ST NICOLAS, NEWBURY

HOME GROUP QUESTIONS

WEEK BEGINNING 12 JUNE 2005

1 CORINTHIANS 5:1-13

For home groups that would like them, here are some questions based on the talk at Sunday's 6:30 pm service. There's no need to answer them all - just tackle the ones you have time for. You don't need to stick to the areas mentioned here - feel free to discuss any other issues that arise for you.

 1. Starter question. What do you think would justify asking someone to leave the church? What sort of behaviour do you think would merit this sort of action?

 2. Now read 1 Corinthians 5:1-13.

 3. Why haven't the Corinthians done what Paul says they should have done?

 4. Why is it important for the individual concerned that the church should take disciplinary action?

 5. What do you think it means to be 'handed over to Satan' (verse 5)?

 6. What does this section reveal about the way God's priorities in life are sometimes different from ours?

 7. Can you think of ways in which God might have been promoting your holiness at the expense of your happiness? How do you feel about this?

 8. Why is it important for the wider Christian community that the church should take disciplinary action?

 9. How would you answer someone who suggested that 'love always accepts everyone and so to exclude people because of persistent serious sin would be wrong'?

10. "The tragedy of so much modern Christianity - and, incidentally, the basic reason for so much ineffective evangelization - is that the Christian community is both remote from unbelievers and lax with fellow-believers who persist in sin of one kind or another. In a word, there is no distinctiveness." (David Prior, The Message of 1 Corinthians) Do you agree? What could you do to improve things?

11. Pray about the life of our church - both here in Newbury and more widely - in the light of this chapter.

David Stone
12 June 2005