NASHVILLE (BP) — This weekly Bible study appears in Baptist Press in a partnership with Lifeway Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention. Through its Leadership and Adult Publishing team, Lifeway publishes Sunday School curricula and additional resources for all age groups.
This week’s Bible study is adapted from the MasterWork curriculum.
Bible Passage: 1 John 4:7-16
Discussion Questions:
- Think back to the face or name of someone who is hard for you to love. Read 1 John 4:7-16. What truths from these verses can empower you to love that person?
- What can help us learn to love people whom we find difficult to love?
- Who needs a tangible expression of your compassion?
Food for thought:
Contemplate these two questions when encountering people you consider difficult to love.
1) How has God loved you?
When you think of people who are hard to love, a few names come to mind, probably excluding your own. Yet if we’re honest, we ourselves are not always easy to love. God doesn’t love us because we are so lovable, or because we have something to offer Him in return. “We love because He first loved us,” according to 1 John 4:19.
We don’t manufacture love.
The way to grow in love isn’t to summon loving feelings. The way to grow in love is to be loved. God loves us. He loves us despite ourselves. He loves us more than we’d dare to imagine. His love for us is both the model and the motivation in our love for people we consider hard to love.
2) What would it be like to be the one you have a tough time loving?
When there’s a hard-to-love person in your life, stop and consider what it would be like to be them. Take your eyes off you for a second and prayerfully wonder what it is like to grow up with an abusive parent. What is it like to have a disability? What is it like to deal with spousal infidelity and desertion? What is it like to be a single mom?
You may need to spend some time with people suffering such circumstances to understand. You may need to listen to people in such shoes to learn of their predicament. But as you put yourself in their shoes, perhaps loving them won’t be as difficult.
Scripture gives numerous examples of people who might have been considered difficult to love at times.
Imagine the life of the leper Jesus touched. Likely the leper was suffering from the lack of contact with another human being. Is there an “unclean” person in your life? What is he or she hungry for?
Jesus washed Judas’ feet on the night Judas would betray him. How could you wash the feet of someone who has deceived or forsaken you, or metaphorically put a knife in your back?
Jesus told doubting Thomas to touch the holes in His hands because that was the reassurance Thomas needed. What reassurance could you give to someone who has doubts about you?
There was a Roman soldier, a centurion, who was responsible for crucifying Jesus. He was the one who took Jesus’ hands and nailed them to the cross. This centurion was the last person Jesus touched before dying, and this centurion was the person most directly responsible for Jesus’ death. Who could be harder to love than him? Yet on the cross Jesus looked at this man, then looked up to heaven and asked God to forgive him (Luke 23:34).
When Jesus died, the centurion recognized and proclaimed that Jesus was the Son of God (Mark 15:39). The centurion realized he had just killed the innocent Son of God. What did he need from Jesus in that moment? He needed forgiveness, and Jesus had already given it to him.
Masterwork
MasterWork is an ongoing Bible study curriculum based on works from a variety of renowned authors and offers pertinent, practical messages that adults will find uplifting and enriching. The list of authors and their books to be studied in upcoming months can be found at Lifeway.com/masterwork.
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