{"id":6977,"date":"2021-02-03T10:56:32","date_gmt":"2021-02-03T00:56:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/?p=6977"},"modified":"2021-02-03T10:59:48","modified_gmt":"2021-02-03T00:59:48","slug":"readings-staying-connected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/readings-staying-connected\/","title":{"rendered":"Readings: Staying Connected"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Staying Connected<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Striving toward a life of Unceasing Prayer<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n

New Testament Passage<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

12<\/sup>And we urge you, brethren, to recognize those who labour among you, and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, 13<\/sup>and to esteem them very highly in love for their work\u2019s sake. Be at peace among yourselves. 14<\/sup>Now we exhort you, brethren, warn those who are unruly, comfort the fainthearted, uphold the weak, be patient with all. 15<\/sup>See that no one renders evil for evil to anyone, but always pursue what is good both for yourselves and for all. 16<\/sup>Rejoice always, 17<\/sup>pray without ceasing, 18<\/sup>in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 19<\/sup>Do not quench the Spirit. 20<\/sup>Do not despise prophecies. 21<\/sup>Test all things; hold fast what is good. 22<\/sup>Abstain from every form of evil. <\/em> – 1 Thessalonians 5:12-22 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Discussion Questions<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
  1. We see the exhortation \u201cPray without ceasing\u201d is couched in a number of other moral imperatives such as \u201ccomfort the faint-hearted\u201d and \u201cin everything give thanks.\u201d What is the relationship between my prayer life and the rest of my moral life as a Christian? <\/li>
  2. St Paul calls us to \u2018unceasing prayer\u2019. How are we to understand how to do this? Are we always to have a word to God on our lips and minds or is this impossible and too hard-line a task? Could, perhaps, prayer take multiple forms? <\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Old Testament Passage<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

    6<\/sup>So these governors and satraps thronged before the king, and said thus to him: \u201cKing Darius, live forever! 7<\/sup> All the governors of the kingdom, the administrators and satraps, the counsellors and advisors, have consulted together to establish a royal statute and to make a firm decree, that whoever petitions any god or man for thirty days, except you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions. 8 <\/sup>Now, O king, establish the decree and sign the writing, so that it cannot be changed, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which does not alter.\u201d 9<\/sup> Therefore King Darius signed the written decree. 10<\/sup> Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went home. And in his upper room, with his windows open toward Jerusalem, he knelt down on his knees three times that day, and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as was his custom since early days. <\/em>– Daniel 6:6-10<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Discussion Questions<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
    \n
    1. Having heard that he would be slain for prayer to God, the first thing Daniel does is looks to that age-old cure for all woes: prayer to God (what a beautiful paradox!). How can prayer and reliance upon God aid us in times of struggle? How can we be firm in our prayer though the world thinks it folly? <\/li>
    2. Above we discussed unceasing prayer, but the author of Daniel writes that Daniel \u201cKnelt down on his knees three times that day<\/em>, and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as was his custom since early days<\/em>.\u201d Clearly Daniel had a prayer rule to organise his prayer life. What makes an effective prayer rule? How can I implement it effectively? <\/li><\/ol>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Staying Connected Striving toward a life of Unceasing Prayer New Testament Passage 12And we urge you, brethren, to recognize those who labour among you, and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, 13and to esteem them very highly in love for their work\u2019s sake. Be at peace among yourselves. 14Now we exhort you, … Continue reading “Readings: Staying Connected”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6982,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[357],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-small-groups"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6977"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6979,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6977\/revisions\/6979"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}