of independence” [p. 48]. Keller quotes New Atheist Christopher Hitchens’ accusation that religion “has been an enormous multiplier of tribal suspicion and hatred,” and concludes, “Hitchens’s point is fair” [p. 54-55]. 8. I used this Discussion Guide along with the DVD 'The Reason for God-Conversations on Faith and Life' and the book 'The Reason for God-Belief in an Age of Skepticism' as part of a course in Christian Apologetics in our homeschool. Is this how you define hell to your non-Christian friends? If not, why? The Bible tells us that God did not originally make the world to have disease, hunger, and death in it. We will continue to meet, covering one chapter per week, through to the end of December (for the first half of the book). Why or why not? As objectively as you can, restate in your own words those steps. Office Hours: Keller identifies three “barriers” to faith: intellectual, personal, and social [p. xii-xiii]. The Reason for God small group Bible study can be used individually, with groups, or by any believer who is engaging with friends who don’t share his or her beliefs. When is confrontation appropriate? But it needs to be overcome every time, and thus there is an even holier angel than the one of pain, that is the one of joy in God” [p. 66-67]. Every generation in every culture and people group wrestle with the four crucial issues that undergird human existence: Who & where are we? This interest is one dear to the hearts and spiritual yearnings of many postmodern Christians. To what extent do evangelicals actively submit themselves and their churches to Christianity’s own resources for critiquing itself? Christians will be challenged to wrestle with their friends and neighbors’ hardest questions, and to engage those questions in ways that will spark an honest, enriching, and humbling dialogue. Does the gospel call us to believe in social justice, to care for God’s creation? The Reason for God small group Bible study can be used individually, with groups, or by any believer who is engaging with friends who don't share his or her beliefs.Christians will be challenged to wrestle with their friends and neighbors' hardest questions, and to engage those questions in ways that will spark an honest, enriching, and humbling dialogue. Have you experienced “pointless” suffering that later, in hindsight, you could see had a point for which you became grateful? For a list of each chapter’s questions for discussion, and for an opportunity to submit your own written reflections, click on the appropriate link below: October 1: Chapter One – “There Can’t Be Just One True Religion”, October 8: Chapter Two – “How Could a Good God Allow Suffering?”, October 15: Chapter Three – “Christianity Is a Straitjacket”, November 5: Chapter Four – “The Church is Responsible for So Much Injustice”, November 12: Chapter Five – “How Can a Loving God Send People to Hell?”, November 19: Chapter Six – “Science Has Disproved Christianity”, December 10: Chapter Seven – “You Can’t Take the Bible Literally”, December 17: Chapter Eight – “The Clues of God”. 4. “If you have a God great and transcendent enough to be mad at because he hasn’t stopped evil and suffering in the world, then you have (at the same moment) a God great and transcendent enough to have good reasons for allowing it to continue that you can’t know. [p. 77-78]. 2. “If this [revisionist] view of the New Testament’s origins and development is true, it would radically change our understanding of the content and meaning of Christianity itself. It is quite another to insist that science proves that no other causes could possibly exist” [p. 85]. 10. How would you respond to this assertion? Does this surprise you? How do you respond to the idea? Editorial: Zondervan. Is there reason to believe in God? What reasons does Keller give for this assertion? Since there are so many other issues raised concerning the historicity and trustworthiness of the Bible, what plans should you make? Where do you believe this divide stems from? How does this change the meaning of the opening chapters of the creation account? Do you find this argument compelling? This is blind faith of a high order” [p. 23]… “Why couldn’t it be possible that, from God’s vantage point, there are good reasons for all [occasions of suffering]?” [p. Have you heard this objection to faith? Some Christians may find this troubling, wanting to see Jesus as (super)heroic in every way—how would you answer their concerns? The Swiss theologian John Calvin, in his commentaries on the Hebrew prophets, says that God so identifies with the poor that their cries express divine pain. What reasons did the objector give for their conviction? 1. St. Paul tells us that God raises up teachers and leaders in his Church. Do you ask perceptive questions of opponents to help them clarify their arguments against Christianity? On the other hand, Christian missions is full of examples where missionaries have brought not just the gospel but American culture to the world—did Keller apologize sufficiently for this sad heritage? We hope you find our discussion guide to The Reason for God helpful. 1. Every community must do the same” [p. 40]. Have you ever heard the charge that believing in hell makes you “narrow” [p. 80-81]? 2. Are you happy with Keller’s response? “I must conclude that the source of the idea,” he says, “is the Bible itself.” How is this significant? How would you respond to each? Chapter 2: How Could a Good God Allow Suffering? Since Keller “was always looking for that third camp,” he says he “became interested in shaping and initiating new Christian communities” [p. xiii]. Free Discussion Guide . What do think of Barth’s statement that it was the church, not the world that crucified Christ? 17. Do you find it a good response to the objection we are considering? 15. 10. Which restrictions have you found dehumanizing and unhelpful? What elitist arguments do Christians sometimes put forward?