Timothy Keller - Gospel in Life Study Guide: Grace Changes Everything

Gospel in Life is an eight-session course on the gospel and how to live it out in all of lifefirst in our hearts, then in community, and ultimately out into the world.

Session 1 opens the course with the theme of the city, our home now, the world that is. Session 8 closes the course with the theme of the eternal city, our heavenly home, the world that is to come. In between we will look at how the gospel changes our hearts (Sessions 2 and 3), changes our community (Sessions 4 and 5), and changes how we live in the world (Sessions 6 and 7).

This guide includes eight group studies as well as individual Home Studies. Each group study consists of:

A Bible study on the theme of the session.

A ten-minute video presentation by Timothy Keller followed by group discussion questions.

The Home Studies introduce the theme of the next session. They are printed on gray pages to distinguish them from the group studies on white pages.

Instructions are in italics and surrounded by brackets.

In this ebook edition please use your devices note-taking function to record your thoughts whenever you see the bracketed instructions [Your Notes] or [Your Response]. Use your devices highlighting function to record your response whenever you are asked to checkmark, circle, underline, or otherwise indicate your answer(s).

This guide uses the New International Version (NIV) translation of the Bible.

Notes for leaders are located in the back section.

[Pray as you begin, asking God to be at work in the group.]

[In 586 BC, Jerusalem was destroyed and the elite of Jewish society the artisans and professionals and leaderswere taken to Babylon by force. The prophet Jeremiah received a word from the Lord and wrote these exiles a letter. Read aloud Jeremiah 29:414, and then work through the questions below.]

1. What specific directions does God give the exiles for relating to the city of Babylon in verses 47? How do you think the exiles felt about this?

[Your Response]

2. What is the relationship between the prosper you of verse 11 and the prosperity of the city of verse 7?

[Your Response]

3. What was the purpose of the exile, according to verses 1114? Why do you think these verses were included in the letter?

[Your Response]

4. Rodney Stark, a sociologist of religion, writes,

Christianity served as a revitalization movement that arose in response to the misery, chaos, fear, and brutality of life in the urban Greco-Roman world Christianity revitalized life in cities by providing new norms and new kinds of social relationships able to cope with many urgent urban problems. To cities filled with the homeless and impoverished, Christianity offered charity as well as hope. To cities filled with newcomers and strangers, Christianity offered an immediate basis for attachments To cities torn by violent ethnic strife, Christianity offered a new basis for social solidarity. And to cities faced with epidemics, fires and earthquakes, Christianity offered effective services.

Is this still true of Christianity today? If not, why not? In what ways does Christianity revitalize life in your area?

[Your Response]

[Watch the video for Session 1.]

[Use this space if you would like to make notes.]

[Your Notes]

[Remember a city is defined as any place of density, diversity and cultural energy.]

1. Was there anything from the video that was new to you, or had an effect on you? Did you hear anything that raised more questions in your mind?

[Your Response]

2. J.N. Manokaran, a pastor from India, writes in his book Christ and Cities, Cities should not be seen as monsters but communities of people with need. How do you view the place in which you live? What emotions come to mind? What do you value about it?

[Your Response]

3. We heard in the video that,

In the city you are going to find people that appear spiritually hopeless. Youre going to find people of no religion, people of other religions, and people with deeply non-Christian lifestyles, and youre going to discover that many of them are kinder, deeper, and wiser than you. You will also find that many of the poor and the broken are much more open to the gospel of grace and more dedicated to its practical out-working than you are.

Has this been the case in your own experience or in the experience of people you know? Share examples.

[Your Response]

4. It is often said that Christians today have little impact on the world around them. Is that a correct assessment? Why? What prevents us from becoming more engaged in the world around us?

[Your Response]

5. The Hebrew word translated prosper means to be healthy, to increase, to have things go well. It means growth in all its dimensions. What types of growth within the Christian community can prosper the places in which we live?

[Your Response]

6. In what specific ways can you and your group seek to serve and love your place of residence, rather than resemble it, or remove yourselves from it? What can you and your group do to become genuinely interested in its peace and prosperity?

[Your Response]

See gospelinlife.com for recommended resources to help you further explore this topic.

As you begin this course, pray that the Holy Spirit will empower you inwardly, that Christ may dwell in your heart, and that you will know the love of Christ and be filled with all Gods fullness. Pray also that through this course you may be able to grasp more and more of what it means to live out the gospel in your own life, through your community, and for the benefit of the world.

Thank God for the place where you live. Pray for Gods peace and prosperity for it, and that you would have love for it and its inhabitants.

The Home Studies on the gray pages are an integral part of Gospel in Life. They consist of a series of readings, exercises, and projects that introduce you to the topic of the following session. It will take about an hour to complete the Home Study. If you work and pray through these Home Studies you will vastly enhance your experience in the course.

To introduce you to Session 2, the Home Study consists of a series of readings and exercises that get to the heart of what it means to believe the gospel.

Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity (New York: Harper, 1997), 161.

J.N. Manokaran, Christ and Cities: Transformation of Urban Centres (India: Mission Educational Books, 2005), 13.