Lectionary Q Questions: May 5, 2024

Sixth Sunday of Easter

Anonymous. Holy Spirit, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=58584 [retrieved May 1, 2024]. Original source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Saint_Paul_Church_(Yellow_Springs,_Ohio)_-_chancel,_painting_of_the_Holy_Spirit.JPG.

Here are the questions for the following texts on the Sixth Sunday of Easter, May 5, 2024.

Questions for John 15:9-17

1. What does it mean to abide in the love of Jesus? Is abiding the same as love?

2. Abiding seems to be about God’s commands. How is this different from following the rules? How is following commands an act of love?

3. In verse 13 Jesus says that the greatest love is shown by laying down one’s life for others. What does it mean to lay down one’s life?

4. Jesus says that the disciples are to love one another. What does loving one another look like? What does it look like in your church? What does it look like in your world?

5. How does love reflect the notion of a vine? How does love sustain our lives?

Questions for Acts 10:44-48

Note: It helps to read Acts 10:1-43 to frame the reading.

1. Corneilus is a Roman military officer. In Luke 7:1-10 we read a story of another Roman military officer asking Jesus to heal his servant. Since the writer of Luke wrote both Luke and Acts, why do you think Luke included these two similar stories?

2. Peter has a vision of being called to eat animals that were against his religious understanding. How has your understanding of faith come into conflict with God?

3. The believers were awed that the Holy Spirit fell upon these Gentiles. Has there been anything that surprised you about God? How has God acted in surprising ways in your life?

4. Is the story of Peter and Corneilus a story of inclusion, the work of the Holy Spirit, both or neither?

5. Peter asks who could withhold baptizing the Gentiles. This question is similar to what the eunuch asks in Acts 8. What is Peter asking here?