“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” C.S. Lewis Mere Christianity
Have you ever met someone who only wanted to say Jesus was a good person, a famous teacher, or an important historical figure but not Lord? Why do you think we are willing to only say good things about Jesus and rarely bad things about him but still not accept Him as Lord of all? What is the problem with this logic?
Do you ever try to make the Bible sound less foolish? How have you sought to make Christianity less weird? Why do you do this? What is the problem with trying to make the things we believe less bizarre? Why should embracing the foolishness of the gospel be freeing for the Christian?
The Scribes used the law that was about Jesus to judge Jesus as a servant of Satan. How can the things meant to lead us to Jesus lead us away from Jesus? Have you experienced this in your own life? How do you keep from missing Jesus amidst all the things meant to lead you to Jesus?
On the cross Jesus took Satan’s power away by dying for our sins. He is the strong man who has been bound. In Christ, we are to live free from guilt. Do you struggle believing the satanic lie that you are still guilty? What can we do to remind ourselves that Satan and his lies are powerless?
How have you thought about blaspheme? What have you believed about the unforgivable sin? Jesus teaches in this passage that the unforgivable sin is to blaspheme of the Spirit by rejecting His testimony about Jesus. How does this inform the mission and ministry of the church? Why should this truth cause us to emphasize missions to those who have never heard of Jesus?
How have you struggled with believing who you are, the way you were raised, or the good things you have done gets you to heaven? How have you struggled believing who you are, the way you were raised, or the good things you have done keeps you from heaven? Why should this passage give you hope no matter who you are or what you have done?