Numbers 20

• What were your reflections from the last bible study on Numbers 13-14, and from Travis's sermon (if you heard it)?

  • What are our struggles with fear and faith living in the in-between (the now but not yet)?

Read Numbers 20:2-13

• What is the source of the quarrel that the people had with Moses and Aaron? Is it really about water?

• Why do you think Moses spoke so and acted the way he did?

• From God's point of view, what was so wrong about what Moses did here?

• Why do you think life in the wilderness made God's people quarrel with one another (and with God)?

  • What do you think could have been the antidote to this?

• How might this story serve as a warning to us about how we deal with conflict with one another and with God?

Read 1 Corinthians 10:1-12

• Now that we are 3 weeks in to our series in Numbers, how do you see this book as "written down as warnings for us"? What is God warning you about, as you live in "the culmination of the ages"?

Read this quote from N.T. Wright

Living in this overlap period has its dangers, not least that the ‘freedom’ which comes within the now-appearing new age can be confused with the ‘licence’ that drags you back into the old. This produces times of testing, in which there is no room for pride. At any moment the great hero of faith, the man or woman who has won battles in prayer, the person who has given their all for a particular venture of the gospel, may be suddenly and horribly vulnerable. ‘Anyone who thinks they are standing should watch out in case they fall over.’ As the old age and the new grind against one another like two tectonic plates, those who think they are standing firm one minute may find a moral earthquake happening all around them, and if they’re not careful they’ll end up flat on their faces.

N.T. Wright, 1 Corinthians For Everyone, p.129.

Spend some time discussing these words, and then spend some time in prayer and listening to God, considering what God may be drawing to your attention in your own life