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Prayer: Listening to Jesus

• Lesson 10 for the week of March 3 to March 10

Relevant Passages: John 14-16 In John 14-16 Jesus prepares his disciples for his departure. Soon he will be arrested, put on trial and executed as a criminal. He points out that his followers will experience...

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The Prayers of Intercession: Daniel

• Lesson 9 for the week of February 24 to March 3

The book of Daniel three times mentions the prayers of Daniel while he was held as a captive in Babylon. First, he and his three companions pray for wisdom in uncovering and interpreting the king’s...

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Prayers of Desperation: Hezekiah

• Lesson 8 for the week of February 17 to February 24

Relevant Passages: 2 Kings 18-20; 2 Chronicles 32 Hezekiah had the challenge of being the king of the southern kingdom of Judah at the at the time the kingdom of Israel just to the north...

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Prayers for Reformation: Elijah

• Lesson 7 for the week of February 10 to February 17

Elijah we see a prophet to the king and the northern kingdom of Israel. A powerful figure, he brings both king and renegade nation to repentance for national sins. Ahab the king had married Jezebel,...

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A Prayer for God’s Dwelling: Solomon

• Lesson 6 for the week of February 3 to February 10

Relevant Passages: 1 Kings 8; 2 Chronicles 6 When the first Temple in Jerusalem was built a service of consecration was held at which King Solomon contributed a major prayer. In the ancient Middle East...

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Prayers of Penitence: David

• Lesson 5 for the week of January 27 to February 3

Relevant Passages: Psalms 32, 51, 130; 2 Samuel 11, 12 1. David King David committed adultery with Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, a loyal soldier away at battle. When she tells David she is pregnant,...

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Prayers of Triumph: Hannah and Mary

• Lesson 4 for the week of January 20 to January 27

Relevant Passages: 1 Samuel 1-2; Luke 1 1. Hannah Hannah was praying for a son in the sacred tent at Shiloh. Because she was childless, she lived under constant ridicule from her husband’s other wife....

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A Prayer of Supplication: Moses

• Lesson 3 for the week of January 13 to January 20

Relevant Passages: Psalm 90 Psalm 90, a somber and elegant psalm directed towards God consists of three parts: (1) The contrast between “You,” the eternal God, and “we”, his ephemeral creatures, vs. 1-6; (2) Our...

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Prayers of Despair: Job

• Lesson 2 for the week of January 6 to January 13

To embrace the vast book of Job in one study is impossible. So we limit ourselves to Job’s words directed to God, and to a final prayer Job offered on behalf of his accusers. You...

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The Model Pray-er and the Model Prayer

• Lesson 1 for the week of December 30 to January 6

1. Jesus’ Practice of Prayer Among the Gospels, Luke gives the most sustained attention to the praying Jesus. Only Luke records the story Jesus told to urge his disciples to always pray and not lose...

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Restoration

• Lesson 13 for the week of December 23 to December 30

Background and Literary Considerations The verses we study this week have occasioned significant debate as to their authorship. Some have argued that everything belongs to the eighth-century prophet who finally got around to some positive...

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Vision Five-No Escape

• Lesson 12 for the week of December 16 to December 23

Background and Literary Considerations Having come now to the last of the five vision reports, we need to ask how they connect with each other and the impact of the whole collection. What is the...

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Vision Four-Summer Fruit

• Lesson 11 for the week of December 9 to December 16

Background and Literary Considerations The fourth vision report in Amos brings us to another literary feature of the prophet’s preaching: puns. While we miss most of these in English translations, the Bible is replete with...

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Vision Three-The Plumb Line

• Lesson 10 for the week of December 2 to December 9

Background and Literary Considerations Again, we come in this lesson to a “vision report,” the third in a series of five. Given Amos’ penchant for surprising us with reversals of expectations, how should we prepare...

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