Note: I first published this on December 6th 2023, but having repeated and thoroughly enjoyed the experience with the 2024 ID crew, I thought I’d re-up the post.

I was recently asked to do a session on the topic of grace (90 minutes online) with a group of about 50 people who are serving a church for a year on the ID program. As most of them were youngsters I showed Stormzy’s Blinded by your Grace to establish my bona fides.

And then we got down to it by studying Ephesians 2 which we read three separate times. On the first reading we were looking for what the passage says about humans prior to God taking action. This highlighted words like, ‘dead’, ‘alienated’, ‘strangers’ ‘without hope’, ‘without God’ and so on.

The second time we read it through we looked for the actions of God and the motives of God. What did God do and why did He do it? This reading highlights words like ‘mercy’, ‘love’, ‘kindness’, ‘peace’

This read through really emphasizes the action of God. We were unable to save ourselves but God could. It was time for another little video and I showed this clip from Dunkirk.

I really resonated with what Brett McCracken says about this

As the musical tension climaxes we see Branagh on the mole, his eyes enlarging as he sees something in the distance. He looks through binoculars. “What do you see?” someone asks. “Home,” he replies—a word matched in the music that at last resolves to a “home” major chord. We see the triumphant arrival of rescue boats, and then Branagh’s eyes fill with tears (as ours do) as the music swells. We resonate because we too cannot get “home” on our own. Home comes for us.

9 Movie Moments of Unmerited Grace

Home comes for us.

Then we read the passage one more time and this time we were looking for the difference it makes to us who receive Christ by faith. This has some overlap with the previous reading but it highlights some new phrases, ‘citizens’, ‘members of God’s household’, ‘a dwelling place for God’, ‘God’s workmanship’ and so on.

Then I quoted Bonhoeffer,

Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it costs God the life of His Son: “ye were bought at a price,” and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon His Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but deliver Him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.

The Cost of Discipleship p.36

This deals with the objection that grace is a blank cheque for licence or for a casual attitude towards sin & repentance. Grace is costly but it remains grace. ‘What has cost God much cannot be cheap for us.’

And that was pretty much it. Each of the readings was done together and then they broke up into breakout rooms to work through the passage and then we shared our findings. Simples.

In the feedback afterwards what really stood out was the practice of reading the same passage more than once. Here are some of the things they said:

“Loved how Bible focused it was! Like re-reading the passage and figuring it out for ourselves straight from the Bible was great!! Definitely want to do it with someone.”

“It was great to look into Ephesians and really see how God’s grace has saved us. Thank you!”

“Really enjoyed continuing to revisit the passage with different focuses – pointed us to God’s character and was helpful to look at how life changing that is.”

“Reading the passage 3 times really got it into my head so much better than reading it once so thanks!”

“Thanks for the great framework you gave us for drawing out the meaning from the passage!”

“I loved how you got us to read it multiple times!”

“I liked rereading the same passage throughout the whole session.”

“Loved how we went through Ephesians in three different ways.”

By contrast only two people gave me kudos for the Stormzy clip. Apparently reading a Bible passage several times is way cooler.