Lean In // 5 minutes
What are some of the greatest “BFF” movies of all time?
Leader Note: BFF = Best, Friends, Forever!
Sample answers may include…
- Toy Story
- Dumb and Dumber
- Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure
- Grumpy Old Men
- Top Gun
- The Odd Couple
- The Lord of The Rings
- Beaches
Look Down // 10 minutes
Read Luke 5:17-28
Who are all the people in the passage? What do you learn from each person?
Leader Note: After you have identified all the people in the passage read the passage again breaking it down in three segments (v.17-19, v.20-24, v.25-26) making it easier to catch everything.
Sample answers may include…
Jesus
- God’s healing power was greatly with Jesus (v.17)
- Jesus see’s beyond the paralyzed man’s physical need (v.20)
- Jesus responds to faith (v.20)
- Jesus read the minds of the Pharisees (v.21)
- Jesus claims to be the son of God in his speech and actions (v.23-24)
- Jesus physically heals the man as “evidence” to the Pharisees that he is who he says he is (v.24)
Pharisees/Teachers of the Law
- They were sitting as Jesus was teaching. (In the Rabbinical tradition the teacher takes the seated place and the students gather around him. This would have been a show of disrespect by the Pharisees.) (v.17)
- There were many of them there from various place, they were curious about Jesus (v.17)
- The Pharisees saw Jesus as having contempt towards God, a “God slander.” (v.21)
The friends of the paralyzed man
- They were persistent, didn’t give up on brining their friend to Jesus (v.18-19)
- They weren’t worried about making fools of themselves (v.18-19)
- They had great faith (v.20)
- They didn’t initially get what they came for (v.20)
The paralyzed man
- Despite his condition he had friends (Marks gospel tells us there were 4 friends with him) willing to fight for him, he wasn’t isolated (v.18-19)
- Jesus doesn’t do what he came to him for at first (v.20)
- He got more than he asked for (v.20,24)
- He responds in worship (v.25)
The crowd
- There were a lot of them! Enough to pack the house (v.19)
- They showed up, watched Jesus work and praised him (v.19, 25-26)
What is the surprise in the passage?
Commentary: The surprise comes in verse 20. The 4 friends go through all the trouble of getting their crippled friend to Jesus and when they do Jesus doesn’t even acknowledge his physical state. He goes straight to his spiritual condition and forgives his sins. Jesus had a different priority.
Look Out // 10 minutes
What does it look like when people have great friends to walk with them in hardship?
What does it look like when they don’t?
Leader Note: Encourage your group to think about where they’ve seen this type of friendship and where they’ve seen people lacking it. Invite stories and examples.
Commentary: The paralyzed were often on the margins of society in Jesus time. They were thought to have been responsible for their condition either by some sort of personal sin or the sin of their parents. Many of them were isolated and left to beg on the outskirts of town. This man is not isolated. He has friends willing to take him to Jesus!
Look In // 20 minutes
Who are your 4 friends that would carry you to Jesus?
Leader Note: Take this a cut deeper for those that have a hard time identifying 4 friends by asking… “What prevents you from having those type of relationships?”
Who can you be this type of a friend to?
Live It Out // 5 minutes
How would your life be different with that type of friendship?
How would the lives of others be different?
Leader Note: This question is for both sides of the friendship… giving that type of friendship and receiving that type of friendship from others.
Pray: Pray prayers of thankfulness for the people we have in our lives that stand with us through difficultly and challenge us to grow in our faith. Pray for postures of humility to accept that type of friendship from others and willingness and compassion to be that friend for others.