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Leader Guide for Lesson 6

  1. How difficult would it be to submit yourself to governing authorities who were persecuting you?

    2. It would require great strength and faith in God.

  2. Why do you think Peter didn't tell Christians to take the law into their own hands? Why didn't he say, "You're submitted to Christ; you don't have to submit to anybody else"?

    3. This is not our purpose as God's people. This would have made evangelism much more difficult.

  3. How are Christians to silence those who would make foolish statements about them (2:15)?

    4. By doing what is right, leaving their opponents no grounds for criticizing them.

  4. What does it mean to live as free servants (2:16)?

    5. It means we are free from the world, but we serve the Lord as our master. One way we serve him is by serving others in this world.

  5. How might slaves who had become Christians find it difficult to serve masters who were still pagans (2:18)?

    6. Converted slaves could be tempted to feel superior to their pagan masters and believe that they had no responsibility to those masters.

  6. Peter says that if a slave endures unjust punishment, this is (literally) "grace" before God (2:20). How is this a demonstration of grace?

    7. This is an example of God's grace in troubled times. Such a situation would literally be grace under fire, with the Christian showing that he is different because of his new life in Jesus.

  7. How is the example of Jesus' suffering helpful to Christians who are facing troubled times (2:21-23)?

    8. We will likely endure no suffering worse than what Jesus faced. If he could do it, by his strength so can we.

  8. When you suffer at the hands of fellow Christians, how should you react?

    9. With the same patient trust in God described here. The rules are no different within the kingdom.

  9. In what way did the death of Jesus heal your wounds (2:24)?

He paid the price in his body for what we had done wrong. His death has given us wholeness where once we had been broken by our own sins.

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