Bible Study: October 7, 2026

Prayer  

As always, we'll begin with a prayer. Is there any great thing from the past week you'd like to mention for us to praise/pray about? Perhaps a prayer was answered since our last meeting, or maybe something wonderful happened that you want to praise God for by sharing with us? Afterwards, we can also discuss prayer requests for any challenges and for the people we know who are close to our hearts.

Praise

Come Thou Fount

 Come, thou Fount of every blessing;

tune my heart to sing thy grace;

streams of mercy, never ceasing,

call for songs of loudest praise.

Teach me some melodious sonnet,

sung by flaming tongues above;

praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,

mount of God’s unchanging love!

 Here I raise my Ebenezer;

hither by thy help I’m come;

and I hope, by thy good pleasure,

safely to arrive at home.

Jesus sought me when a stranger,

wandering from the fold of God;

he, to rescue me from danger,

interposed his precious blood.

 O to grace how great a debtor

daily I’m constrained to be!

Let that grace now, like a fetter,

bind my wandering heart to thee.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,

prone to leave the God I love;

here’s my heart; O take and seal it;

seal it for thy courts above.

Passage

John 2:1-11: The Wedding at Cana

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2 Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3 When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” 4 And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to me and to you? My hour has not yet come.” 5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” 6 Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. 7 Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. 8 He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the person in charge of the banquet.” So they took it. 9 When the person in charge tasted the water that had become wine and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), that person called the bridegroom 10 and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.” 11 Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee and revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.

Ponder

1. As you heard John 2:1–11 (or the hymn), what single word or phrase connected with your heart, and why?

2. Jesus says to his mother, “What is that to me…? My hour has not yet come”? But then a miracle shows up by His power, not looking like a show at all. Only the disciples and the servants even know it happens. Jesus is waiting for His 'hour to come' to show who He is at a later time, but helps secretly anyways. He's the help that no one saw...and made the party perfect. Has there every been a moment in your life where you a person who made something work out in secret and next to no one noticed they even did it?

3. Meaning in the story: John calls this the first “sign” that revealed Jesus’s glory. But in what ways does this sign disclose who Jesus is? He takes 'purification jars' filled to the brim and then makes them into something else. What do you think He's up to here?

4. What could Cana teach a Presbyterian congregation in Canada about practicing joy, hospitality... or maybe in trying something different?

5. In a more generic sense, where are the “empty jars” these days? Where are places that feel dry or stuck stuck that we could “fill to the brim”?

6. Name one specific way we can be “sign-bearers” of quiet abundance in our local neighborhood. What can we quietly do that may change a person's life, or a community?

Purposeful Prayer

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