Group Discussion Questions

• What things are you often tempted to make the “linchpin” of church instead of love?

• How does the eternal nature of love help you restructure from the things you would most often view as the linchpin of church?

• Share a time that you served (or received from someone) who was not operating in love.

• When you read the list in 13:4-7 do you first think of it as a to-do list or do you think about it as God’s disposition to you in Christ?

• One of the ways to understand the list in v.4-7 is to think about the areas you see needing to grow in loving as being places where you haven’t “received” God’s love in your life (not in a “salvation way,” but in a “sanctifying way”). Share that with the group.

• In your group, talk about some of the variety between you that you have learned to appreciate even though it may have at one time been tempting to divide you.

• Where is somewhere this week that you could flex your love muscles by getting out of your comfort zone and trusting the God will move as you express the love you have been given to others?

• For conversation: much of the conversation about the cessation of gifts revolves around these verses. Feel free to discuss, but also discuss how the fact that a discussion about gifts that dominates these verses is directly antithetical to what Paul was doing.