Week 13 Discussion Guide: Parables of Grace

Opening Question

This week we encountered a man born blind who ended up seeing more clearly than the religious experts, a tax collector whose seven-word prayer was more pleasing to God than a Pharisee’s impressive resume, and a shepherd who voluntarily dies for his sheep. Which of these images most challenged your assumptions about how God works, and why?

Review

Week 13 wove together Luke’s travel narrative and John’s Festival discourses into a tapestry of grace that operates by rules the world does not recognize. In Luke 16, the Shrewd Manager taught us that worldly people invest their resources more strategically than God’s people, and the Rich Man and Lazarus revealed that indifference to suffering at your gate has eternal consequences. Luke 17 offered mustard-seed faith, the gratitude of a Samaritan leper, and the warning to remember Lot’s wife. Luke 18 gave us the Persistent Widow who wore down an unjust judge, the Tax Collector whose plea for mercy was the only prayer that went home justified, and the Rich Ruler who walked away sad because his wealth was a chain he could not break. John 9 presented the extraordinary drama of a man born blind whose progressive understanding of Jesus – man, prophet, from God, Lord – stands in devastating contrast to the Pharisees’ progressive hardening. And John 10 unveiled Jesus as the Good Shepherd of Ezekiel 34, the one who lays down his life voluntarily, holds his sheep in an unbreakable grip, and declares “I and the Father are one.”

Study Questions

1. Wealth and Eternity (Luke 16): The Rich Man saw Lazarus at his gate every single day and did nothing. Jesus suggests that the sin was not active cruelty but passive indifference. Where in our lives might we be stepping over a “Lazarus” without noticing? How does the parable’s warning about the chasm between comfort and torment shape our understanding of economic responsibility?

2. Gratitude and Lostness (Luke 17): Ten lepers were healed, but only one – a Samaritan outsider – returned to give thanks. Why do you think receiving a gift often fails to produce gratitude? What disciplines or habits help you move from simply benefiting from God’s grace to actively thanking him for it?

3. Two Prayers (Luke 18): The Pharisee’s prayer was technically addressed to God but functionally addressed to himself. The Tax Collector’s prayer was seven words of raw honesty. If you were to evaluate your own prayer life honestly, which prayer does it more closely resemble? What would it look like to pray with the tax collector’s kind of honesty this week?

4. Seeing and Blindness (John 9): The blind man’s faith deepened under pressure – each interrogation by the Pharisees pushed him toward a clearer confession of Jesus. The Pharisees, by contrast, became more entrenched in their rejection with each piece of evidence. What determines whether opposition deepens faith or hardens resistance? What role does humility play?

5. The Shepherd’s Voice (John 10): Jesus says “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” He also says “no one will snatch them out of my hand.” How do these two realities – the sheep’s responsive hearing and the shepherd’s unbreakable grip – work together? Is assurance of salvation based on our faithfulness or on Christ’s?

Going Deeper

Consider the theological arc from Luke 16 to John 10. In Luke 16, the rich man asks Abraham to send Lazarus back from the dead to warn his brothers, and Abraham replies, “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” In John 9, the Pharisees have a man standing before them who was verifiably born blind and now verifiably sees, and they expel him rather than accept the evidence. In John 10, Jesus claims unity with the Father, and the crowd picks up stones. What does this progression tell us about the nature of unbelief? Is the problem intellectual (lack of evidence) or volitional (refusal to accept what the evidence reveals)?

How does the blind man’s journey – from ignorance to confession to worship to expulsion – model the cost and reward of genuine faith? What was he expelled from, and what did he gain instead?

Application

• This week: The Rich Man’s sin was seeing Lazarus and doing nothing. Identify one person whose suffering you have been aware of but have not acted on. Take one concrete step this week – a conversation, a meal, a gift, a prayer with them.
• Prayer experiment: Try praying the tax collector’s prayer – “God, be merciful to me, a sinner” – every morning this week before adding anything else. Notice how beginning with honest need rather than personal accomplishment changes the posture of your heart.
• Listening for the Shepherd: Jesus says his sheep hear his voice. Set aside ten minutes of silence each day this week. Do not fill the silence with requests. Simply listen. Ask, “Good Shepherd, what are you saying to me?” and wait.

Prayer Focus

Begin by reading John 10:27-30 aloud together. Let the promise of the Shepherd’s unbreakable grip settle over the group. Then pray:

• For the blind: For those who do not yet see Jesus for who he is – that God would open eyes as he opened the eyes of the man born blind.
• For the expelled: For those who have paid a social cost for following Christ – who have lost community, family approval, or professional standing because of their faith. Ask the Good Shepherd to find them and give them a new flock.
• For the indifferent: For the “rich man” in each of us – the part that walks past suffering without stopping. Ask God to break through our insulation and make us see the Lazarus at our gate.
• For gratitude: That we would be like the one leper who returned, not the nine who walked away healed but thankless.