Everyone dreams of a happy home, but who really knows how to build one when both people bring completely different baggage into a marriage? The couple opening this new series on family speak about themselves without embellishment: a parents’ divorce, a fourth generation of believers, an irritation that turned into love. Against that backdrop come Paul’s difficult words about submission and love from Colossians and Ephesians (Colossians 3, Ephesians 5), read as mutual service rather than a struggle for control. Listen if you want to see how an ordinary home becomes extraordinary.
Discussion questions
For your small group or for personal reflection after the sermon.
- In Colossians 3:18-19, Paul calls wives to submit and husbands to love without bitterness. How does Ephesians 5:21 ("submit to one another out of reverence for Christ") change the way you understand these words?
- Paul compares marriage to the relationship between Christ and the church. What does this comparison reveal about a wife's respect and a husband's self-giving love?
- The speakers stressed that love has more to do with everyday choices than with changing feelings. What choices build love in your closest relationships?
- Marysia and Szymon's rule is: "I want what is better for you than for myself." What makes this rule so hard to live by, and what could help you practice it?
- What does "leaving father and mother," as Paul writes, look like in practice, and what small things can give parents the final say in a marriage?
- Instead of asking "who is in charge?", the speakers encouraged asking "how can I serve you?". Whom do you want to serve in a concrete way this week, in your marriage, family, or among friends?
