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isaiah

A Tale of Two Sons (Isaiah 7:2-16)

By Christmas, Holiday Talks, isaiah, Joy to the World (Christmas), Talks

After King Ahaz hears about Assyria coming to attack his country, he starts running around in a panic. So God sends Isaiah and his son to remind Ahaz to trust in the Lord, like a tiny, dependent child. But after Ahaz refuses, God promises him a sign anyway: a child born of a virgin, named Immanuel, who would be “God with us,” ultimately fulfilled in the Christmas message, in the birth of Jesus Christ.

Isaiah 54-55 – The Invitation (Community Group Study Notes)

By isaiah, Studies

The idea of freezing hedgehogs has been used to describe human interactions. The hedgehogs huddle together for warmth. But the closer they get the more they spike one another. So they move further away…but get cold…so move closer together…but get spiked. The idea has been used to describe how humans long for relationship (or are put in places of relationship) but these context provide conflict which drives us away…so we tend to find a happy medium where we can connect…but not be hurt.

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Isaiah 53 (Community Group Study Notes)

By isaiah, Studies

Isaiah 53 is one of the most famous passages in Isaiah, in fact in the whole of the Old Testament. Because of it’s clarity in painting the one who would come to bear sin (the person we know as Jesus) and because of the time it was written (hundreds of years before Jesus) it’s the go-to passage in the Old Testament for Christians.

But the problem with familiarity is that we lose the shock and beauty of the picture Isaiah paints of the one God was going to send. The Servant here isn’t anything like Israel expected God’s deliverer to be like, and doesn’t do what Israel expected God’s deliverer to do. So to feel the impact Isaiah 53 would have had on the Jews who first heard and read it, and to feel once again the uniqueness of Jesus a swell as understanding what his primary mission was, we need to go back to basics with this person Isaiah calls “The Servant”.

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Isaiah 40 (Community Group Study Notes)

By isaiah, Studies

This week we start looking at the second half of Isaiah. If the first half of Isaiah was characterised by the idea of judgement, the second half of Isaiah is characterised by hope.

Discuss what differences and similarities you see between the ideas of “comfort” and “rest”. How can you have one without the other?

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