Laurie Polich-Short - Matthew

ZONDERVAN

Matthew

Copyright 2014 by Laurie Short

YS Youth Specialties is a trademark of Real Resources Incorporated and is registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

ePub Edition November 2014: ISBN 978-0-310-51676-7

Requests for information should be addressed to:

Zondervan, 3900 Sparks Dr. SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Polich Short, Laurie.

Matthew / Laurie Polich Short.

pages cm. (Studies on the go)

ISBN 978-0-310-51675-0 (softcover)

1. Bible. Matthew Study and teaching. 2. Church work with youth. I. Title.

BS2576.P65 2014

226.20071'2 dc22

2014026651

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Cover design: Toolbox Studios

Interior design: SharpSeven Design/David Conn

14 15 16 17 18 19 20 /DCI/ 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

DEDICATION AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To youth workers young and old you are my heroes! And to the legacy of Youth Specialties you will always hold a place in my heart.

Special thanks to:

Dave Urbanski and Ryan Pazdur who helped bring another Studies on the Go into print.

Zondervan publishers who did this book and graciously gave me the opportunity to broaden my ministry with Finding Faith in the Dark.

Jon Ireland and Jono Shaffer, former youth ministers who serve with me at Ocean Hills now that my stepson is a preteen, I am thankful he has a great church community. It takes a village!

CONTENTS

Welcome to a look inside the book of Matthew. It is my prayer that you and your students discover a treasure chest in this first Gospel account of Jesus life. There are jewels in Matthewincluding the Beatitudes, the Sermon on the Mount, and The Great Commissionthat we find in no other Gospel. The texts are rich and colorful, and they include more detail than we find in the accounts from Mark, Luke, and John. It is well worth your time to study this book with your students. My job is to make it engaging and fun.

I must confess after writing four of these studies that we may have misnamed this series. These are not drive by Bible studies, aimed only at skimming the surface. These are rich, deep studies aimed at providing the busy youth worker with a tool he or she can trust.

As Ive said before with Studies on the Go, feel free to pick and choose the questions that best suit your group. Each study contains 15 questions and an optional activity, which will probably be too much for a single session. I suggest you take your time with the questions that unlock something in your students and skip the ones that dont. You know your students, and depending on their age and spiritual maturity, you can best make the call on the questions you need.

There are three kinds of questions in this book: Observation questions which take you to the text, Interpretation questions which help you think about the text, and Application questions which help your students live the text.

Unless Gods Word takes root in our lives, our study is fruitless. Therefore my suggestion is you spend 10 minutes observing, 20 minutes interpreting, and 25 minutes applying (which can include the optional activity at the end of each session). That leaves 5-10 min at the beginning of your study for your intro question, which you can select from the three options at the top of the page.

Have fun! And I always like to remind small group leaders that Jesus did some of his best work through questions. Let that fuel your fire as you begin these studies with your students.

Enjoy your journey through Matthew!

P.S. If you like this book, be sure to also check out my other studies in John, Romans, and Genesis. And if you need some basic tools for leading a small group, try Help! Im a Small Group Leader.

LEADERS INSIGHT

Imagine being able to trace your ancestors back to the beginning of time.

Thats what Matthew 1 does for Jesus. Most of us are lucky if we know our great-grandparents. Jesus knew his great, great, great... (Id better stop here; I dont have enough space for the number of greats I need.) If you look closely, you can see that Matthew does it for a purpose. Old Testament prophecy was fulfilled through Jesus lineage.

In Matthew 1, we see that Joseph was handpicked to be Jesus earthly father. Though his seed wasnt in Jesus, his family was the context through which Jesus came. It was Joseph who made Jesus lineage so special.

Sometimes we brush over genealogies because they seem boring. But dont miss the details of this one with your students. To see Abraham at the beginning, giving Jesus his Jewish roots. To see King David in the middle, revealing the royalty from which he came. To notice that all five women in the lineup have stories of amazing grace, showing God can take the mess of our lives and do great things if we let him.

Genealogies carry important details that reveal insights about who we are. This genealogy carries important details about who God isand how he came in the person of Jesus.

Share

Warm-Up Questions

If God came to you in a dream and gave you a plan for your life that was different than yours, would you follow it?

What do you know about your genealogy? Is there anything you know about your parents or grandparents that tells you more about who you are?

How much of your life do you think is preplanned? How much do you think happens by choice?

Observe

Observation Questions

Where does the genealogy begin in Matthew 1? Whose name is at the end, before Jesus? How many generations are represented? (See verse 17.)

What did Joseph have in mind when he found out Mary was pregnant?

How did God come to Joseph? What did God say? What Old Testament verse is referenced in verse 23?

What did Joseph do after God spoke to him? Did he have union with his wife before Jesus was born?

Think

Interpretation Questions

Do you think Joseph was preplanned to be Jesus earthly father? Why/Why not?

What does verse 19 tell you about the kind of man Joseph was? Do you think he was cruel or kind?

How do verses 22-23 show Gods providence in this situation? Do you think Mary and Joseph had a choice regarding how they responded to God?

What does verse 24 say about Josephs faith? What does verse 25 reveal about Jesus birth? Based on this verse, what kind of father was Joseph to Jesus?

Apply

Application Questions

How far back can you trace your genealogy? Is there anyone in your genealogy who is famous for something?

If you were Joseph, do you think you would have done what the Lord told him to do? Why/Why not?