Discussion Questions

The speaker frames daily decisions (“When you buy this…when you do this with your free time”) as evidence of which master you serve; what specific purchases, entertainment patterns, or time-uses would expose that you’re listening to “your appetites” more than “Jesus’ way of living,” and how would you re-aim them toward “building God’s kingdom”? JumpstartAnother way to ask: What things you buy, watch, or spend time on show that you’re following your cravings more than Jesus? What would you change to point your money and time toward God’s kingdom?

The transcript describes life as “responding to external stimuli” and then applies it spiritually as “alive to God” versus “alive to sin”; what would it look like in real situations to become “non-responsive” to sin “just like a dead dog,” and what practices actually retrain your reflexes to respond to God instead? JumpstartAnother way to ask: In everyday life, what would it look like to stop reacting to sin like it has power over you? What habits could retrain you to respond to God instead?

The speaker uses C.S. Lewis’s Screwtape image of Satan devouring everything until nothing can say “I,” and then describes death as devouring, emptiness, and loneliness; where do you see that “devouring” pattern at work in your own ambitions, resentments, or habits, and what would repentance look like as moving back toward fruitfulness and community? JumpstartAnother way to ask: Where do you see a “devouring” pattern in your goals, grudges, or habits that leaves you empty and alone? What would repentance look like as moving back toward a fruitful life with other people?

Hebrews 2/Psalm imagery is emphasized: humans were made “a little lower than the angels,” crowned with glory, intended for dominion—yet “now we do not yet see” that; how does the speaker’s view of humanity’s original vocation challenge common Christian expectations of merely “getting to heaven,” and what would a church look like that believed dominion was part of God’s design? JumpstartAnother way to ask: How does the idea that humans were made for glory and dominion challenge the idea that Christianity is mainly about “going to heaven”? What would a church look like if it really believed that was part of God’s plan?

The poem “The Man with the Hoe” is used to ask, “Is this the thing God made?”—including examples like Dresden being firebombed by “professing Christians”; how does that example confront the way Christians justify violence, nationalism, or “necessary evils,” and what would it mean to judge those instincts by the question, “Is this what Christ dreamed when he gave his life?” JumpstartAnother way to ask: How does the Dresden example challenge the ways Christians excuse violence, nationalism, or “necessary evils”? How would things change if we asked, “Is this what Christ wanted when he gave his life?”

The teacher includes personal testimony about physical health (“folds of fat,” exhaustion) and calls the body a “tool, a weapon” for God’s purposes rather than a “ball and chain”; how do you discern the difference between faithful stewardship for mission and fleshly obsession with image, and what concrete changes might align your body and energy with the life God wants you to carry out? JumpstartAnother way to ask: How can you tell the difference between caring for your body so you can serve God and obsessing over your image? What specific changes could help your body and energy support what God is calling you to do?

The speaker lists “the way to death” from Ephesians (division, immorality, lying, anger, covetousness/stealing, bitterness, gossip, intoxication, domineering marriage dynamics, discouraged children, etc.); which items in that list does your church culture tend to excuse, minimize, or rename, and how does the transcript argue those patterns are not “struggles” but forms of death? JumpstartAnother way to ask: Which sins on that Ephesians list does your church tend to brush off or give nicer names to? Why does the speaker say these are not just “struggles,” but signs of death?

The speaker insists Ephesians 2 means being Christian is not mainly “having some guilt…taken away,” and even says, “If you’re still living the way of death, you’re dead,” regardless of prayers, aisles, or baptism; how does that claim collide with modern evangelical assurance frameworks, and what would a biblically grounded, non-self-deceived assurance look like according to his reading? JumpstartAnother way to ask: How does the claim “if you still live the way of death, you’re dead” clash with common evangelical ideas of assurance? Based on his reading of Ephesians 2, what would real, biblical assurance look like without fooling yourself?

Romans 6 is used to argue baptism is an identification with Jesus’ story—death to the old master and resurrection into a new one—and the speaker critiques baptisms where Romans 6 is “rattled off” like liturgy; how do you think early Christians would have expected baptism to change someone’s day-to-day obedience, and what would need to change in our preparation and follow-up for baptism to match that expectation? JumpstartAnother way to ask: How do you think early Christians expected baptism to change how someone obeyed Jesus every day? What should change in how we prepare people for baptism and support them after it?

The transcript challenges a “big and awful tragedy of modern Christianity”: pushing commandments and change to judgment day and redefining eternal life as only after death; with his “playing house / real dad comes home” illustration, what parts of your current lifestyle feel like “not real,” and what would it take to live now in a way that “when dad comes home, nothing has to change”? JumpstartAnother way to ask: What parts of your life feel like “playing house” instead of the real thing right now? What would you need to change so that if Jesus returned, you wouldn’t have to scramble to live differently?