Use the programme which can be found on the link ‘discipleship challenges’. The ‘worksheet’ will help you follow through anything you feel is right to take up. The following notes are for your interest and consideration.
Personal comment:
The simple allegorical challenge coming from this passage is to be properly dressed for the wedding feast! We must be dressed with repentance, and repentance is matter of humility before God. It is hard to continue a life of self centredness, for example, and expect to be regarded as a repentant Christian. Repentance is also a very personal response to Jesus, and it is something that affects other people just as everything we do affects others.
Ideas for discipleship programme
- Consider whether other people regard you as someone who is a person of repentance. Make a list of the things you have repented of (to your knowledge). This is a difficult exercise, but it can be helpful, for we often take spiritual disciplines for granted, and when we look at them carefully, there is much we can do to find a more secure relationship with God our Father.
- Pray for those who turn away from the wedding feast of the Father and find themselves on the receiving end of God’s wrath. Pray about this, and ask th4e Lord how you can best understand this part of the parable and its application.
Jesus, stay close to us;
………………………
Holy Spirit, breathe on us;
………………………
Father Almighty, take control;
………………………
For in You, we are complete.
AMEN
Use these for group work, or to assist your personal reflection.
- Compare this passage with the parable of the vineyard (21:33-41). What does this passage tell us that the previous parable does not?
- What do you feel when you read about the ‘king’ who is ‘enraged’? Are you content to accept this as allegorical, or do these words means something more?
- Is repentance a ‘one off’ requirement for entry into the Kingdom, and if not, why do we need to do it again and again?