Complementary Passage:
Isaiah 42:1-9
Sermon Outline:
- The Good Shepherd sends patient and selfless preachers to gather the sheep
- A sincere godly shepherd in need of more accurate training
- Confused sheep in need of the fulness of the Gospel
- Stubborn goats exposed as haters of the Shepherd of Israel
Family Discussion Questions:
- Is Jesus a new god or is He the God of the Old Testament?
- Where did Apollos get his teaching about God from?
- Why did Aquila and Priscilla need to talk to him privately?
- Paul met 12 men who had heard John the Baptist preach many years earlier. Did they understand what John was teaching about Jesus?
- Why do we need the Holy Spirit in order to repent and trust in Jesus?
- Some men said they believed in the Bible and listened to Paul teaching about Jesus. How do we know that they actually did not love the God of the Bible?
- Explain the importance and uniqueness of the 40 years after Jesus’ death for the Jewish people.
- Paul seems to have been operating by an optional Old Testament vow in order to help convince the Jews that the Christ had come. Explain why that would no longer be a good thing to do and yet what attitude it teaches us to have even now.
- Explain how the Apollos event emphasizes the need for preachers to be accurately trained and tested.
- In the book of Acts, only a few times is the gift of tongues noted. Explain how the various group types which received this gift help understand the meaning of the gift in Acts.
- Does Scripture indicate that we should expect the gift of miraculous tongues to continue until Christ returns?
- What terrible results would have come if Paul and Aquila either immediately wrote off confused confessors of the Gospel or immediately assumed they had the accurate Gospel?
- How should the character of the Lord Jesus shape our approach to evangelism, discipleship and correction?
