Red Letter Living

Small Group Leader Questions for Week 4

Revised: 02/28/2010

Blessed Are Those Who

Hunger and Thirst for Justice
Discussion
• Names some areas of life in our city, nation or world that are in need of God’s justice.

• Why are the beatitudes (kingdom politics) threatening to the Caesar/Babylonian way the world is run?

• How does Jesus’ political policy affect the politics of our lives?

 Neither reactionary conservatism nor trendy liberalism represents the politics of Jesus.

 The politics of Jesus is a prophetic challenge to both conservatives and liberals.

 If your liberal politics prevents you from defending the rights of the unborn and the sanctity of the family
you do not share the politics of Jesus.

 If your conservative politics prevents you from defending the rights of the poor and the immigrant, you do
not share the politics of Jesus.

• What is Jesus saying to us about the needs of social injustice?

(ache with compassion, break free from the idea that things are OK, use faith to believe for the government of
God to bring justice...like Christians changed the first century Roman Empire)
• What is the greatest hindrance in you/us/our church to seeing the kingdom overcoming injustice and bringing in
the Jesus way?

Global Poverty
• 16% of the world lives on less than $1 per day.
• 40% of the world lives on less than $2 per day.
• 80% of the world lives on less than $10 per day.
• Americans live on $100 per day.
• 17,000 children die of hunger every day. (6 million per year—a holocaust of hunger)
• The nations of the world spend $3 billion per day on defense. (56% by the U.S.)
• Every day for every child who dies of hunger the nations of the world spend $176,00 to defend themselves from
one other.

Modern Slavery
• There are an estimated 27 million slaves in the world today. That’s more slaves than were seized from Africa in
four centuries of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
• Human trafficking is the world’s third largest criminal enterprise. (after drugs/weapons)
• 80% of human trafficking victims are women and girls. (forced into sex trade)
• 50% of modern slaves are minors.
• In 1850 the cost of a slave in the United States was $40,000. (2010 dollars)
• The average cost of a modern slave is $90.

Recite together the first four beatitudes.