Q1: What is your plan for Scripture intake this year? How is it different from last year? What has worked well, and what hasn’t this past year?
Q2: How can we as a group help you be faithful in Scripture intake this year?
Share Ideas: River Daily Devotionals. The Commuter Bible podcast. What else?
Q3: Is changing the world an appropriate life goal? Why or why not?
Q4: How can faithfulness as a life goal become an excuse for apathy or a lack of grit?
Q5: Why is faithfulness, when approached biblically, an appropriate life goal?
Read: Daniel 1
Q6: When you think of the book of Daniel, what images form first in your mind? Discuss how Daniel lived in exile for at least 65 years and consider how his daily life would have looked like for most of those years. Brainstorm about all the “white spaces” in between the lines of Scripture, that Daniel’s life was made of.
Q7: Daniel had to learn the customs of the Babylonian culture; this would include many things he would not have believed in. How does this apply to your life (your children’s lives) as you live in a culture that is often hostile to the Christian faith. What guidelines do you use to help you know that is “in bounds” and “out of bounds” in faithfully engaging the world?
Read: Romans 14
Q8: Work together to develop some core principles in this chapter that give guidelines for:
-Dealing with disputable matters
-Living in community with other Christians who have different convictions than we do
-Being faithful to live our own convictions with courage and humility
Q9: Are the “small times” hard for you? Why or why not? Do you see God’s hand in them, or do you tend to resent them?
Q10: What are some specific ways that God is calling you to be found faithful in the little things right now? How can we help you embrace them and to rejoice in the Lord in the days of small things?