Term C. 4th Term. Lesson 8. Bible Buddy: PAUL - prison and shipwreck

Scripture: for teacher background:  Acts 21:27-40 Ch 23,27,28

Making contact:

Play the game of shipwreck.

The children all stand in the front of the room and you explain that the bow of the ship is the front, the stern is the back, and port is the left and starboard is the right. 

When these are called out they must run there. If the leader says salute the captain, they must all line up and salute. 

Hit the deck means lie down flat and climb the ropes means to climb up chairs or whatever they can. 

You can say that the children who are last to arrive are out, but I prefer not to do elimination games, to protect their sensitive egos.

 Exploration:

Paul had done an amazing job of spreading the Gospel and starting churches all through Europe and Asia, but his enemies were becoming more and more adamant to deal with him. Forty men had even taken a vow not to eat anything until they had killed him.

God spoke to Paul in the night and said: “Don’t be afraid! Your have given your witness for me here in Jerusalem and you must also do the same in Rome.”

Paul was kept in prison and was moved from Jerusalem to Caesarea with two hundred soldiers, two hundred spearmen and seventy horsemen guarding him, because of the Jews trying to kill him. 

Two years passed and the governors in a row, Felix and then Festus gave Paul court hearings but couldn’t decide what to do with him. 

Eventually Paul appealed to the Emperor and that meant he had to have a court hearing in Rome. This was how Paul was sent to Rome with soldiers guarding him. He had always wanted to go to Rome and God had promised him that he would testify there for Him. Now his long trip was paid for!!

The journey was very interesting. Paul could see that it would be too dangerous to sail so close to winter and all the storms but the captain wouldn’t listen to Paul.

They were caught in a huge storm and thought they would die, but Paul knew that he was going to get to Rome alive because God said so.

He encouraged them and told them that he trusted his God. There were 276 people on board and everyone survived. 

They had managed to run the ship into a bay on the island of Malta and it hit a sandbank. They all got to shore.

They were warming themselves next to a fire and the people on the island were very kind, but when they saw a snake suddenly wrap itself around Paul they thought he was cursed and would die.

Instead Paul just shook it off into the fire. Then they realized he had special power and they asked him to pray for sick people. They all got better.

They stayed there for 3 months and then once again sailed for Rome. 

In Rome Paul was allowed to live by himself with one soldier guarding him under house arrest for two years. Many people visited him. He wrote many letters to the churches he had started to encourage them. 

We still have some of these letters in our Bibles today. E.g. Philippians is the one he wrote to those Christian living in Philippi – like the jailer and Lydia. 

He wrote to Timothy and Titus. Look in your Bible and at the beginning of the letters it says “From Paul to…” 

Count how many letters he wrote. 

You can learn a song about all the New Testament books. It is to the tune of “Here we go round the mulberry bush.”

Application 

God had His hand on Paul and even though he suffered many things, he kept his eye on the goal. He trusted God to protect him and use him.

In the difficulties God brought glory. He could have just sat in a heap in prison and moaned, but instead he wrote many letters and reached the whole world. 

If he hadn’t been in prison he might never have written those letters and we wouldn’t have half our New Testament.

Challenge to Mission

 Paul preached and taught and wrote at every opportunity. Can we be zealous for mission like this? 

He could say near the end of his life that he had fought the fight, run the race, finished the work that God gave him to do and that he was happy to be on earth serving Jesus but would be even happier to go to be with Jesus forever.

“As for me, the hour has come for me to be sacrificed. I have done my best in the race, I have run the full distance and I have kept the faith. And now there is waiting for me the prize of victory.” 2 Tim 4:6-8

Will we be able to say the same?

Consolidation

 On the worksheet there is the song about the books of the New Testament. The children can underline which ones Paul wrote. 

There are pictures of Paul writing letters, a shipwreck and the snake he shook off into the fire.

Memory Verse

(This is a long verse but very powerful and helpful to know if we ourselves are ever in trouble, this verse will comfort us.)

“Who then can separate us from the love of Christ? Can trouble do it, or hardship or persecution…? No, in all these things we have complete victory through Him who loved us.” Romans 8:36,37