Daniel Session 2 Hearing God speak in a foreign land Sun 18th Oct

Theme

Only God’s wisdom can reveal the mysteries of life
 

Welcome

• Have you had any dreams that were so vivid they seemed real? Have any of them ended up being a reflection of some future reality?
   

Worship

• Read Romans 11:33-34 and thank God for his Wisdom. You might like to think of specific instances where God’s way was unexpected and yet worked out for the best.

Word
This story bears many similarities with the story of Joseph with Pharaoh in Genesis 41. Both Joseph and Daniel are men of God who find themselves in the service of a foreign king who has a troubled dream. Both are given the interpretation of the dreams by God, but in Daniel’s case he is also given the actual dream itself.

• Have you ever found yourself facing in trouble due to no fault of your own?
• If so, how did you feel?
• What is Daniel’s response when he finds himself and his friends unexpectedly facing the death sentence?
• How does Daniel model godly behaviour in his response to this crisis? v14, v18, v19, v27-28, v30, v49
• Which of these aspects do you find most challenging?
• How does Daniel present God to king Nebuchadnezzar?
• What general principles of human history might we derive from this dream and its interpretation?
• How might v46-47 have encouraged a beleaguered Jew in the time of the exile?
• In the New Testament, Jesus speaks of all Scripture pointing to him (Luke 24:27), where might we see Christ in this passage?
• How might that speak encouragement into a world that often seems out of control?
  

Note: Interpreting the statue. 2 main views are held about which empires the different sections of the statue relate to: the Greek view and the Roman view.

	Greek View	Roman view
Head of gold	Nebuchadnezzar (Babylonian empire)	Nebuchadnezzar (Babylonian empire)
Arms & legs of silver	Mede empire	Medo-Persian empire
Belly & thighs of bronze	Persian empire	Greek empire
Legs of iron	Greek empire	Roman empire

Both views have strong support and good rationale, which suggests that the focus of the dream is not to be totally precise about future kingdoms, but to communicate something more general.

Witness

• What source of wisdom does the world around us offer?
• What does Daniel 2 have to say about the source of all wisdom?
• What is the difference between intelligence and wisdom?
• What might it mean in practice to seek wisdom from God? Read Colossians 2:2-3 as you think about this answer.
• How can we practically offer godly wisdom to a secular world?

Prayer James 1:5 tells us to ask God for wisdom. Read this verse and spend some time asking for God’s wisdom to deal with specific areas of your life.