Leader Guide 4-20-08 / Luke 14:16-24

Small Group Leaders Guide
April 20, 2008

Putting Priorities In Perspective
Luke 14:16-24

Getting Started:
1. Would you buy a house without looking at it first?

2. Have you ever said yes to an invitation and when the time came, backed out?


Going Deeper:
3. In this parable, people were invited to a banquet and people were told the banquet was ready. Which happened first? Or, did the invitation and the news that the banquet was ready both come at the same time? Why is this an important question regarding this parable?

• The people knew ahead of time that a banquet was being prepared for them. Presumably, the invitation had been accepted otherwise there would be no need to send a servant to let them know it was ready.
• The time to decline the invitation would have been at the time the invitation was received, not after all of the arrangements have been made.
• The reasons these people are giving for being unable to attend the banquet are frankly, insulting.
• What reason would the owner of the house have for being angry if the guests had not known and committed to the banquet beforehand?

4. In verse 18, what kept this guest from coming to the banquet? On a scale of 1-10, how lame was his excuse?

• I give him a 10! However, if you were here for the Sunday message, Mike made the case that the end result is the same even if the reasons given are completely legit!
  
• Maybe the owner of the house should have tried a little harder to schedule the banquet for a time that would have been more convenient for the guests.
• Is it right for the owner of the house to expect the guest to make good on his commitment?

5. In this parable, who are the invited guests? Why don’t they come?

6. Read Luke 14:24 and Matthew 21:43. What are the consequences of rejecting the invitation referred to in this parable?

7. In Luke 14:21, the owner of the house became angry. Why is he angry? Do you think anger is the appropriate response? What right does the owner have to be angry?

• One reason he could have a right to anger would be if the invitations were already agreed to. If they hadn’t been, he should have simply dealt with the fact that people were unable to attend and had other plans for that particular time.
• Another reason anger could be justified would be the nature of the excuses. These excuses were personal insults. One man “must” go to see a purchased field he probably had seen before he bought it. The second excuse is as worthless as the first; would anyone have bought oxen without examining them? In both instances, materialism got in the way of honoring an invitation already extended and accepted.
• The third excuse has more validity in the light of Deuteronomy 24:5. Yet, marriage was not, especially in that society, an abrupt decision and could hardly have been an unexpected factor that intervened between the first and second invitations.

8. Where else in the Bible would you find teaching about a feast or banquet that people are being invited to attend.

• Isaiah 25:6-8
• Revelation 19:9
• Matthew 22:1-14

9. From your own experience, how do you explain why so many say “No” to God’s incredible “banquet”? What view of God does the average un-churched person have?

10. Last week we talked about entering through the narrow door. How does this parable compliment or elaborate on that teaching?


Putting it into practice:
11. How have concerns about other things caused you to put God second? Pray about this in your groups?

12. Are there commitments that you are leaving unfulfilled? Pray about this in your groups.


Quote Of The Week:
Erase all thought and fear of God from a community, and selfishness and sensuality would trample in scorn on the restraints of human laws. Virtue, duty, and principle would be mocked as unmeaning sounds.
--William Ellery Channing