What's So Amazing About Grace? by Philip Yancey

Week 6: Chapter 5 — Unnatural Act

Read Chapter 5 of What's So Amazing About Grace? Key passages: Matthew 18:21–35; Romans 12:17–21.

Yancey now confronts what many consider grace's hardest face: forgiveness — not as a feeling but as a deliberate, costly, "unnatural act."

Discussion Questions

7 questions

1.Yancey calls forgiveness an "unnatural act" — meaning it runs against the grain of every human instinct toward self-protection and justice. Do you agree? What natural impulses does forgiveness require us to override?

2.He opens with Gordon Wilson's extraordinary forgiveness of the IRA bombers who killed his daughter Marie at the Enniskillen bombing. Wilson said, "I bear no grudge. I shall pray for those men tonight." What do you make of that response?

a.Is there a risk that stories like Wilson's make forgiveness seem impossibly heroic — something only saints can manage?

b.Yancey suggests Wilson's words had more moral power than any act of retaliation could have. Do you think that's true? Why or why not?

3.Yancey distinguishes between forgiveness and excusing, forgetting, or reconciling. Forgiveness, he says, does not mean pretending the wrong didn't happen, restoring a dangerous relationship, or erasing the memory. How does this clarification make forgiveness more realistic — and perhaps more possible — for you?

4.In Matthew 18, Jesus tells the parable of the unmerciful servant — a man forgiven an enormous debt who then throttles a fellow servant over a tiny one. How does Yancey use this parable to explain what makes unforgiveness so spiritually self-destructive? What does refusing to forgive actually do to us?

5.Yancey quotes Lewis Smedes: "To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover the prisoner was you." Have you found that to be true? Is there someone in your life whose hold over you could only be broken by the "unnatural act" of forgiveness?

+ 4 more questions in this week

Get all 99 questions across 14 weeks

Get Full Guide — $24.99

Closing Prayer

Full guide

Lord, we confess that we hold grudges like weapons and review old wounds like treasured possessions. We have let bitterness become a companion, telling ourselves it protects us. Forgive us. You absorbed the worst of human violence and breathed out forgiveness. Give us even a fraction of that grace. Show us who we need to release today — and give us the courage to do it, not because they deserve it, but because you have done it for us. Amen.

Week 5 View Full Guide Week 7

Get the Complete 14-Week Study Guide

All 99 discussion questions, weekly reading schedule, closing prayers, and a downloadable PDF for your group.

Get Your Guide — $24.99

All Weeks in This Guide

Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5 Week 6 Week 7 Week 8 Week 9 Week 10 Week 11 Week 12 Week 13 Week 14

More by Philip Yancey