1. What is the purpose of human linguistic capacity? Why do humans have this capacity, whereas other creatures do not? What is the difference between the way other creatures communicate and the way humans communicate? How does this observation inform what we mean when we say that we are made “in the image of God”?
2. Describe the connection between “image bearing” and “witness bearing.” Describe the dynamic of witness bearing. Bearing witness to what? To whom? For what reason? In what manner?
3. Discuss Andy’s observation that God was Adam and Eve’s first “neighbor”– and that the fall into sin in Genesis 3 was in a way perhaps most fundamentally a breach of the 9th Commandment.
4. What is God doing in the work of redemption with respect to witness-bearing? What is he doing with Moses, and with Israel? What is the Father doing with the Church?
5. Describe the back-and-forth success-and-failure of the Father’s family in their restoration to the role of testimony-giving. Think through the various implications of the 9th Good Word, and discuss the ways in which you are most vulnerable to “losing your witness” through breaking this commandment.
6. How did Jesus Christ come as the “True and Faithful Witness”? How does his testimony save and restore us?
7. How does Jesus, as True Witness, call you to fresh witness-bearing in the days ahead? What is God saying to you? What are you going to do about it? Who is going to help you?