What's Your Treasure?

We're closing in on the end of the Sermon on the Mount... and on the end of the Coffee Break season. We're looking at treasure, light, lamps, flowers, birds and more, and asking, What's Your Treasure? How will you answer?


(22) What’s Your Treasure?

Matthew continues Jesus’ sermon through several chapters. Luke splits the teaching, giving different parts on different occasions. Many Bible translations split the sermon up with headers, defining passages by verse numbers. Many Bible studies pick out particular verses from multiple locations and combine them with a single focus or theme.
1.       What do we gain or lose from the different ways the Bible is printed or read?
2.       How important is the choice of Bible translation to you?
3.       How important is it to have context for passages? (And does Matthew lose the context when he puts all the teaching in one place?)
4.       Is the Bible your treasure?
5.       What’s the difference between being known as “people of the Book” and being known as “people of God”? How might this difference be perceived by outsiders?
Matthew includes Jesus’ teaching about treasure next. Read Matthew 6:19-21, Luke 12:33-34
1.       How does this relate to providing for our children, taking out insurance, locking doors and using mothballs?
2.       What treasures are we most tempted to store on earth?
3.       What treasures are we most afraid to lose? (What’s you greatest fear?)
4.       How do we avoid turning things and relationships into treasures on earth?
So, we have to see clearly and look carefully. Read Matthew 6:22-23, Luke 11:34-36
1.       Luke places these passages closer to the Passion (when Jesus is in Jerusalem). Why might they have seemed particularly relevant and memorable then? How might people who watched the crucifixion relate this teaching?
2.       How clearly do we see our own motives?
3.       What helps you see more clearly? What is your “lamp”?
We have to know our motives, know (choose rightly) who governs us, and then trust. Read Matthew 6:24, Luke 16:13
1.       Have you ever been torn by conflicting priorities?
2.       Have you ever struggled to work out which choice would serve which master?
3.       Is this injunction meant to make us worry about all our choices, or to comfort us? Does Matthew 6:25 change your answer?
Read Matthew 6:25-34, Luke 12:22-32
1.       What don’t birds do? Does that mean we shouldn’t do those things?
2.       What don’t flowers do? Should we go around naked? Why not? (And was Adam naked? Were Christian missionaries right to insist that tribespeople wore Western clothes?)
3.       Is feeding the poor a good thing?
4.       Is worrying about the next war a good thing?
5.       How do we balance trust with sensible precautions?
6.       What are we anxious about today, in this church, town, city, country, world? How do we practice what this teaches?
7.       And what/who/where is our true treasure?

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