Welcome to week eight of Weekly Word!
We pray that these weekly readings continue to be a blessing to you! Below, you’ll find your readings for this week, along with discussion questions and a short devotional for you to enjoy at the end of the week.
Readings:
- Acts 15-16
- Luke 6
Devotional:
Readings: Acts 15-16 | Luke 6
Acts 15 records the first major “family meeting” of the church, and there was a lot of debate about how much of the old law the new Gentile believers had to follow. It was a moment where the leaders had to look past the “splinters” of tradition to see the heart of the gospel: grace.
In Luke 6, Jesus asks the “Good Question”: Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye but ignore the log in your own? It’s so easy to focus on where others are failing, especially when we are in conflict. But Paul and Silas, in Acts 16, show us a better way.
Even in a literal prison, they didn’t spend their time complaining about their captors; they spent it singing to their King. When we focus on our own worship and our own heart before God, we find that the logs and splinters start to fall away.
This week, let grace be our primary lens. May we fix our gaze on the Cross—it’s big enough to cover all!
Discussion Questions:
- The Jerusalem Council (Acts 15) dealt with internal conflict. How does the “splinter vs. plank” principle apply to how the church leaders handled their disagreement?
- Paul and Silas sang in prison. How does worshiping in the middle of a “mess” help you see your own situation more clearly?
Dig Deeper
How do you respond when God diverts your plans? Paul made plans to travel to certain cities to share the gospel and plant churches. God closed those doors for Paul, only to open up a new door for ministry that ultimately landed Paul and Silas in prison.
In this message from Antioch’s 2020 sermon series “The Playbook”, Brad Cauley teaches from Acts 16 on what it looks like to live with elevated vision.
We are praying for you as you dig into God’s Word this week!