NOTES: 1] We've put the clock back to pre-Resurrection here. The festival of Dedication / Hanukkah / Lights (late Nov / early Dec) celebrated the re-dedication of the Temple in 165BC after its desecration by a successor of Alexander the 'Great'. 2] Rabbis customarily taught in the Temple colonnade. 3] Jesus' answer to the question in v. 24 is not substantiated elsewhere in JN, but he's implied it, if not made it clear in what he's claimed on many occasions, & shown by what he's done among them.

WARMING UP: Have you ever walked in an old (ruined?) church building. Did you meet up with any 'ghosts'?

TREASURES OLD & NEW: Afterthoughts from, follow-up to last week’s Group, or since?

EXPLORING GOSPEL:

22-23   How meaningful are church festivals to us? Are we always sure what it is we're celebrating? Do we or our church think of any of these festivals as 'compulsory', whereas others are 'optional'? If so, is it because of : what's being celebrated, tradition? personal convenience / inconvenience? our own estimation of its importance / unimportance? How do we reach any of those (or other) estimations?
Does the way we designed / design our church buildings lend itself to using them to explore Scripture, Doctrine, etc., other than by sitting & listening to someone out front expounding them? If we had to design a new church building, would we give priority: to the 'Sanctuary' (worship) or 'Public Open Space' (Education, Socialising, etc.)? Has the 'sacred space' created in older buildings been more or less helpful than the 'flexible space' of newer ones? What do we have to show for either / both?

24-25   Is there any sense in which we, too, think of Jesus as 'keeping us in suspense' about the issue at the centre of this dispute, i.e. whether he's the Messiah, or any other issue? If we are 'in suspense' in any way, how much is that likely to be because we haven't done our 'homework'? What about others, even 'insiders', who show they're not really convinced? Given Christianity's dependence upon Judaism for its building blocks, is the unique Jewishness of the whole idea of 'Messiah' still essential to people who don't spring from Jewish roots? If, somehow, someone could prove Jesus wasn't the Jewish Messiah after all, would that stop him being our Christian Saviour? What effect would such a discovery have on Christianity?
How many ways (e.g. verbally, demonstration, implication, etc.) can we think of in which Jesus told the people clearly that he was their Messiah? What in particular did he have to convince them of to 'prove' he was their Messiah? Is there still something he has to convince us of?

26-30   Is the way Jesus defines his 'sheep' here an adequate working definition for us today? How many components of being one of Jesus' 'sheep' can we identify here? Do we ever tend to replace Jesus' 'definition' here by less adequate, more watered- down ones of our own making?
            If someone were to ask us to explain 'eternal life' in a sentence or two, how might we answer? What about the 'never perish' bit? What is it that the Father has given Jesus that's "greater than all else"? How well do we really understand that "the Father & I are one"? If "the Father & I are one" how come we need a 'doctrine of the Trinity'?