Here are some questions based on last Sunday’s sermon text (Hebrews 4:14 – 5:10), in case they’re helpful to you for personal growth or group discussion…

• [4:14-15] What is a high priest? Why is Jesus the perfect Great (“Mega”) High Priest? Does this matter to you?

• Do you have friends outside the church who recognize their own need for a priest? Why do you think the idea of priesthood is outmoded in our culture?

• [4:16] Is there any good reason to approach God in prayer with anything but “confidence” because of our Great High Priest? Why would someone come sheepishly, or wait to come until more self-assured? How would you say you approach God in prayer? Why is it best just to do what the Scripture says here?

• [5:1-2, 7-9] How can it transform your experience of suffering to know that Jesus sympathetically and gently acts on your behalf in relation to God? To know that Jesus himself was perfected as our Savior through his suffering?

• [5:6, 10] (Read Genesis 14:17-20; Psalm 110; Hebrews 7) How does the author of Hebrews see in Melchizedek a prefigurement of Christ? Can we learn from passages like this to interpret the Old Testament as New Testament authors do?