Lisa Harper - Believing Jesus Bible Study Guide: A Journey Through the Book of Acts

2015 by Lisa Harper

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ISBN 978-0-7180-3862-5

ISBN 978-0-7180-3864-9 (eBook)

First Printing June 2015

Contents

GROUP SIZE

The Believing Jesus study is designed to be experienced in a group setting such as a Bible study, Sunday school class, or any small group gathering. After viewing each video together, members will participate in a group discussion. Ideally, discussion groups should be no larger than twelve people. If the total number of participants in your group is much larger, consider breaking into two or more groups.

MATERIALS NEEDED

Participants should each have a copy of the study guide, which includes video notes, small group discussion questions, and daily personal studies to deepen learning between sessions. Participants are also strongly encouraged to have a copy of the Believing Jesus book. Reading the book alongside the curriculum provides even deeper insights that make the journey richer and more meaningful.

TIMING

The time notations for each section indicate the actual time of video segments and the suggested time for each activity or discussion. Adhering to the suggested times will enable you to complete each session in about one hour. If you have additional time, you may wish to allow more time for discussion and activities, thereby expanding your groups meeting time to an hour and fifteen minutes or an hour and a half. If you are also having refreshments and a time of sharing prayer requests, figure in another thirty minutes.

FACILITATION

Each group should appoint a facilitator who is responsible for starting the video and keeping track of time during discussions and activities. Facilitators may also read questions aloud and monitor discussions, prompting participants to respond and ensuring that everyone in the group has the opportunity to participate.

BETWEEN-SESSIONS PERSONAL STUDY

You can maximize the impact of the course with additional study between the group sessions. Carving out about two hours total for personal study between meeting times will enable you to complete both the book and between-sessions studies by the end of the course. For each session, you may complete the personal study all in one sitting or spread it out over a few days (for example, working on it a half hour a day on four different days that week). NOTE: If you are unable to finish (or even start!) your between-sessions personal study, still attend the group study video session. We are all busy, and life happens. You are still wanted and welcome at the group even if you dont have your homework done.

INTRODUCTION

Fear and disillusionment. Courage and commitment. Intense emotion and unbridled passion. The ultimate risk of life in exchange for undeserved grace and a treasured spot in eternity. An example for billions of people who would follow the same road centuries and millennia later. An all-out quest by a growing number of believers to risk everything to spread Jesus Christs message around the world. The Book of Acts. Wow.

FROM THE BELIEVING JESUS VIDEO

Y es, thats it. That is the book we are about to dig into for the next eight weeks, and it embodies all of those things.

This study is called Believing Jesus, because from Acts 1:1 to 28:31, believing Jesus is the core value that marked every believer in the first church. At the end of this journey together, not only will you have studied an amazing book of the Bible, but you will also see how God supernaturally orchestrated the events in Scripture from the Old Testament to the New Testament to bring about the message of salvation that the early believers preached in the book of Acts. You will also see how so much of the gospel that is preached in Acts, and continues to be preached today, has had such a profound impact on our culture.

When you choose to believe Jesus and act on those beliefs things begin to shift, lives change, and the world is never the same. The stories you read on every page of the book of Acts begin to become your own. So lets journey together through the stories of the first church the first gathering of The Way (as Christianity was called back then) and see what kind of wild adventures await those who truly believe Jesus.

WELCOME (5 MINUTES)

Welcome to the first session of Believing Jesus: A Journey Through the Book of Acts. If you or any of your fellow group members do not know one another, take a little time to introduce yourselves. Next, to get things started, discuss the following question:

The book of Acts is about choosing risk over comfort. What are some examples of doing that in our everyday lives?

VIDEO TEACHING (21 MINUTES)

Play the video teaching segment for . As you watch, use the following outline to record any thoughts or concepts that stand out to you.

Notes

The book of Acts is not relaxing it is a wild, adventurous, and risk-taking kind of book.

Luke, a first-century physician, wrote both the gospel that bears his name and the book of Acts. He is the only known non-Jewish (or Gentile) writer in the Bible.

The gospel of Luke and the book of Acts were originally one book and were meant to be read as two parts of the same story. The gospel of Luke ends with the story of Jesus resurrection, which sets up the events that follow in Acts.

Three days after Jesus physical death, Mary Magdalene a devoted follower of Christ whom Jesus had healed completely of demons went to the tomb and discovered it empty. She talked to a man she at first thought was the gardener but then realized was Christ. She went back to tell the disciples that Jesus was alive, but they thought it was an idle tale.

Luke tells us that Jesus didnt immediately go back to heaven after his resurrection but hung out on the earth for forty days. During this time, the Gospels record ten separate occurrences of Jesus appearing to the disciples and to more than a hundred people.

In Acts 1, Luke tells us that before Jesus went up (or ascended) into heaven, he made two declarative statements to his followers: (1) they would receive power from the Holy Spirit, and (2) they would be his witnesses. These statements became the foundation of the early church and the scaffolding that frames the rest of the New Testament.

Jesus didnt qualify these statements. He said that everyone