GROUP FELLOWSHIP NOTES: SUMMER 2006

THE SPREADING FLAME - How they brought the good news ... to Rome

(6) ACTS 16:6-40 :  GOD AT WORK

GOD AT WORK, GUIDING:  16.6-12

What impression have you formed (from Luke’s general accounts of Paul’s missionary travels in Acts) of how Paul decided where to visit and preach the gospel?

What insight does this section (verses 6-10) give us of God’s part in these decisions?

Any ideas about how the Holy Spirit might have prevented them from going to certain areas, or from preaching in certain parts? How does He guide us?

What are your thoughts about Paul’s vision?

So.... who makes the decisions in our lives – God or us??

What is very significant about a call to travel to Macedonia to preach the gospel?

How specific was God’s guidance through this vision?

Who joined Paul and his party at Troas?

GOD AT WORK, CONVERTING: 16.13-15

An open-air service: What do you make of verse 13 and of Paul’s actions on the Sabbath?

Why go to the river? What was, and why seek out a ‘place of prayer’, not the synagogue?

An ‘opened heart’: Talk about Lydia’s ‘conversion’.

Who was responsible for it?

What is being described by the words ‘opened her heart’?

Does everyone need to be ‘converted’?  Explain.

In what did her conversion culminate?  (How soon, do you think?)

An opened home:  what was involved in Lydia’s invitation to Paul and his party?

GOD AT WORK, DELIVERING:

DELIVERING A SLAVE GIRL (16.16-18)

God at work in the troubles of a slave girl.

Talk about the slave girl. What do you suppose her life was like? Why was Paul so troubled?  What do you think deliverance meant to her?

God at work in the troubles of Paul and Silas (16.19-25)

How and why did the girl’s deliverance result in trouble for Paul and Silas?

In what ways does the gospel stir up troubles?

Is it right to preach it, if it causes problems?

On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate the difficulties Paul and Silas were in?

What do we learn from the fact that they had to endure such suffering?

What was their reaction to suffering?

What does this tell us about their relationship with God?

DELIVERING PAUL AND SILAS (16.25-26)

If Paul and Silas’ deliverance was the result of a natural phenomenon, was it a miracle or merely a happy coincidence? Why?

What do you think Paul and Silas thought?  And the jailor?

GOD AT WORK, TRANSFORMING: 16.27-40

TRANSFORMING THE JAILOR: 27-34

What evidences of a total transformation of heart and mind does the jailor show?

TRANSFORMING THE ATTITUDE OF THE CITY AUTHORITIES: 35-40

In what way and for what reasons was the attitude of the magistrates totally transformed towards Paul and Silas?

How did Paul and Silas react to this?