Michlaude Discipleship Project

Appendix D

A Reading Guide (2 of 2)

Part Five — The Woes as a Mirror

  1. Which of the seven Woes produced the most resistance when you read it? Did you want to apply it to someone else before yourself?
  2. Woe Four: what are the mint, dill, and cumin in your spiritual life — the small things you are precise about — and what are the justice, mercy, and faithfulness you are less precise about?
  3. The distance between lips and heart: which of the four instruments (what your mind returns to, obedience at cost, response to correction, interior during worship) most clearly reveals that distance in your life?

Parts Six, Seven, and Eight — The Hard Words / Praying in His Name / The Forty Days

  1. Part Six’s Chapter Twenty-Five asks: what is the thing that, if Jesus asked you to give it up, you would walk away sad? Have you named it? Has anything moved since you named it?
  2. Part Seven established that ‘in my name’ is a legal position, not a verbal formula. How has that changed how you pray this week?
  3. Part Eight’s forty days: what is the most important thing about the resurrection appearances that you had not previously understood or received?

Part Nine — The Eternal Amen

  1. Of the three Amens in Chapter Thirty-Three — to who He is, to what He has said, to what He is doing — which is the hardest for you to speak? What makes it hard?
  2. The volume closes: ‘Volume I made you a soldier. Volume II has been making you a son.’ How would you describe the difference between where you were when you opened this volume and where you are now?
  3. What is the one thing you are taking from this volume that you will still be living in five years?

Context Three: Preaching and Teaching Series

A Nine-Week Series

Volume II maps directly to a nine-week preaching or teaching series, with one Part per week and the corresponding chapters forming the week’s content. For a Sunday preaching series, the recommended structure is:

  1. Week One — Part One: “The King’s Seal.” Opening sermon on the unprecedented authority of the Verily statements and what they demand of the listener. Anchor text: Matthew 7:28–29.
  2. Week Two — Part Two: “He Called You Friend.” The Upper Room Discourse as the King’s final investment in His disciples before the cross. Anchor text: John 15:15.
  3. Week Three — Part Three: “The Constitution.” The Sermon on the Mount as a constitutional declaration rather than a moral code. Anchor text: Matthew 5:3.
  4. Week Four — Part Four: “Eternal Life Begins Now.” John 17:3 as the theological center of the series. Anchor text: John 17:3.
  5. Week Five — Part Five: “The Mirror.” Matthew 23 received as personal diagnostic. Anchor text: Matthew 23:25–26.
  6. Week Six — Part Six: “The Hard Words.” Plain speech, marriage, and the idol the King is asking for. Anchor text: Matthew 19:21.
  7. Week Seven — Part Seven: “Praying in the Name.” The legal position, the Father’s response, and corporate authority. Anchor text: John 16:23.
  8. Week Eight — Part Eight: “The Forty Days.” The resurrection as the most carefully constructed evidentiary body in history. Anchor text: Acts 1:3.
  9. Week Nine — Part Nine: “The Eternal Amen.” The closing call to the disciple’s own Amen. Anchor text: Revelation 3:14; 22:20.

Preaching Notes

Several chapters require particular care in a congregational setting due to the pastoral sensitivity of their content. Chapter Twenty-Four (divorce and remarriage) should be introduced with explicit acknowledgment that the congregation contains people who have been through divorce and that the chapter is being preached as the King’s teaching, received in the same spirit in which it was given: from love, not condemnation. The section in that chapter addressed specifically to divorced and remarried readers should be read aloud or summarized from the pulpit. The cross covers what the King’s standard exposes.

Chapter Twenty-Five (the rich young ruler) should be preached with the idol inventory section expanded for the specific cultural context of the congregation. The four idols — security, reputation, control, comfort — present differently in different economic and cultural settings. Name the specific form the idol takes in your congregation’s context.

Part Nine’s Chapter Thirty-Three is the most appropriate chapter for a congregational response element: an invitation to speak the three Amens in personal prayer following the sermon, or to fill in Appendix E as a congregational act of commitment.