Small Group Questions

March 1 - 7

Sermon Series: Church Life

Week 2: 1 Timothy 2

Ice Breaker, if Needed:

Share stories of your wild animal encounters!

Discussion Questions for Small Groups or Individual Study

1. How do you contend with difficult passages in Scripture? Where do you take your questions? Define “context”. Identify questions you can ask while you read a challenging passage. What happens when you carve a passage out of the Bible in its entirety? From its book or letter? From the chapters near it? Why does context matter?

2. Why is 1 Timothy 2:8-15 an excellent passage to help us learn how to treat and interpret the Bible? What have been your experiences with this topic? Why should we be unafraid to have these discussions? 

3. What truly matters to God as we grapple with interpretation and how we treat the Bible’s authority?

a. We don’t throw out passages we don’t like or don’t fit into our culture.

• Read Isaiah 40:8. Why is the Bible our authority? What happens to everything else?

• Read 1 Corinthians 11:5-6. Paul wrote this because of disorder and disunity caused by a radical change. How can this verse help us (men and women) examine how we carry ourselves? Why should we be concerned with unity and preferring others?

b. We discern what is essential, important, and preferential.

• What are non-negotiable essential beliefs for a Christian? What is at stake when essential beliefs are treated as preferential?

• How do we know what is “just” important and what is essential? What happens to the body of believers when important (like mode of baptism) beliefs are treated as essential? What happens to our unity?

• Why do we so easily believe our preferences are Biblically-based?(example: drums in worship vs. no drums) What are the dangers of giving our preferences outsized importance? What might we miss?

4. What does the Enemy have to gain by our division? How can you be an agent of unity in our church and in the Church? Read Psalm 133:1. Who is included as a brother? What does this statement mean: “Disagreement isn’t always division.”

5. Read John 17:20-23. Jesus is praying for us! How does this prayer re-center or cause pause in your heart? Pray for God to show you how and if you might be succumbing to the desire to tear down other believers over what is non-essential. What is the fruit of a united Church?