For the student: Read along, fill in the blanks, and write your answers on the lines. Your parent has the answers.
Step 1 · Understand the Collect
Most collects follow a five-part pattern: the address (the One to whom we pray), the reason (what God has done or promised), the petition (what we ask), the purpose (what we hope will result), and the ending (the closing that names the Trinity).
O God, because without You we are not able to please You, mercifully grant that Your Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
1. Mark each part of the collect. What is unusual about the reason?
2. Most collects give a reason drawn from God's deeds or promises. Why would this one rest its prayer on our weakness?
3. Whom does the collect name as the One who directs our hearts, and where does He work?
Step 2 · Understand the Gospel
Read the Gospel on your own.
Matthew 22:34-46
34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" 37 And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets."
41 Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, 42 saying, "What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?" They said to him, "The son of David." 43 He said to them, "How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying, 44 'The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet'? 45 If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?" 46 And no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.
1. The lawyer asked "to test him" (v. 35). Why was this question a trap?
2. Jesus says all the Law and the Prophets "depend" on these two commandments. What does that mean?
3. Why does Jesus follow the lawyer's question with His own question about the Christ (v. 42)?
4. How can the Christ be both David's son and David's Lord (vv. 42-45)?
Step 3 · Find the Collect in the Gospel
1. Find at least two places where the collect's words appear in the Gospel. Explain each one.
2. Today's Epistle says that God "will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Corinthians 1:8). How does that answer the collect's confession?
Step 4 · The Small Catechism
The Third Article. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen. What does this mean? I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith. In the same way He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. In this Christian church He daily and richly forgives all my sins and the sins of all believers. On the Last Day He will raise me and all the dead, and give eternal life to me and all believers in Christ. This is most certainly true.
Cross-reference. "No one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except in the Holy Spirit." (1 Corinthians 12:3)
1. The Pharisees knew the Scriptures but could not say how David's son is also David's Lord. How does Luther's explanation account for that?
2. Compare Matthew 22:43 with 1 Corinthians 12:3. What do they teach together?
3. The great commandment asks for love with all the heart. How is it kept for us, and how does it begin to be kept in us?
Think about it. If no one can believe by his or her own strength, how does anyone come to faith? Read 1 Corinthians 12:3 and Romans 10:17 and be ready to talk about it.
Step 5 · Wrap It All Up
1. Write a short collect of your own for this day. Use all five parts.
Pray today's collect together. Then answer:
2. What does Jesus do for you when you cannot please God by yourself?
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible. Small Catechism quotation from Luther’s Small Catechism with Explanation, © Concordia Publishing House.