Hi all! Today’s story is from Acts 12. You can see our lesson and craft from last year HERE.
This story takes place after Jesus died, rose and went back to heaven. The new church was busy teaching everyone about Jesus and King Herod arrested some of these people and he was mean to them and even killed some of them! When he saw this made the crowds happy, he put Peter in jail too. (Remember Peter was one of Jesus’ disciples and friends and he LOVED to tell people all about Jesus. So they put him in prison and put guards around to watch him.)
While Peter was kept in jail the church was praying to God for him, to keep him safe and that Herod would set him free.
The night before Herod was going to bring him out and put him on trial, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, and his arms were chained to the wall. All of a sudden an angel of God came. He bonked Peter in the side and woke him up. “Quick, get up!” he said, and the chains fell right off Peter’s arms!
The angel said to him, “Put on your clothes and sandals.” And Peter did so. “Put your coat on and follow me,” the angel told him. Peter followed him out of the prison, but he had no idea that what the angel was doing was really happening; he thought he was dreaming! They passed by all the guards and came to the big iron gate leading to the city. It opened for them all by itself, and they went right through it! When they had walked just a bit further, the angel left.
Then Peter realized it WASN’T a dream and said, “Now I know without a doubt that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me!”
Then he quickly went to the house where he knew a lot of people were praying for him. Peter knocked on the door and a servant came to answer the door. When she recognized Peter’s voice, she was so excited she ran back without opening it and yelled, “Peter is at the door!”
“No way!” they told her.
But Peter kept on knocking, and when they opened the door and saw him, they were amazed! Peter motioned with his hand for them to be quiet and he told them all about how God had brought him out of jail. He told the people at the house to let all the disciples know what had happened and that he was ok! Then he left to hide somewhere else. (The Bible does not tell us where he went…but later he would travel around to tell more people about Jesus).
In the morning, the soldiers were SO confused about where Peter was?! Herod the King was so angry he killed the guards that were supposed to be watching Peter! But everyone who loved Jesus and heard about how God had saved Peter was so happy and some of them even became more brave to tell people about Jesus! Peter was hiding for a while, but when they saw God taking care of His people, that made them brave to go out and tell people about Jesus just like Peter had!
For our craft today we drew pictures of the story and used toothpicks to help illustrate the jail.
Thanks for joining us today! Love to you all!