The American Dream

This six-week study walks a small group through the whole teaching above, one piece at a time, pairing an Old Testament passage together with a New Testament passage each week. Read the Expanded version together as a whole group first if you'd like the full picture, or simply work through it week by week — either way, your group will have covered the whole teaching by week six, with real time along the way to be honest about where gratitude has quietly slipped into entitlement in your own life and habits.

Week One: A Door Left Open

Old Testament Passage

New Testament Passage

Walking Through It

This week, talk about the difference between opportunity and entitlement. Moses warns Israel not to credit their own hands for wealth that ultimately came from God's provision, and Paul says the same thing about competence itself centuries later — even our ability to do good work is not self-generated. Opportunity is real and effort matters, but the ability to make use of that opportunity was never something a person produced on their own. This distinction will run through the whole six weeks: real freedom to build, paired with real humility about where the ability to build actually came from. The founders themselves grounded human rights in a Creator rather than in government, which is worth remembering any time the American Dream gets discussed as though it were purely a human invention.

Discussion Questions

• Where has an open door of opportunity shaped your own life or family's story?
• Why is it easy to forget that even our ability to work is a gift from God?
• How can gratitude change the way we view our own success?
• Paul says our competence "comes from God." How does that change the way you'd talk about your own accomplishments?
• What is the difference between healthy pride in a job well done and the self-sufficiency Moses warns against?
• Who in your life models gratitude for opportunity rather than entitlement to outcomes?

Week Two: The Danger of Coveting

Old Testament Passage

New Testament Passage

Walking Through It

Discuss why God placed coveting in the Ten Commandments alongside murder and theft. Unlike the other commandments, this one names a feeling rather than an action, because God knows the destruction begins in the heart long before it shows up in a law or a vote. Jesus' warning in Luke goes even further, reminding His listeners that life itself is not measured by what a person accumulates — a truth that undercuts both greed and envy from the same root. Envy is also uniquely joyless: unlike most temptations it offers no pleasure even in the moment of indulging it, only the ongoing ache of comparison. Paul ties the opposite of coveting to contentment, calling it something to be actively learned rather than something that happens naturally to fortunate people.

Discussion Questions

• Why do you think coveting is easy to excuse compared to other commandments?
• Have you ever felt entitled to something someone else earned? What was underneath that feeling?
• How does coveting quietly grow into resentment or even theft?
• Jesus says life does not consist in an abundance of possessions. How does that reframe the anxiety behind coveting?
• Why do you think God named the desire itself as sin, rather than waiting for it to become an action?
• What is one practical way to guard your own heart against coveting this week?

Week Three: Blame or Belief

Old Testament Passage

New Testament Passage

Walking Through It

Talk about how not knowing God can quietly turn into blaming others for our circumstances. Proverbs paints an almost comic picture: a person's own choices lead to their ruin, and their response is to rage at God rather than examine themselves. Paul's words to the Ephesians offer the opposite posture — knowing we are saved by grace, not our own works, actually frees us from both self-blame and other-blame, because our identity rests on what God has done and prepared for us, not on what we've been denied. This is one of the clearest places where genuinely knowing God reshapes a person's whole outlook on their circumstances, not just their theology. It is worth noting that Scripture never denies real hardship exists; it simply refuses to let hardship become the whole explanation for a person's choices going forward.

Discussion Questions

• Have you ever blamed "the system" for something that was really a personal choice?
• How does truly knowing God change the way we handle disappointment or setbacks?
• What good works has God prepared for you specifically?
• Proverbs describes someone raging at God over the consequences of their own folly. Have you seen — or felt — that impulse?
• How does knowing you are saved by grace, not by earning it, change how you view someone else's success?
• What is one circumstance in your life you've blamed outward that might need a closer, more honest look inward?

Week Four: Work as Worship

Old Testament Passage

New Testament Passage

Walking Through It

This week, discuss what it looks like to treat your work as worship. The Teacher in Ecclesiastes and Paul centuries later land on the same instruction from two different angles — put your whole self into the work in front of you. Paul adds the crucial reason why: it is ultimately Christ you are serving, not a human boss, which is what makes diligent work possible even in an unfair or thankless job. This reframing removes the scoreboard against a coworker's paycheck or a neighbor's success entirely, since the only audience that matters has already been settled. Paul wrote these words originally to people in a genuinely unjust work situation, which means there is no modern job unfair enough to place this principle out of reach.

Discussion Questions

• Does your current job or role feel like worship? Why or why not?
• How would your work change if you truly worked "as for the Lord" every day?
• Who taught you your own work ethic, and how can you thank God for them?
• Ecclesiastes says to work with "all your might." What holds you back from that kind of full effort?
• Paul wrote this to people in an unjust work situation. How does that change how you apply this passage to a difficult boss or job?
• What is one task this week you could offer to God as worship rather than mere obligation?

Week Five: Cheerful, Not Compelled

Old Testament Passage

New Testament Passage

Walking Through It

Discuss the difference between freely chosen generosity and forced redistribution. Proverbs describes an almost paradoxical economy — the generous person gains, and the withholding person comes to poverty — that only makes sense once you see giving as something God blesses rather than merely a transaction. Paul's instruction to the Corinthians makes explicit what Proverbs implies: God is after the heart behind the gift, not simply the transfer itself. The early church in Acts modeled this beautifully, selling property and sharing freely as anyone had need — not by law, but as the overflow of changed hearts. Even the judgment on Ananias and Sapphira a chapter later came not because they failed to give everything, but because they lied about it, proving that giving remained a free choice even in that generous community.

Discussion Questions

• Describe a time you gave cheerfully versus a time you gave out of obligation. How did each feel?
• How can our group create more opportunities for cheerful, freely chosen generosity?
• Who is someone you could bless this week without being asked?
• Proverbs says a generous person will prosper. What do you think that promise means, given that giving involves loss in the moment?
• How is a government mandate different from the free-hearted giving both of these passages describe?
• What holds you back most from giving cheerfully — fear, control, or something else?

Week Six: Build, Don't Blame

Old Testament Passage

New Testament Passage

Walking Through It

Close the study by reflecting on building versus blaming as a lifelong posture. Nehemiah did not spend his energy cataloguing whose fault the ruined walls were; he rallied the people to rebuild, in the face of real opposition and real discouragement, and the wall went up in fifty-two days — too fast for even his enemies to explain apart from God. Paul's word to the Galatians centuries later gives believers the endurance version of the same call — building takes longer than blaming and rarely feels as satisfying in the moment, but it is the only posture that actually produces a harvest. Nehemiah organized his workers to build with one hand and stand guard with the other, a picture worth remembering whenever building feels genuinely under threat rather than simply inconvenient or difficult.

Discussion Questions

• Looking back over six weeks, what has shifted in how you see opportunity and responsibility?
• Where in your life are you tempted to blame instead of build?
• What's one concrete way you'll choose to build this month instead of blame?
• Nehemiah faced real opposition while rebuilding. What opposition do you face when you try to build rather than blame?
• Why do you think blaming often feels more satisfying in the moment than building does?
• Looking back over this whole study, what is the one truth about opportunity and gratitude you most want to carry forward?

Closing Thought

If this six-week study opened up more than it could cover, the Teaching and Expanded versions of this document go deeper into every week's theme, including the founders' actual claims about where rights come from and the fuller account of Nehemiah's fifty-two-day rebuilding effort under real opposition. This teaching is one branch of the larger Freedom of Choice series — consider closing your final week together in prayer, thanking God for the door of opportunity He has left open, and asking Him for a heart quick to build and slow to blame.

For deeper study on any week's theme, read the full Teaching or Expanded version of The American Dream.