“PERSECUTION BEGINS”

Season: Book of Acts
Episode 6: “Persecution Begins”
Today’s Bible Bite: Acts 5:17-42

Video Story:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQhkWmFJKnA (The Bible Project – Acts 1-7 – for parents and older children)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKjWlETMYxc (Saddleback – The Apostles & High Council)

“Then the high priest and all his associates, who were members of the party of the Sadducees, were filled with jealousy. They arrested the apostles and put them in the public jail. But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the jail and brought them out. ‘Go, stand in the temple courts,’ he said, ‘and tell the people all about this new life.’” (Acts 5:17-20, NLT)

As the early Church grew bigger and got more and more popular, the Jewish leaders became jealous. They thought that this new teaching about Jesus needed to be stopped…immediately. So, they arrested the apostles (‘apostle’ is another name for the specially chosen disciples of Jesus who had traveled with him for three years as his students) and put them all in jail overnight. But an angel showed up and let them out of prison. The angel instructed them to go back to the Temple and continue to teach about Jesus. So they did.

The Jewish leaders, the High Council, didn’t know about the angel and they told the soldiers to go and get the apostles out of the jail so that they could stand for trial. But when the soldiers arrived they found that the prison was fully guarded, but the apostles were nowhere to be found. A man who had just been at the Temple, told the leaders that the apostles were once again teaching there.

This infuriated the members of the Council and they told the apostles that they needed to stop talking about Jesus. They even whipped them as punishment to try and discourage them. But that didn’t stop the apostles. They continued right on talking about Jesus because they knew God wanted everyone to know the truth, no matter what the High Council had said.

Think about it...
• The apostles obeyed God and told everyone who would listen about Jesus. Who tried to stop them?
• The Jewish leaders had the apostles arrested. What happened that night?
• The High Council told the apostles they couldn’t talk about Jesus anymore. What did Peter tell them?
• The apostles were whipped for talking about Jesus. Why didn’t that stop them?
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Prayer: Thank you, God, that Peter and the other apostles didn’t stop talking about Jesus. You gave them the courage they needed and they kept right on telling others the truth. Please give me the courage I need.