19 Apr Discussion Guide: What’s After ATX – Week 1
Before We Get Started
For our discussion today we will be using this discussion guide with questions from this week’s video as well as some additional questions we have added for further conversation. If you would like to follow along you can access this discussion guide on the website at mosaicchurchaustin.com and then select “community group resources” in the menu options.
Prayer
As we get started let’s take a moment to pray and ask God to give us helpful, compassionate, and loving conversation with one another and to help us all walk away feeling encouraged and hopeful about what happens when we pass from this life to the next.
This Week’s Topic
Throughout the next 6 weeks we will looking at what the Bible has to say about life after death through the lens of near death experiences. Today, our focus will on:
Evidence for the Afterlife.
Discussion Questions
Questions from the video
What has been your view of what happens when we die?
Why do you think people often avoid thinking or talking about what’s after life?
Does any of the scientific evidence surprise you? Do you find it credible? If it’s true, what difference would that make for you?
Additional Questions
Acts 14:19-20
“But Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, and having persuaded the crowds, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead. But when the disciples gathered about him, he rose up and entered the city, and on the next day he went on with Barnabas to Derbe.’
2 Corinthians 12:1-4
“I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. I must go on boasting. Though there is nothing to be gained by it, I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. And I know that this man was caught up into paradise—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows— and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter.”
It is widely believed and accepted that Paul’s reference in 2 Corinthians is regarding his own NDE he experienced when he was stoned to death in Acts 14.
What do you think about the fact that NDE reports have been around for thousands of years?
Do you know anyone who has an NDE? Or have you ever had an NDE?
Why might a person want NDE’s to be true? Why might a person want NDE’s to not be true?
Closing Thought
Plato
“Either death is a state of nothingness and utter consciousness, or, as men say, there is a change and migration of the soul from this world to another. Now if death be of such a nature, I say that to die is to gain; for eternity is then only a single night.”
According to Plato, why does it matter what we believe about what happens when we die?
Prayer
As we close our time together, is there anything we can pray for you right now?