Questions:

1. What was confusing, convicting, or encouraging from this study of Scripture?
2. What things do we typically pray for ourselves and others? How do our prayers compare to Paul’s prayer in verse 9-14?
3. What does Paul specifically pray for in verse 9?
4. Why do we need to be filled with the knowledge of God’s will? Do you tend to think of God’s will as ‘private individual direction’ or as ‘God’s commands for how we should behave morally’?
5. In verse 10, what is the goal for every believer? What four ways do we accomplish that goal?
6. What is the relationship between salvation and good works? Do my good works earn my salvation or does my salvation produce good works in my life?
7. What is the relationship between knowing God and living for God? Can you have one without the other? Give one example of how your knowing God has changed the way you live. 
8. What does it look like to walk in dependence on God for strength to endure trials and be patient with people?
9. How much strength does God promise to give us to endure trials and be patient with people? Will there be a trial that ever grows beyond his ability to helps overcome?
10. “It’s one thing to be grateful. It’s another to give thanks. Gratitude is what you feel. Thanksgiving is what you do” (Tim Keller). How can you grow in regularly giving thanks to God? What will it look like to thank God more?
11. What reasons does Paul give to encourage believers to practice thanksgiving?

Questions for Discussion & Application

1. What was confusing, convicting, or encouraging from this study of scripture?
2. Why does an experience of God’s salvation change us? What descriptions of being changed by God’s grace do we see in Isaiah 12? How has your own experience of God’s salvation changed you?
3. What do you think verse 3 means? How might it point forward to Jesus and His conversation with the woman at the well in John 4:4-30?
4. What does Isaiah 12 say to us about singing? Why is singing such an important response to our experience of salvation?
5. Do you think that verses 4-6 are primarily about joyful worship, evangelism to the peoples in all the earth, or both?
6. Why are joyful worship and evangelism necessarily linked together? Does your joyful, thankful worship of the God who has saved you flow out of you in sharing Him with others? What is an example of this from your life? 

1. Was there anything confusing, challenging, or encouraging from Colossians 1:1-8?
2. What things do you give thanks to God and/or pray for the most?[1]
3. How is Christ central in Paul’s prayer? How can He be more central in your own prayers?
4. Our cultural understanding of a ‘saint’ is someone who is particularly wholesome or Christlike. However, Scripture refers to believers in Christ as saints (someone who is set apart by God for God) because they have trusted in Christ for salvation. This is a designation you cannot earn. It is given to you. Why is it hard for us to remember and think of ourselves as saints?
5. Paul offers sincere thanks to God for the faith and love he sees in the Colossian Christians. Whose example of faith and love are you thankful for?
6. How can believers grow in seeing themselves as “in Christ”? How does resting in Christ’s work for us empower us to live for Him?
7. Faith, hope and love: In what ways can our hope for heaven motivate both our love and our faith now (v 5)? Which of these three areas of Christian believing and living do you think you are weakest on? Why might that be?^[2]
8. Paul says the Gospel is powerful and effective. He believes that God will continue to powerfully work through His Word to bring salvation and life-change. What areas is it easy for you trust in God’s Word to be powerful and effective? What areas is it less easy?

[1] Mark Meynell, Colossians: Confident Christianity, (THe Good Book Company, 2016), 38. ^[2] Mark Meynell, Colossians & Philemon for You, ed. Carl Laferton, God’s Word for You (The Good Book Company, 2018), 17.

Questions for Discussion & Application

1. What was confusing, convicting, or encouraging from this study of scripture?
2. Is there ever a time when God is not in control? Even when His enemies seem to be strong?
3. How have you seen God work through persons who are rebellious against Him?
4. What successes do you need to give credit to God for?
5. How will God ultimately humble His enemies? (See Revelation 20:11-15.)
6. How does it encourage you to see the bigger picture of what God is doing and how things will ultimately end?