Group Guides | Sharing the gospel, sharing our lives

(1 Thessalonians 2:8)

By way of introduction…

Can you think of a life-changing moment (no matter how small it seems), and talk through how it changed how you live, or an attitude you held, or how you understood something?

Read Philippians 2:12-18

1. Understanding a paragraph like the one we just read is helped by asking questions like: “what is the THEREFORE of verse 12, there-for?” How does looking at this word help our Bible reading and understanding here?

2. The main action of what we are told we need to do here is found in verse 12: ‘work out your own salvation with fear and trembling…” Discuss what you think that will mean for us?

3. It’s interesting to note that this passage is full of plural words (including notably the word ‘own’ in verse 12 is not singular, but plural). Talk through what the implications of this will be.

4. In verse 13, we see that God works (the Greek word is ἐνεργῶν, where we get the word “energy” from). What does this do for our “working out what it means to be saved”?

5. It’s easy to point the finger at grumbling and grumblers in a church, but these words are not Paul having a grumble about grumblers - it sounds like it has context from God’s people Israel in the Old Testament. Read  Philippians 2:12-18 alongside with the following passages, and see what God is saying to us here in his word.

   • Exodus 15:24, 16:2, 16:8

   • Deuteronomy 31:27, 32:5

   • 1 Corinthians 10:6

6. In this paragraph we see that “working out what it means to be saved” has some implications for the people of God (the church) and not just the person of God (the individual). We live in such an individualistic age, so how does this passage show us a bigger and better picture of the new humanity Jesus is saving?

Pray that we as a church would be daily working out what it means to be a saved community, a new humanity.

Upcoming Events