More *people hear the good news about Christ – and a special way to leave prison
Bible reference: Acts 16:16-36
A word list at the end of each Bible *study explains words that have a star (*) by them. These are more difficult words.
Introduction
Some *people in Philippi used a girl who had a bad *spirit to make money. This girl was a slave. With the power of Christ Paul told the bad *spirit to leave. Then the girl’s masters were very angry. They said bad things about Paul and his friend, Silas. Also, many *people did not like *people who came from another country. So it was easy to make the crowd very angry.
We read about what happened next. This was all part of God’s plan.
Questions to ask
Acts 16:16 ~ What was the matter with the slave girl? Why was this valuable for her masters?
Acts 16:17 ~ What did the girl say? Was she right?
Acts 16:18 ~ What did Paul do? Why could he do this?
Acts 16:19 ~ Why were the girl’s masters angry with Paul and Silas? What did they do?
Acts 16:20-21 ~ What did the girl’s masters say about Paul and Silas? Was this true?
Acts 16:22 ~ What bad things did *people do to Paul and Silas?
Acts 16:23-24 ~ What command did the prison *guard receive? What did he do to obey this command?
Acts 16:25 ~ What happened in the prison in the middle of the night?
Acts 16:26 ~ What happened after that?
Acts 16:27 ~ What did the prison *guard decide to do at first?
Acts 16:28 ~ Why did he change his mind?
Acts 16:29-30 ~ What did the *guard ask Paul and Silas?
Acts 16:31 ~ What was the answer to the *guard’s question?
Acts 16:32 ~ What other *people heard the good news about Christ?
Acts 16:33-34 ~ What did the *guard do to help Paul and Silas?
Acts 16:34 ~ What did the *guard and his family do now that they were *believers? How did they feel?
Acts 16:35-36 ~ What happened to Paul and Silas in the morning?
Something to do
Paul and Silas were in prison. Was this a bad event?
The bad *spirit in the girl knew the truth about Christ. Why?
Paul and Silas *baptised the man and his family, and they did this immediately. Talk about what this means.
Strange events happened. Talk about why they happened.
Words to explain
baptise ~ to put a person into water, or to put water on a person. The person is sorry for all the wrong things that he has done. This shows other *people that now he wants to obey God.
believer ~ a person who knows and accepts Christ.
command ~ words that you must obey
guard ~ a person who keeps someone safe or stops them running away
people ~ men and women
spirit ~ (here) a bad spirit comes from Satan, the worst enemy of God
study ~ words that help us to learn more about something
See the other studies in this series: Explore Paul’s letter to the Philippians