It’s easy to exclude people, and it’s natural to have thought that the Jewish messiah came to just save the Jewish people, but God had a much bigger plan. For people on the edges, like Cornelius, that was huge. The party they had always been excluded from had flung wide the doors, and they could finally enter. This little craft uses the idea of a door as the barrier that is now open.
We may consider this is a minor story, but it’s one that every generation of the church has been challenged to live out. For Peter and the apostles, it was totally logical that the Jewish messiah would be a message for the Jews. That God would include every man, woman, and child into his great family irrespective of birth was totally revolutionary. So hard was it to imagine that the potential converts were quite literally speaking in tongues before Peter called for water to baptise.
This retold version of the Bible passage is supplied for inspiration, feel free to omit or embellish to give it your personal voice.
Peter was in Joppa. A man called Cornelius had been told by an angel to invite him and here he was. It had been a strange few days. First, he’d had a vision about eating food that he’d always been told not to eat, and now he was speaking to a load of Gentiles!
Long ago, God had promised Abraham, and then Isacc and then Jocob (who was also called Israel), that from their family would come a great nation of God’s people. The nation was called the Israelites or the Jews, and they called everyone else Gentiles. There were lots of rules about Gentiles. Even if a Gentile came to believe in God, they were still seen as not as good as those born into God’s family. Good Israelites would not even enter a Gentile’s house! So you can imagine it was quite an unusual place Peter found himself in.
The house belonged to the centurion Cornelius. For many years, Cornelius had been a friend of the Jewish people. He’d learnt about their God and began to pray to him. Perhaps one day he would ask if he could join the Israelite nation and become a Jew? Now, God had sent an angel and told him to invite this man called Peter into his house. Cornelius had been excited. He gathered all his family and all his servants. He invited the neighbours. He invited everyone he met. It wasn’t everyday God sent an angel; so this was going to be an important event!
Peter stood before the crowd and paused.
“I see now God does not have favourites,” he said, and the crowd went quiet. It had always seemed like God had favourites; the Israelites were God’s favourites, weren’t they? “In every nation there are people who do what is right in God’s eyes,” Peter continued, and then he went on to tell them all about Jesus, about how Jesus had brought his message to God’s people but told them to tell the news everyone. The Jesus who had died and returned. The Jesus who had spoken to Gentiles. The Jesus who had eaten with people the Jewish rules said you should avoid. The Jesus he still followed.
As Peter was speaking, God came and joined them though his Holy Spirit. Those who had travelled to fetch Peter were amazed because the spirit of God did not land just on the people who had become Jews but on Gentiles too.
Peter looked at the crowd. “Bring water!” he shouted. “Let us baptise these people. If God has baptised them with his Spirit, we should also baptise them with water.” So the church grew, not with just the Jews but with Gentiles too, because God really does not have favourites!
The story of Philip and the Ethiopian has one big obvious craft, a chariot. While some groups will “junk model” this concept, if you want something more sedate and contained, this craft fits the bill.
This is a story of a trial, an arrest for an act of kindness, a rough fisherman, filled with God’s spirit to speak eloquent words. These games take the idea of Jesus’s power being the foundation of Peter’s acts even though he was not present.
Hide the letters J, E, U, and two S’s around your space. Have the kids find them and piece them together as a word. Play in teams by having each team collect only one colour of letters. Link: Peter was imitating Jesus, continuing his work, the power did not come from Peter
Foundation
Ages 7+
Any size group
Requires setup time
Noisy game
Can be seated
Use drinking straws and sticky tack to build a tower on the table. Points are scored 1 per cm; however, before they can measure, they must move the table 30 cm across the floor. Link: It’s not what the top of the tower looks like but how firm it’s foundations are. Jesus is the most solid foundation of them all.
Helping hands
All Ages
Any size group
Requires setup time
Noisy game
Space needed
This classic and silly game involves someone standing behind you and being your hands. Give each pair a task, like eating a closed yogurt. Link: Peter was acting through Jesus’s power and the Holy Spirit’s words.
Dominoes
Ages 7+
Any size group
Requires setup time
Noisy game
Can be seated
Use dominoes or Jenga blocks to make a fall run. Link: Peter’s ability to heal came from Jesus even though Jesus was not visibly present.
Here are the images you need for the hero’s attributes linked to ‘Peter’s Defence (Acts 4)’ – where Peter heals a lame man.
Each hero set contains a high quality graphic of the character, a take home bible card and a colouring page.
The images are displayed small here, click on the image you wish to have, then save the image that loads. (These images are not copyright free, they are for personal/classroom use only.)
(ps the hero images don’t load with Acts 3 on, they are just the same as last lesson and I’m saving myself reinventing the wheel!)
