(Our Reforming Group Guides are designed to be inductive, using the COMA form of study: Context, Observation, Meaning, Application). For more on this method, check out this article.)

By way of introduction: With honesty, what are the heart reasons you and I have that see us not wish to read the Bible?

Read 1 Thessalonians 2:13-16

1. Could you outline the context of this letter so far?

2. When the Thessalonians first ‘received the word of God’ (v.13), they didn’t just believe it to be the mere message of human design. How might they be tempted to not receive the gospel message as the word of God?

3. Back in Acts 17, when Paul and Silas preached the gospel word from the Scriptures to the Thessalonians, they ‘explained and proved’ this with the Bible open (Acts 17:3). How would you explain the tension that the Bible is penned by men and yet is the Spirit-breathed word of God? (check out: Jeremiah 1:4, Ezekiel 1:3, Hosea 1:1, Amos 1:1-3, 2 Timothy 3:14-17, Hebrews 1:1-4, 2 Peter 1:20-21, 2 Peter 3:15-16).

4. Paul writes that the word of God ‘is at work in you believers’ (v.13). In your daily life of opening the Bible, what is your testimony to Christ of how He has been at work by His word (the gospel from the Bible) in and through you? (for your encouragement also read Isaiah 55:10-11, and 1 Peter 1:23)

5. Paul’s thankfulness for the Thessalonians is constant, and here he notes that the gospel word worked in their hardship as they became imitators. What is it about the word that does this?

6. Paul is so keen for many others to hear the word of God and be saved (v.16). On a scale of conversational priorities, why would Paul and why would we put the gospel word as so high when there is so much these days to engage with?

7. How do the current hardships, sufferings and even persecutions that we may experience be part of our constant thanks to God that He still works by His word?

Pray for one another of Reforming, and for friends of Reforming who need to meet Jesus in the Bible.