Paul and Silas Sunday School Lesson for Kids -
Paul Makes a Demon Leave a Girl and Helps a Jailer Believe in Jesus
Use this children’s Sunday School lesson to teach kids how God can bring good things out of bad situations.
Needed: Bibles, cookie ingredients and cookies
Intro Activity #1: Complaining Communication
The leader starts off telling a fictitious story about something bad that happened. The students’ goal is to then think about all the good things that might have happened afterward.
An example might be, “I went to the fair the other day and dropped my ice cream cone.”
The students could then add, “But the ice cream vendor saw what happened and gave me a new ice cream cone for free. Then, someone stole a lady’s purse, but the thief slipped on my spilled ice cream, and the police caught him. One of the people who saw it was an old friend of one of the police officers. They hadn’t seen each other in years, but when the person saw the police officer arresting the thief, they gave each other their phone numbers. Another person…”
Let kids be as imaginative as possible and ask them questions to prompt their creativity. The only point of the game is to think of how good things outweigh the negative in most situations.
Intro Activity #2: Delicious from Disgusting
Show students a raw egg. Ask them if anyone would like to eat it. Do the same with some raw flour and then baking soda. When no one wants to try any of your ingredients, say, You’re right. These would all taste pretty bad if we ate them like this. But we can use them to make something really good! They’re all part of the recipe to make cookies. (Give the students a cookie or two as you start the lesson.)Lesson
Read Acts 16:16-18.
What did the girl have inside of her? (A spirit.)
What kind of spirit do you think it was? (A demon.)
What is a demon? (A demon is a bad spirit.)
How did Paul make the demon come out of the girl? (He said to the demon, ‘In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to come out of her.’)
Because Paul had faith in Jesus, Jesus made the demon come out and leave the girl alone.
(Read Acts 16:19.)
Why were the girl’s owners angry at Paul?
Paul made the demon go away, which meant that the girl couldn’t tell people their fortunes anymore. The demon used to pretend to tell people their future, and people would pay the girl’s owners to hear it. The girl’s owners were mad now because people wouldn’t pay them anymore since the girl couldn’t tell them their fortune anymore.
Do you think the girl’s owners cared about her, or did they only care about making money? (They only cared about making money. They didn’t mind that the girl had a demon living inside her.)
Do you think Paul cared about the girl? (Yes. He made the demon leave the girl so that she would be better.)
(Read Acts 16:20-24.)
Why were Paul and Silas put in jail? (Because they were telling people to believe in the real God instead of fake gods.)
(Read Acts 16:25.)
What were Paul and Silas doing during the night? (They were singing and praying to God.)
What do you think they were praying about? (Maybe that the people would believe in Jesus, maybe that God would help them get out of jail, maybe thanking God for giving Paul the power to make the demon leave the girl, etc.)
(Read Acts 16:26.)
What happened to free Paul and Silas? (An earthquake started, and then, all of the prison doors opened, and their chains fell off.)
Who do you think made the earthquake happen? (God. God sent the earthquake to get Paul and Silas out of jail.)
(Read Acts 16:27.)
Why do you think the jailer was going to kill himself?
In those days, if you were supposed to be guarding someone and they escaped, you would be killed for letting them escape. The jailer was going to kill himself because he thought he was going to be killed anyway for letting the prisoner’s escape.
(Read Acts 16:28.)
Why do you think Paul and Silas didn’t run away when they had the chance? (They stayed because they didn’t want the jailer to get killed for them escaping.)
(Read Acts 16:29-34.)
When the jailer saw that the prisoners were all there, he believed in God because he knew that God had sent the earthquake to get Paul and Silas out of jail. What did he ask Paul and Silas then? (He asked how he could be saved.)
And what did Paul and Silas tell the jailer when he asked how he could be saved? (They told him to believe in Jesus.)
If we believe in Jesus, God forgives us for our sins, and we get to go to Heaven and be with God forever when we die.
So, what were the bad things that happened in this story? (Paul and Silas got arrested for teaching about Jesus.)
What were the good things that happened in this story? (Paul made the demon leave the girl, and the jailer believed in Jesus.)
Would the jailer have had a chance to believe in Jesus if Paul and Silas hadn’t been arrested? (No.)
So, God used the bad situation of Paul and Silas being arrested to save the jailer and his family.
Game: Jail Tag
Designate an area to be the jail and pick one student to be It. They are the Jailer. The rest of the students are Paul and Silas. The Jailer must tag the rest of the students.
When the Jailer tags them, the students go to jail, just like Paul and Silas did. The leader may pick more than one student to be the Jailer if the Jailer is having a hard time tagging everyone.
Every once in a while or whenever everyone has been caught, the leader calls out “Earthquake!” and the students in the jail are freed and re-enter the game. Rotate students to be the Jailer so that one student doesn’t get too tired.
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