When We Gather

Discussion Questions:

1) Was there anything from the sermon or the passage that stuck out to you?

2) Paul never tells anyone to stop using a gift that only blesses them, he tells them to pray for an interpreter so the room can share it. What is something God has given you that has stayed private, and what would it take to let someone else benefit from it?

3) Most of us walk into a gathering asking how it went for us rather than how it went for the body. When was the last time you left a service or a group thinking about someone other than yourself, and what made that possible?

4) Gossip rarely announces itself. It usually arrives as concern, or as a prayer request with details attached. What would change in your conversations this week if you asked, before speaking, whether these words build up the person in front of you?

5) Paul says he would take five understood words over ten thousand that nobody can follow, because speaking so people can receive you is part of loving them. Where are you using language, or knowledge, or an assumption about what people already know, in a way that leaves someone outside the conversation?

6) The passage ends with an outsider who is undone by hearing ordinary believers speak plainly about God, and he was not the one anyone was aiming at. Who has God placed near you that you have quietly assumed is someone else's responsibility?