CONVERSATION STARTERS:
Conversation Starters help us dig deeper, connecting Sunday’s sermons with our Monday lives. These prompts have been designed to help Community Groups grow in their relationship with God, with one another, and with their neighbors. Please know that these questions are meant to be a resource to you. You do not have to follow them verbatim or get through them all. We trust you to know your group and to ask the questions based on your group needs.

1. Take a few moments and list some of your motives in your daily work (in or out of the home)? Where are the areas you have authority or oversee people (subordinates, baby-sitters, repairmen, etc.)?

2. Take a look back at Ephesians 5:20-21. What is Paul encouraging the Ephesians to do? How does this apply to his instructions to both the servant and the master? How does this apply to us today in our work?

3. The husband and wife, the parent and child, the master and servant, were all relationships in Paul’s time that had clearly defined superiors and subordinates. Imagine you were a slave or master in the first century. How would you react to hearing this (vs. 8-9)? How can we apply this to our own lives to grow in Christ-likeness?

4. What directions does Paul give to masters specifically? What responsibilities do leaders have?

PRAYER PROMPT:
Pray for the work the Lord has given to each of us. Pray for the people above us and the people we are over as well. Pray to become more like Christ through our work.

Title: Bondservants of Christ
Scripture: Ephesians 6:5-9
Guest Speaker: Tim Miller

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”
— Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion.

> Is “bondservants” a good translation or bashful wordplay?

> Even if “bondservants” aren’t the same as “slaves”, why would Paul tell them to, “obey your earthly masters”?

> God sees you and your work matter

> We all ought to do our work sincerely, with a good will, as if you were working directly for the Lord

> God sees you and your exercise of authority matters

> You should do good to those under your authority and serve them, knowing that their master and yours shows no partiality to you or to them