Today’s Reading:
Read Acts 12-14
Spend some time as a family today talking about how each person got their name. In my family, my oldest daughter’s middle name was her daddy’s grandmother’s middle name. My youngest daughter’s middle name is my middle name. Naming our kids is one of the perks of being a parent!
In Acts 9, we met a man named Saul. He was a Jewish scholar who at first was passionately persecuting the Christian church. He thought the news about Jesus being the promised Messiah was not true. However, while traveling to Damascus he met Jesus face to face. He became a believer, and he changed from being someone who wanted to stop the church from spreading the good news to being someone who gave his life to telling others about Jesus. Saul was his Jewish name. When the church made him a missionary and sent him out to tell others about Jesus, he became Paul which was his Greek name. He was reaching out to Jews and Gentiles (people who were not Jewish) so he went by his Greek name.
As Paul traveled, he pointed to Jesus as the Messiah who came to fulfill the prophecy that Jewish law spoke about. He also taught that Jesus came not just for the Jews, but for the Gentiles as well.
Application/Prayer:
Paul’s missionary journeys are what made it possible for the early church to grow. As Paul traveled, the good news of Jesus spread. Thank God that Paul was obedient to tell others about Him. Because of Paul’s obedience, the church started. The church you go to today can be traced back to the early church from the Bible. Thank God that you can go to church and learn about Him.
November Memory Verse:
“The grass withers, the flowers fade, but the word of our God remains forever.”
Using the daily reading prompts from George H. Guthrie’s Read the Bible for Life, here’s how to use this devotional:
- Bring your Bible! Your kids need to see that everything you are reading to them or learning about comes from an actual Bible!
- Each day starts with a reading prompt. Read the selection as a family. If your kids are readers, encourage them to read along with you.
- After you’ve read the passage, read the short devotional thought that goes along with each passage.
- Prayer and application are important any time we read God’s word! After each devotional, there is a challenge to help apply what your family has read that day.
- There is a reading for six days of the week. The last reading of the week is a Gospel Conversation Prompt to help you connect the reading from the week with God’s plan for salvation.
Other Resources:
November memory verse coloring sheet
November Fill-in the blank activity