Choosing How We Shall Live

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Fellowship—Snacks or a meal (10 minutes or more)

Gathering Time (5-10 minutes) Ask participants to think of their favorite words of wisdom from a grandparent (or another wise person). Did that advice “stick” and become a life lesson? What were the consequences of ignoring that wisdom?

Group Dialogue (about 30 minutes). Read Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23.

• Ask group members to think about any scriptures that tell us how to live. Challenge them to identify some from the Old and New Testaments (Ten Commandments, Beatitudes, and so on). Ask them to consider how “negotiable” these tenets are.
• The Proverbs are often presented as couplets; the two phrases may support each other, such as verse 1, or oppose each other, as in verses 8-9. What is the essential lesson in these verses? (If you have a large group, divide the entire chapter among them and list all the words of counsel.) How does heeding this counsel make someone “wise”?
• Proverbs' “black-and-white” approach to advice seems to ignore the “gray” areas of life. In a complex society with complex issues, what value do these proverbs carry?
• Proverbs are written as by a mentor bringing up a student (son) to live righteously. They recognize people as wise (those who heed and learn), the foolish (those who do not heed or learn), and the simple (those who are unlearned). These categories are not age-dependent (sadly). How have you experienced being wise, foolish, and simple at different stages of life (perhaps all at the same stages of life)? What mentors, elders, teachers, or wise ones were there to help and guide? For whom are you a wise one?
• Read James 2:1-17. Review the warnings and advice from James. What is he telling the community about choices in how to live?
• James 2 reflects on the inequities that are possible (even probable) between people of means and the poor. Everyone you know has both more and less than someone else, so “having means” is a relative term. If you are in a comfortable financial place, what obligation, if any, do you feel toward those who have less? How does that translate into how you vote? How you regard others? Where you choose to live? Where you invest your energy?
• James 2:13 gives priority to “the law of liberty,” saying “mercy triumphs over judgment.” Discuss how difficult (or easy) that is to apply in practical terms, such as deciding if a released prisoner is hired, a halfway house is built in your neighborhood, people of different religions or cultures move nearby, a child gets into regular scrapes with the law; your spouse has a habit of lying to you and then apologizing, your boss regularly takes credit for your ideas and work.

Prayer (5-10 minutes) Share prayer requests and respond appropriately.

Sending Forth (2 minutes) End with this prayer, followed by the Lord’s Prayer:

Great God of Abundance, we thank you for the guidance we have from you and our wise ones in how to live justly and graciously. We pray that we may be good stewards of what we have from you and share those blessings with others; in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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Diana Hynson is a retired elder, living in Lebanon, Pennsylvania. She has served in local churches, as an editor at The United Methodist Publishing House, and as Director of Learning and Teaching Ministries at Discipleship Ministries. She teaches Sunday school to a lively group of older adults who still enjoy learning.