Discussion Questions, 8/5/12

1. Prior to listening to this sermon, what was your attitude towards church membership? If someone had asked you whether it is, or why it is, important to be a church member, how would you have responded? How has your answer changed through the message?

2. What does Jesus mean by giving Peter (and the local church, in Matthew 18) the keys of the kingdom of heaven? What does this have to do with church membership?

3. Have you experienced the pain of watching people who profess to be Christians living in ways that seem totally incompatible with what it means to be a Christian? What did Jesus provide to guard against this kind of hypocrisy and self-deceit?

4. What are some ways that the church can humbly, lovingly use the keys of the kingdom in a way that is not judgmental?

5. Read 1 Corinthians 5. What do we learn in this passage about the church's authority to bind and loose? What are the similarities between this passage and Matthew 18:15-18? What are some differences?

6. How is church membership a blood-bought gift of God's grace? How should that affect our view of the church, and our membership in it?