Queen's Road Cell

Great time hearing the experiences of Josh, Winnie and Qin Ying overseas on their mission trips. My takeaway is that greatness in the Kingdom is measured by how childlike we are (Matt 18:4) We discussed the topic "Lead us not into temptation". On one hand, it appears that God never does that (When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone, James 1:13). So if He doesn't, why pray that He not? Then we read that "Jesus  was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil." (Matt 4:1), which seems to contradict this idea...! The Greek word 'periasmos' can mean either a 'trial' or a 'temptation'. Which of these translations is preferred at any time in the NT solely depends on the context in which it is used. The same situation is both trial and temptation. God does lead us into trials, and we are to rejoice when we face them (James 1:2). He does this to ...

12  and forgive us our debts,     as we also have forgiven our debtors. 14  For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, 15  but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. (Mt 6:12-15) 21  Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” 22  Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times. 23  “Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. [ g ] 24  When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. [ h ] 25  And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. 26  So the servant [ i ] fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience...

We celebrated Selwyn's birthday, then prayed for the Surabaya HWAD team (Winne, Josh and Amelia) going. Then the faithful remnant went to cover Study 18.  I began by asking, "What's wrong with this picture? (Figure 5). This gives the stages of Christian life as "Convert". "Disciple" and "Disciplemaker". In contrast, our FFMC Disciplemaking Handbook (2015) gives the corresponding stages as "New Disciple", "Growing Disciple" and "Disciplemaker". The distinction is significant because the former categories imply that some can choose to not be disciples, which is Biblically wrong. All Christians can participate in disciplemaking at some level, but a "disciplemaker" can be defined as someone with enough spiritual maturity to intentionally bring others to the same level of spiritual maturity. This is our goal as Christians. I felt that the tone of the study and the use of the Engels scale made it...