Reference

1 Peter 2:21-25; 4:12-19

1 Peter 2:21-25; 4:12-161. How have you seen suffering or trials increase faith? Someone you know who went through sickness and their love of God shone through. Or, yourself, as you struggled with financial difficulties and adverse circumstances and found God giving you strength and courage throughout.
2. What sorts of things give people a closer connection with God in times of trouble? How does God give them care and comfort?
3. Peter's premise in the letter is that our connection to Christ, our holiness in him, will lead to suffering. The holiness of Jesus is holiness that crosses boundaries of disgust and fear instead of creating walls and boundaries. Where holiness is willing to suffer on behalf of those who are not holy. Have you seen or experienced holiness that leads to suffering?
4. Suffering from holiness is because holiness reveals sin, and sin causes suffering. Why does this kind of suffering produce joy in Christians? Reflect on how joy intersects the experience of the suffering Christian.
5. Off the Wall: Suffering has been strikingly portrayed in art, such as Pablo Picasso's Guernica. Where have you seen suffering of the just for the unjust in art?