DECALOGUE V

PAINFUL TRUTH ALERT:

A great and accurate metric for one's real spirituality isn't measured by the things we typically call spiritual, but by how one's heart is toward their mommy and daddy. Understand all this, and the growth we try and experience by focusing outside of ourselves and our immediates will finally be ours.

This should be a fun discussion.

Thaw

• What's something you are planning to do next summer if you are able to?
• How did this summer's experience lend to this idea formed?

• What themes or overarching statements are you gathering from the commandments thus far?
• How does your familiarity with the decalogue shape this?
• What has most stuck with you from Sunday morning?

Read

• Exodus 20:12
• Ephesians 6:2-4

• What immediate pictures, feelings and thoughts come to you when you hear this? Where does that come from?
• What are the implications of this command being the only prescription, while the others are prohibitive?
• How is this command enhanced by considering it's directed at the children of those who would worship a golden calf while this very law was being given?

Read

• Have someone read the Colossians 3:1-21, from the Message Translation, aloud for the whole group. Choose someone that can read slowly, with inflection, and see what stands out in Paul's words about what it means to be the people of Christ.

So if you're serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don't shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that's where the action is. See things from his perspective.

Your old life is dead. Your new life, which is your real life—even though invisible to spectators—is with Christ in God. He is your life. When Christ (your real life, remember) shows up again on this earth, you'll show up, too—the real you, the glorious you. Meanwhile, be content with obscurity, like Christ.

And that means killing off everything connected with that way of death: sexual promiscuity, impurity, lust, doing whatever you feel like whenever you feel like it, and grabbing whatever attracts your fancy. That's a life shaped by things and feelings instead of by God....

Don't lie to one another. You're done with that old life. It's like a filthy set of ill-fitting clothes you've stripped off and put in the fire. Now you're dressed in a new wardrobe. Every item of your new way of life is custom-made by the Creator, with his label on it. All the old fashions are now obsolete. Words like Jewish and non-Jewish, religious and irreligious, insider and outsider, uncivilized and uncouth, slave and free, mean nothing. From now on everyone is defined by Christ, everyone is included in Christ.

So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It's your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.

Let the peace of Christ keep you in tune with each other, in step with each other. None of this going off and doing your own thing. And cultivate thankfulness. Let the Word of Christ—the Message—have the run of the house. Give it plenty of room in your lives. Instruct and direct one another using good common sense. And sing, sing your hearts out to God! Let every detail in your lives—words, actions, whatever—be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way.

Wives, understand and support your husbands by submitting to them in ways that honor the Master.

Husbands, go all out in love for your wives. Don't take advantage of them.

Children, do what your parents tell you. This delights the Master no end.

Parents, don't come down too hard on your children or you'll crush their spirits.

• As Paul makes his way through these ideas, to the family, what thoughts come to mind?
• What words or sentences stood out the most?
• How does learning to honor parents, regardless of their earning it or their reciprocating it affect other relationships through life?

Apply

• What has your heart gotten used to telling you that your parents owe you?
• What would have to happen for your relationship with your father and/or mother to be what you think it out to be, ideally?
• How do words like forgiveness, trust, demands, bitterness, maturity, and hope say to your situation?
• How can these people, in this group, help you take one step past the mere concepts and make the healthy reality of the 5th command begin to take shape?

Additional Texts for Meditation

• Romans 5:6-8
• Matthew 7:12
• 1 John 4:13-21