Love Is: Week Two

Kindness

This week, while you meet with your Faith Formation Group you may want to reflect on our Scripture passage by reading 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, Proverbs 11:17, Galatians 6:10 and Philippians 2:1-4 (printed below) and discuss the questions from the Scripture and Sermon as a way to begin a conversation. 

1Corinthians 13:4-7  

Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud ⁵ or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. ⁶ It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. ⁷ Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

Prov. 11:17   

When you’re kind to others, you help yourself; when you’re cruel to others, you hurt yourself.

Galatians 6:10

Right now, therefore, every time we get the chance, let us work for the benefit of all, starting with the people closest to us in the community of faith.

Philippians 2:1-4

If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care— ² then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. ³ Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. ⁴ Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.

Questions for Consideration:

1. Take time to share with the group of an experience in your life where someone showed you underserved kindness.
2. Why do you think the Psalmist declared that to be kind to others helps you?
3. After Galatians 6:10, do you believe you are a person who works for the benefit of all? If so, share with the group how your practice this, and if not, think of a way you could move towards this practice of kindness.
4. Philippians 2:4 calls us to stop being obsessed with getting our own advantage but to begin to lend a helping hand. How can this become more of a trait of each of our lives?

As you meet this week, we encourage you to also take time to open yourselves up as a group and dialog on the following Wesley Challenge question:  Am I consciously or unconsciously creating the impression that I am better than I am? In other words, am I a hypocrite? (Pages 99-103 in The Wesley Challenge)