Wonderfalls Bible Study Week 10

Episode 10- Lying Pig

Sirach 23:1-27

O Lord, my Father and Master of my life, do not leave me at the mercy of my own words; don't let them cause my downfall. ² I wish I could be whipped for my thoughts, so that Wisdom could discipline my mind. I would not want to be spared when I am wrong; I would not want a single sin to be overlooked! ³ Then I would not keep on sinning, making one mistake after another. I could not fall to my enemies and be humiliated by them.

⁴ O Lord, my Father, God of my life, keep me from being arrogant; ⁵ protect me from evil desires. ⁶ Keep me from being overcome by greed or lust; do not leave me at the mercy of these shameless passions.

Taking Oaths

⁷ My children, listen to what I have to say about proper speech; do as I teach you and you will never get trapped. ⁸ Sinners are caught by their own arrogant, insulting words.
⁹ Don't fall into the habit of taking oaths, and don't use God's holy name too freely. ¹⁰ A slave who is constantly beaten will never be free of bruises; someone who is always taking an oath by the Holy Name will never be free of sin. ¹¹ Anyone who takes oaths all the time is sinful to the core, and punishment is never far away from his household. If he fails to fulfill his oath, he is guilty. If he ignores his oath, he is twice as guilty. If his oath was insincere in the first place, he cannot be pardoned and will have a house full of trouble.

Filthy Talk

¹² There is one way of speaking that is like death itself—may no Israelite ever be guilty of it! Devout people do not wallow in such sin, and they will keep away from such behavior. ¹³ Don't fall into the habit of coarse, profane talk; it is sinful. ¹⁴ You might forget yourself while in the company of important people and make a fool of yourself with some foul word that comes to you naturally. Think how your parents would feel! You would curse the day you were born and wish you were dead! ¹⁵ If you fall into the habit of using offensive language, you will never break yourself of it as long as you live.

Sexual Sins

¹⁶ There are any number of ways to sin and bring down the Lord's anger, but sexual passion is a hot, blazing fire that cannot be put out at will; it can only burn itself out. A man who lives for nothing but sexual enjoyment will keep on until that fire destroys him. ¹⁷ To such a man all women are desirable, and he can never get enough as long as he lives.

¹⁸ The man who is unfaithful to his wife thinks to himself,
    No one will ever know. It's dark in here, and no one sees me. I have nothing to worry about. As for the Most High, he won't even notice. ¹⁹ This man is only afraid of other people. He doesn't realize that the eyes of the Lord are 10,000 times brighter than the sun, that he sees everything we do, even when we try to hide it. ²⁰ He knew everything before he created the world, as well as after. ²¹ That sinful man will be caught when he least expects it, and punished publicly.

²² The same is true of a woman who is unfaithful to her husband and presents him with a child by another man. ²³ In the first place, she has broken the Law of the Most High. In the second place, she has wronged her husband. And in the third place, she has made a whore of herself by committing adultery and bearing the child of a man not her husband. ^24-25 The children will suffer for her sin. They will not be able to find a place in society or establish families. She herself will be brought before the assembly ²⁶ and permanently disgraced. There will be a curse on her memory. After she is gone, ²⁷ everyone will realize that nothing is better than fearing the Lord, nothing is sweeter than keeping his commands.

2 Maccabees 6:25-27

If I pretended to eat this meat, just to live a little while longer, it would bring shame and disgrace on me and lead many young people astray. ²⁶ For the present I might be able to escape what you could do to me, but whether I live or die, I cannot escape Almighty God. ²⁷ If I die bravely now, it will show that I deserved my long life.

Acts 8:9-25

Now for some time a man named Simon had practiced sorcery in the city and amazed all the people of Samaria. He boasted that he was someone great, ¹⁰ and all the people, both high and low, gave him their attention and exclaimed, “This man is rightly called the Great Power of God.” ¹¹ They followed him because he had amazed them for a long time with his sorcery. ¹² But when they believed Philip as he proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. ¹³ Simon himself believed and was baptized. And he followed Philip everywhere, astonished by the great signs and miracles he saw.

¹⁴ When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to Samaria. ¹⁵ When they arrived, they prayed for the new believers there that they might receive the Holy Spirit, ¹⁶ because the Holy Spirit had not yet come on any of them; they had simply been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. ¹⁷ Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.

¹⁸ When Simon saw that the Spirit was given at the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money ¹⁹ and said, “Give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.”

²⁰ Peter answered: “May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money! ²¹ You have no part or share in this ministry, because your heart is not right before God. ²² Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord in the hope that he may forgive you for having such a thought in your heart. ²³ For I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin.”

²⁴ Then Simon answered, “Pray to the Lord for me so that nothing you have said may happen to me.”

²⁵ After they had further proclaimed the word of the Lord and testified about Jesus, Peter and John returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel in many Samaritan villages.

Numbers 21:4-9

 They traveled from Mount Hor along the route to the Red Sea, to go around Edom. But the people grew impatient on the way; ⁵ they spoke against God and against Moses, and said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!”
⁶ Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. ⁷ The people came to Moses and said, “We sinned when we spoke against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take the snakes away from us.” So Moses prayed for the people.
⁸ The Lord said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.” ⁹ So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived.
2 Kings 18:3-5

He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father David had done. ⁴ He removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. He broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it. (It was called Nehushtan.)

⁵ Hezekiah trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him.

Reflect on the Bible passages in light of the film.

What is the first meeting between Eric and Heidi in the bar like?

Reflect on this quote: “what I did was unforgiveable.”

What does Sirach say about adultery?

Are Jaye and Eric guilty of adultery? Why or why not?

Reflect on this in light of the Sirach passage.

What do you think of what happens with Jaye’s mother and father?

What does Heidi say about what she did and what she wants from Eric?

What is the first meeting between Heidi and Jaye like?

What would it be like for Jaye to hear the voices tell her ‘mend what is broken’ in this context?

Is what Aaron and Mahandra did ‘wrong’? Why or why not?

Is Mahandra’s secret relationship with Aaron on the same level as what Heidi did to her husband? 

Why or why not?

Why does Sirach link Adultery with taking and breaking oaths, and profane language?

Why does Jaye come clean to Aaron?

What is Jaye trying to accomplish with her brother?

Reflect on this quote: “do you want it to be crazy?”

What is the significance of Jaye being ‘surrounded’ by animal faces?

How do we see sins being repeated in the episode?

What does Sirach say about making the same mistakes over and over again?

What is the confrontation between Heidi and Jaye like in the hotel room?

What does Mahandra say about what Heidi did?

What is Aaron’s real reason for taking all of Jaye’s items?

Why does Simon follow Peter and John? What does he want?

How do they respond?

What was the original purpose of the Bronze Snake?

What ended up happening to it?

Is Aarons situation similar? Is Aaron committing idolatry?

How does this contrast with Jaye’s relationship with the items?

What does it say that the voices can still find Jaye after this?

What food do you think the man is talking about in the Maccabees passage?

What does Eliezer (in 2 Maccabees) say about trying to hide from God?

What would it be like for Jaye and Eric to have Heidi get amnesia?

Why does Jay push for Eric to take Heidi home after the hospital visit?

What do Heidi and Jaye say about Eric?

What does it mean to have someone see you as what you can be?

How is this relevant to our relationship with God?

What is the parity between what happens with Jaye’s dad and the doctor and what happens with 

Heidi, Jaye and Eric at the bar?

Reflect on this quote: “That’s what I want in my life…something worth fighting for.”

How do we see ‘things worth fighting for’ in the Bible passages?

What does Eric say at the end of the episode to Jaye at the chapel? Reflect upon this.