Here are two helpful Internet sources I came across in my research for Psalm 110. They are clear and good summaries.
A messianic Jewish article explaining the meaning of Psalm 110.
An article about Jesus’s identity – what did Jesus think about the Messiah being the son of David?
Both of these are short and take into account important things related to seeing Psalm 110 in a Jewish/Hebrew perspective in order to see it properly in reference to its fulfillment in Christ.
You might start small group discussions by simply asking, “What did anybody find helpful, confusing or enlightening from the teaching on Sunday?” For many small groups this will be enough to get things going and keep things going. When things slow down, then turning to the Scripture passage itself and working through it will usually more than fill the rest of the time you have for discussion that is, if you are taking time to do the other four purposes of small groups: community, missionary support, substantive prayer, organized service.
In case your discussion needs a little stimulation here are some things from the sermon you could bring up:
Continue reading For Small Group Discussion: Psalm 51 Part II Sermon Content Highlights
Generations ago, the pastoral prayer held a place in the church almost as significant as the sermon. Pastors were to write two main orations each Sunday: a prayer offered to God for the people, and a sermon offered to the people for God.
The pastoral prayer has a shepherding function. In it, the shepherd or elder prays for God’s scattered flock. The pastoral prayer also has a discipleship function in that it teaches people about God and how we should speak to him both for ourselves and for others. Continue reading Building an Intentionally Pastoral Prayer
There was a time when this wasn’t a question, a time not all that long ago. But the truth is that this is not the culture in which we, the American church, live. Some lip service is paid to religion. A majority of the population still self-identifies as Christian. Church attendance is still high relative to other places in the “Christian” West. But the culture-forming and worldview-forming mechanisms of culture are not merely neutral toward Christian beliefs, but are decidedly unfriendly toward them.
In his popular book Peace Child, Don Richardson describes his experiences with the Sawi people of Papua New Guinea. At the time, this group was constantly at war with two neighboring tribes. When Don and his family decided they would need to leave because of the constant warring, the Sawi people and their enemy tribes came together to make peace. Continue reading The Power of a Redemptive Analogy
This morning, I mentioned a Christianity Today article that talked about 10 of the most popular strategies for helping the poor that were actually cost effective.
You can find the article here.
Remember, this article is not arguing that other ways of helping the poor are bad. There are cost-effective ways of helping the poor, ways of helping the poor that are not cost-effective, and there are means of trying to help the poor that actually hurt them. There are many ways of doing humanitarian work that fall into the second category.
This article only seeks to highlight the top 10 most economically effective ways of helping the material sufferings of the poor.
Engage & Equip 