August 1, 2021
GROUP TIME – Part 5
SILAS – USE YOUR STRENGTHS TO STRENGTHEN THE TEAM
HOW TO GET STARTED:
It’s easy! Circle up with your friends and talk about the passage. We’ve set up the study with the same weekly routine.
A key practice of growing believers is readying, studying, and applying Scripture together.
The Scripture for our lesson today is: Acts 16:25-40
Each week we’ll READ the passage aloud, PRAY to ask the Holy Spirit to guide discussion, then follow these steps:
- DISCOVER: What is the passage saying?
- Analyze: look for emphasized statements, repeated words, and the flow of the passage.
- How would you summarize or paraphrase these verses?
- LEARN: What is the passage teaching?
- Ask the group to discuss the passage. What do they see?
- According to verses 22-24, what are some possible feelings Paul and Silas may have been experiencing when we see them in verse 25?
- “In Roman law, a guard who allowed his prisoner to escape was liable to the same penalty the prisoner would have suffered” (Code of Justinian 9.4.4). In the darkness, without having checked the prison, the jailer was about to kill himself to avoid the shame of public execution from an empty prison. How did Paul and Silas choose to Love God and Love People in these verses?
- According to verses 23-24, was the jailer easy to love?
- What transformed the jailer’s heart?
- APPLY: What is our response?
- What is the Holy Spirit saying to you about this passage? Is He convicting you to do or change anything?
- Are there people in your life who are hard to love? How can you love them with your actions, even if they refuse to hear the words of the Gospel you may try to share? Read 1 John 3:18 together.
Read the passage aloud one more time and allow people to pray out loud in response.