This is a great chapter for Family Worship – there are all kinds of conversations you might want to have around the dinner table... As we’ve said before, some families work better doing quite structured or formal for family worship: perhaps lighting a candle, and using liturgy, reading the Bible together, discussing it and the praying about it. Others feel they might just want to start a conversation – here are half a dozen focal points for such conversations! Different ones will work better with different age groups:

How do we judge Christians? OK – is that even a question we should ask? Well, let’s put it in the kind of language Paul uses: How do we make sure we don’t think more highly of Christians than we ought to (v.6)? It’s a great conversation, and might help your children / young people make much better decisions as they grow up. Paul is particularly thinking here about the way some folk broadcast claims to profound spiritual experience. It’s hard not to be impressed... but Paul sounds a warning. That isn’t how we should ‘measure’ people spiritual maturity (see v.6). That is measured by what they do and say. Do they behave like Jesus? ...talk about Jesus? ... sound like Jesus? By that matrix alone should we decide how highly we will think of someone.

A great focus for Family Worship this week could be on the issue of conceit. The word might be new, but we are surrounded by it in our culture. Read through vv.7-9. Look at what length the Lord was prepared to go to stop Paul from becoming conceited! Not only does Paul not want others to think more highly of him than they ought – but he’s glad the Lord doesn’t even let him think more highly of himself than he ought! Why not take some time to explore the idea of ‘conceit’... and to pray about not being like that! Judging from this passage, how important is it to the Lord that we aren’t conceited?

This one is probably for older children / young people: What about the question of suffering? Does God still work through suffering in this way? Is Paul right to think that God is sovereign over suffering – to the point where He could stop it (otherwise, why pray?), or should He choose to, redeem our experience of it? Can you as parents talk through any experiences you may have had of God redeeming your experience of suffering and using it for His good I helping you to grow more like Jesus (so Rom.8:28-30)? This isn’t all the Bible has to say about suffering - but it is a part. One ‘craft’ idea here might be to wittle a piece of wood, or use sharp tools on a piece of clay to sculpt an image. The sharp tool cuts away revealing a ‘statue’. Similarly God sometimes uses sharp circumstances in life to sculpt the image of Christ.

One of the big questions in II Corinthians – and it really comes to the surface in Ch.12 – focusses on Church leaders. How can you decide what kind of Church leader you’re looking for? In the light of this passage, can you write a ‘person specification’ for what you want, and what you don’t want in a Church leader? Would you want a Church leader who told you all about their experiences of God? ...or who claimed ‘signs, wonders and miracles’? Or would you think they must be ‘fake’? Or is there somewhere in between? And positively, what have we learned about Paul that you would want to see echoes of in your ministry team? Or if someone in your family is thinking about exploring a sense of vocation to ministry, what do you need to develop?

What does Paul mean when he talks of ‘walking in the same footsteps (as Titus) by the same Spirit? This is an easy one to make ‘active’ – stay in my steps as I start off taking small steps but then take bigger steps than the child can manage!! What does it mean to keep in step with the Spirit (Gal.5:25)? Where does He lead us?

Paul grieves over sin. Many of the sins Paul lists in vv.20-22 are now considered ‘respectable’ behaviour, even in Churches. What do these behaviours look like? Do we know of any examples of these patterns of behaviour... it could be in school... or in TV shows, novels, adverts... anywhere? How do they damage us... others... our relationship with God? can we pray for the Lord to teach us to ‘feel’ about them as Paul does?

This is pretty much the only craft idea I’ve been able to locate that relates to this passage… though you may be able to think of others…