Acts 13:14-41

Last week we closed with John Mark leaving the missionary team. This leaving will later cause a split in the highly effective team of Paul and Barnabas. We do not know for sure why John Mark left the team, but we can make some educated guesses.

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Acts 13:6-13

Last week we looked at some of the offices that were being setup in the early church as models for things we do today. This week we will be following Paul and Barnabas as they leave on their first missionary journey.

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Acts 13:1-3

Last week we looked at Peter’s escape from a maximum-security prison, and the death of his guards as a lesson for us. This week we will be starting the second half of Acts, with our focus shifting from Peter to Paul.  We also will see a shift in the church, as we will no longer be talking about just a gathering of believers in Jerusalem, but a broader world with the focus being in Antioch instead. [...]

Acts 12:18-25

In our last section Peter had just escaped from a maximum-security prison with the help of an angel and then left town. This escape was facilitated by a group of believers that had been praying with out ceasing for his release, and then there were surprised to see him knock at their door. With the close of that event Peter walks out of our study, and other then a brief mention in Acts 15 we will not see him again.

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Acts 12:5-17

When this next section of Acts opens up we find two things happening. First we find the church in prayer, and second we find Peter sleeping. In our previous section we saw Peter arrested, tossed into a maximum-security prison and King Herod’s intention to kill Peter after the Passover.  This week we see Peter is chained to two guards, with two more guards standing at the door. In addition to these guards there were likely many more guards on duty in the prison. This sets up what looks like a hopeless situation for Peter.

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