Questions for Covenant Groups: Forgiving as We are Forgiven

Below are the questions for Covenant Groups during the week following November 10th:

Listening to your forgiveness story:

• Remember a time when you were forgiven:  Did you find receiving forgiveness difficult or easy?  What emotions did receiving forgiveness bring up for you?  
• Remembering a circumstance when you gave forgiveness:  Was giving forgiveness difficult or easy?   
• Why or why not?

Listening to the biblical story:  

• In Matthew 18: 21-22, Peter asks Jesus how many times he needs to forgive someone who has wronged him.  This conversation introduces the parable of the unforgiving servant. 
• How does the parable that follows answer or explain Peter’s question regarding forgiveness?  How does Jesus’s answer and the story itself confirm or challenge you own understanding of forgiveness?

Listening to Love’s Continuing Story:  

• How might forgiving someone as we are forgiven open the door to a greater sense of God’s forgiveness in your own life?  
• What might a refusal to forgive say about your own forgiveness in Christ?  
• What does it mean for you to be given a ministry or message of reconciliation because God has “reconciled us to himself through Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:18-19)? 
• How is that evidence of being a “new creation in Christ?”