Not-So-Quiet-Time: Acts 13

At-Home Bible Guide for the Week of 12/28

Day 1: Verses 1-5
God’s church is for all kinds of people. This chapter starts with an amazing mix of people worshiping God: prophets, a former Pharisee, and even a friend of Herod. The Holy Spirit called them to send Paul and Barnabas into the mission field. We know the Holy Spirit still sends people out in our modern times. Take a minute to pray for the missionaries that our church supports. And consider what it looks like for you to be on God’s mission today.

Day 2: Verses 6-12
Paul, Barnabas, and John were on a missions trip. And they didn’t see results right away. They worked through a whole island, speaking about Jesus before they saw a breakthrough. And this happened when they experienced a challenge: Bar-Jesus was speaking against them. However, nothing is challenging to God. And when God won this encounter, the local ruler put his faith in Jesus. Ask God to help you to press on in faithfulness over the long-term and in the face of challenges too.

Day 3: Verses 13-25
God worked it out so that Paul would have an opportunity to speak in the synagogue. And Paul shared about how God worked out his perfect plan over a long, long time. And it all pointed to the “Savior, Jesus, as he promised” (13:23). When you get a chance to speak, take it and make your words count. Ask God to help you share about Him whenever He makes the opportunity.

Day 4: Verses 26-41
This part of the message is all about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. And Paul made it clear. However, he also made it clear that the people of Israel “did not recognize [Jesus] nor understand the utterances of the prophets, which are read every Sabbath” (13:27). They might have known the Bible, but not the God of the Bible. Pray that we wouldn’t fall into that trap in our lives. 

Day 5: Verses 42-52
Sometimes we think that happiness and hardship don’t go together, but that is not always true. In this section, there are several messages about the joy that God’s people experienced even as they went through hardships. Ask God to give you the joy of your salvation even in the face of very real pain and difficulty.

Catechism Connection: WSC 101-102
We are on God’s mission just like Paul, Barnabas, and John. Have you ever considered that when we pray the Lord’s Prayer each week, we are praying a missions-prayer? When we pray that our Father’s name would be hallowed,  we pray “that God would enable us and others to glorify him in everything by which he makes himself known, and that he would direct all things to his own glory” (WSC 101). And when we ask that his kingdom would come, “we pray that Satan’s kingdom may be destroyed, that the kingdom of grace may be advanced and ourselves and others may be brought into it and kept in it” (WSC 102).