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LEADER GUIDE

Josiah was eight years old when he became king and reigned 31 years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jedidah the daughter of Adaiah; she was from Bozkath. 2He did what was right in the Lord’s sight and walked in all the ways of his ancestor David; he did not turn to the right or the left.

3In the eighteenth year of King Josiah, the king sent the court secretary Shaphan son of Azaliah, son of Meshullam, to the Lord’s temple, saying, 4“Go up to Hilkiah the high priest so that he may total up the money brought into the Lord’s temple—the money the doorkeepers have collected from the people. 5It is to be put into the hands of those doing the work—those who oversee the Lord’s temple. They in turn are to give it to the workmen in the Lord’s temple to repair the damage. 6They are to give it to the carpenters, builders, and masons to buy timber and quarried stone to repair the temple. 7But no accounting is to be required from them for the money put into their hands since they work with integrity.”

8Hilkiah the high priest told Shaphan the court secretary, “I have found the book of the law in the Lord’s temple,” and he gave the book to Shaphan, who read it.

9Then Shaphan the court secretary went to the king and reported, “Your servants have emptied out the money that was found in the temple and have put it into the hand of those doing the work—those who oversee the Lord’s temple.” 10Then Shaphan the court secretary told the king, “Hilkiah the priest has given me a book,” and Shaphan read it in the presence of the king.

11When the king heard the words of the book of the law, he tore his clothes. 12Then he commanded Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam son of Shaphan, Achbor son of Micaiah, Shaphan the court secretary, and the king’s servant Asaiah: 13“Go and inquire of the Lord for me, the people, and all Judah about the instruction in this book that has been found. For great is the Lord’s wrath that is kindled against us because our ancestors have not obeyed the words of this book in order to do everything written about us.”

HHIGHLIGHT: 2 Kings 22:1-13

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EEXPLAIN

Leaders: Feel free to use any of the “Explain” materials to guide discussion as it is needed or to expound on a certain area of the text as it comes up during your Life Group time, but the purpose of this section is to deepen your own personal understanding of the Word. Your members have access to all of this material as well.

The Kingdom of Judah, or the Southern Kingdom after the split of the nation of Israel, split from Israel after the northern tribes reused to accept Rehoboam, Solomon’s son, as their king. As we watch Judah’s story unfold, we see as different kings come in and out of power, each with varying degrees of devotion to the Lord. Eventually, the written Word of God had been so neglected that it was forgotten about. However, in today’s passage we will see its rediscovery and witness the kind of change the Word brings, no matter how long it has been absent from our lives.

v.8-10 Deuteronomy 17:18-20 instructs all of the kings of Israel were to copy for themselves at least the book of Deuteronomy—and possibly the entire Pentateuch—in the sight of the Levitical Priests. This would have taken a considerable amount of time and would have demonstrated how committed the kings were to keeping the Word of God. Additionally, Deuteronomy 31:9-13 said that the entire law was to be read to the nation once every seven years at the Feast of Tabernacles.

Josiah’s father and grandfather, the two previous kings of Israel, had both been men who “did what was evil in the Lord’s sight;” it is not hard to speculate that they had simply not kept these commands from the Jews’ most precious book of Scripture.

Notice that Shaphan’s words in verse 10 indicate the mentality that people may have had at this time toward the Word of God: “Hilkiah the priest has given me a book.” Just a book. As with many people today, the Bible is simply a book—a dusty collection of old words that have little to no bearing on our lives today.

v.11 Josiah’s reaction to reading the scroll is dramatic, though appropriate. He had desired to live his life above reproach and walk after God—but only now realized that for decades he’d been missing it. It is also interesting to note that his response to hearing the Word of God is directly contrasted by his son in Jeremiah 36:24-25. Just because the father is steadfast and righteous in his faith doesn’t mean that his son will not come along with such utter disrespect for the Word that he burns the scrolls. Each person’s faith must be their own; one man’s zeal does not temper a nation’s iniquity.

We see reactions like this even in the modern era. Take this account of a schoolboy during the Second Great Awakening in Britain, from between 1859 and 1861:

“In the town of Coleraine, Northern Ireland, a schoolboy was under so much conviction of sin that he couldn’t continue on in class. The teacher sent him home in the company of another boy, who was already converted. On the way home to two boys noticed an empty house and stopped there to pray. The unhappy boy found peace and returned to the classroom immediately to tell the teacher: “I am so happy: I have the Lord Jesus in my heart!” His testimony had a striking effect on the class, and boy after boy slipped outside the classroom. The teacher peeked out the window and saw boys kneeling in prayer all around the schoolyard. The teacher was so convicted that he asked the first converted boy to minister to him. Finally the whole school was in such a state that the administrators sent for pastors to come and minister to the students, teachers, and parents and people were receiving ministry at the school until 11:00 that night.” (From Dr. J. Edwin Orr’s The Second Evangelical Awakening in Britain)

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AAPPLY Your Leader Guide will have material that the member guides do not have. The bolded material is what the people in your group will have, the other material is only for you to help guide discussion.

This guide can be as strict a script or as general a resource as the leader needs it to be.

1. What stuck out to you or challenged you in what you heard in the sermon or read in the text?

2. What is something that you, yourself, value? How would someone looking in at your life know that you value it? Is it a possession? An ideal? A person (or people)? Something else entirely?

The simplest way to know what someone values is to look at what they spend their time (and even their money) on. When you have free time or time to yourself, what do you find yourself doing? When your mind wanders, where does it go? Remember that people are complex and it’s not the individual responses to these questions that show what a person values; rather, it is the trajectory of their life.

3. How do you think the world sees the Word of God today? How do people talk about it? What sorts of opinions do either the people around you or folks across the country have about what it says? What about you?

Here are some quotes from skeptics surveyed about what their opinion of the Bible is: “While there are some good things in the Bible, I don’t think there is anything that is uniquely good in it – nothing that isn’t found in other books.” “It contains some lovely bits of literary phrases/expressions: the salt of the earth, man shall not live by bread alone, go the extra mile, wolf in sheep’s clothing, den of thieves, I wash my hands of it, Physician heal thyself, lost sheep, the root of all evil, a law unto himself, and on and on and on. In fact, you can’t appreciate much of Western literature without realizing the Bible’s literary influence.”

Thomas Jefferson famously edited his own version of the Gospels by using a penknife and pasting the bits that he liked together into a book he titled The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth. He called it “the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man” but rejected any reference to His miracles, resurrection, and divinity.

On the contrary, apologist William Lane Craig noted that the records we have of the life (and death and resurrection) of Jesus were written “within the first generation while the eyewitnesses were still alive” and that we have “better source documents for the life of Jesus than most of the major figures of antiquity.” We have access to around 24,000 manuscript copies or portions of the New Testament and Old Testament manuscripts dating back to the 3rd century B.C.—making the Bible the most historically verified document in existence.

If the words on the pages of the Bible are so historically accurate, we must make a decision: either the events, people, and God it describes are absolutely true and we cherish it as the Word of God, or we reject it entirely. We cannot simply choose what we “want to keep” from among its pages.

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LEADER GUIDE

RRESPOND Challenge your group to:

• Write down your response to Question 5 somewhere you will remember it. Come next week ready to share what you did and whether you were faithful to do it.

Encourage one another through email, text messages, or coffee dates throughout the week to build up and encourage each other.

4. What do you suppose someone’s life would look like if the thing that they valued most was the Word of God? How do you think they would structure their day if the Word was the most important thing to them? How is it difficult to prioritize Scripture today?

Someone who cherishes the Word of God would demonstrate it by prioritizing their life around it. They would be faithful to, as much as possible, read and memorize it—for the purpose of growing closer to God. The decisions they make, the way they respond to trials, and the views they espouse regarding the shape of the world around them would be shaped not by man’s opinion, but by what the Word said.

5. For many, the Bible has been lost in the rubble and clutter of their lives, much like it was in the time of Josiah. Has this ever been true of you? Is it true of you today? What is one feasible step you can take this week toward valuing the Word of God more than you did last week?