February 21, 2021: Called to Explain (Acts 18:1-3, 18-21, 24-26; Romans 16:3-4)

To begin the session: 

Distribute copies of the “Famous Partners on TV” exercise from the activity page, which you can download here. Allow one minute for learners to complete as indicated. After that minute, ask why these partners worked well together.

After the activity say, “Some teams work well together to achieve evil purposes (example: Acts 5:1-10), while others work well together for godly purposes. Today we are going to be looking at one such incredible team in the latter category.”

To engage the learners in a study of the Scripture text:

Distribute copies of the “Find the Opposite” exercise on the activity page, assigning its completion to research teams. You can assign work to teams either by the exercise’s horizontal rows or by its vertical columns. If assigning by row, you will need five teams, one for each trait; if assigning by column, you will need four teams, one for each name.

If you use the five-team approach, say, “Take the negative trait you’ve been assigned and see if your team can find one instance of its opposite for each of the four people listed.” If you use the four-team approach, say, “Research your assigned person and see if you can find an example of an opposite to each of the five negative traits.”

Allow time for whole-class discussion of discoveries. If learners could benefit from considering other texts in order to fill out their charts, have these ready to suggest: 1 Corinthians 1:12-13; 3:3- 9; 4:1-7; 16:19.

• If all your learners are online, consider using Zoom Breakouts (which you can learn about here).
• If some of your learners are online and others are in the classroom with you, consider breaking the in-person learners into groups together and using Zoom Breakouts for the online learners.

Note: Whenever you distribute copies of anything, use hard-copy (paper) handouts for those physically present and e-copies for those joining online via Zoom, etc.

Tip: For a tutorial on how to use Zoom breakouts, go here. For many other Zoom tutorials, see here. A key to using Zoom effectively without fumbling is to practice ahead of time!