Scripture Reading Challenge – Day 1

      Welcome to the first day of our Scripture Reading Challenge for 2010!
     In an effort to have our teens be more committed to the Bible I have challenged them to read through the entire New Testament in 52 days.
      To help encourage everyone to stick with the challenge as well as learn more from their reading, each day I will be posting a brief questionnaire that you can either view online or download and print to keep.
      If you don’t have a schedule of what chapters to read each day, you can download it here.
     You can either download the questionnaire (.doc | .pdf) or view it below

Today’s Chapters:
Matthew 1-5

Chapter 1:
Matthew starts off with the Genealogy of Jesus. While some people find this section boring, there are some interesting things to look at here.
There are four women mentioned in this genealogy. Who are they and why are they important? Spend some time looking in the Old Testament to see what happened with these women. What does the fact that God was able to use these women in the lineage of Christ say about God’s ability to use anyone? What does this mean for you?

Chapter 2:
Chapter 2 tells the account of the Magi coming to visit. They knew that the “King of the Jews” was born. Where did they expect Him to be born? Why was He not born there? What was Herod’s reaction to their asking where the King was born? How did the events unfold?

Chapter 3:
Matthew 3 fast-forwards about 28 years to John the Baptist’s ministry in the wilderness. John the Baptist was the first person to have a message from the Lord for the people of Israel in almost 500 years! What was his message? Do you think this is what people expected to hear from the Lord? What was their reaction to hearing this message? When Jesus came to John to be baptized, what was John’s reaction? Why did he want this? Who did John recognize Jesus to be? What verification of this do we see in the passage?

Chapter 4:
Jesus began His ministry by being tempted by Satan. What does Hebrews 4:15 tell us about our High Priest (Jesus)? Why should this be an encouragement to us? Back in Matthew 4, how did Jesus respond to Satan every time? What tool did He use to defeat Satan? What does this tell us about the importance of reading and memorizing the Bible?

Chapter 5:
Matthew chapter 5-7 is commonly referred to as the Sermon on the Mount. How does Jesus start the first 10 verses of this sermon? What is the significance of all these characteristics? Are these things we should have in our lives, today? How do we make these a part of our lives?
Jesus then talks about salt and light. What is the importance of these two elements? Are we living our lives like these two elements?
What other verses in chapter 5 are significant to you? How do we need to apply them to our lives? How can they change the way we live as Christians?

     What are your thoughts, so far, about the study? Anything interesting from these chapters jump out at you that were not covered in the study? Leave a comment for further discussion!