Connect Group guide: Love and honour
Summary
Text: Romans 12:9-10
Building on the idea of us being part of one body, Paul addresses the key ideas of love and honour.
Love has to be genuine, not merely sentimental. The fact that Paul has sandwiched the instruction about hating evil and clinging onto good between two encouragements to love one another, shows that he wants us to hate evil and love good for the sake of our relationships.
Paul doesn’t specify what good and evil things he has in mind, but if we have renewed minds, able to discern what is good and pleasing (v2) then we should be able to work it out for ourselves! We should hate/abhor (strong language!) anything that will damage our love for one another.
The love we have for one another is brotherly/familial. We are all in the family of Abraham and need to treat one another as brothers and sisters.
Discussion
Consider the questions below:
- How can we create a healthy culture of honour across the church, in which all people are honoured, and all people honour one another?
- What does it look like to show one another honour in a culturally appropriate way?
- Do we think of ourselves as true family? And does our love for one another reflect that? Or are we in danger of a superficial love that falls short of the genuine love Paul speaks of?
- What are the things that are in danger of tearing our relationships apart? What does it look like to hate such things, and love the things that unite us?