7/23/2019 Bible Study on Ephesians

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 Jr. High Sunday November 6, 2011

Bible StudyPiece by Piece: Finding our place in God’s story

Ephesians 2:19-22 (The Message)

You're no longer wandering exiles. This kingdom of faith is now your home country. You're nolonger strangers or outsiders. You belong here, with as much right to the name Christian asanyone.

God is building a home. He's using us all—irrespective of how we got here—in what he is

building. He used the apostles and prophets for the foundation. Now he's using you, fitting you inbrick by brick, stone by stone, with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone that holds all the partstogether. We see it taking shape day after day—a holy temple built by God, all of us built into it, a

temple in which God is quite at home.

Preparation: Before your group gets together, get a 100-piece children’s puzzle and put the pieces of the

 puzzle inside 20 different plastic Easter eggs. You will want to keep a few pieces (5-10) out ofthe eggs so the puzzle will be incomplete. Hide the eggs in a defined space, like the youth roomor in the front yard of the church (no need to hide them too well, as you want the students to find

them). You will want to have one puzzle for about every 5 students so all are involved in theactivity.  Note: If you have more than one team I put all the pieces of one puzzle in a specificcolor egg (yellow) and the other puzzle in a different color egg (orange), etc.

Activity

When Students Arrive:

Greet students and tell them they will need to do a little hunting tonight. Give them a container inwhich they can collect their eggs and tell them the general area the eggs are hidden (youth roomor front yard of church) and tell them they must collect the eggs and then put together whatever

they find inside the eggs. If you have more than one team, assign egg colors to each team.

Students will hunt for the eggs and put the puzzles together. You will begin to hear complaintsand questions about why there are pieces of the puzzle missing. Students will likely double-check the count of eggs and ask you if you have the pieces they are missing. Once they decide tostop their search for pieces and their work on the puzzle but before they lose interest, ask them

the following questions as you all look at the puzzle(s) and let the students wrestle with theanswers.

Questions to process activity:

1.  Which piece of the puzzle is most important?

2.  Which pieces do you start with when you put a puzzle together?  Most students will

answer that the edge pieces are where they start to put a puzzle together. 3.

 

Why do you start with those pieces? Does starting with them make them the mostimportant pieces?

4.  What about the missing pieces? How important are they to the puzzle? Does it matterthat they aren’t in the puzzle? Does the fact they are missing make them less a part of the

 puzzle?  Have students who think the pieces are important move to your right and thosewho think they aren’t important move to your left.

a. 

Those who think the pieces are important tell us why?  Answers may include

 something like, “the puzzle isn’t completed until all the pieces are in place” 

7/23/2019 Bible Study on Ephesians

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 b. 

Those who think the pieces are not that important tell us why?  Answers mayinclude “you can tell what the puzzle is without the missing pieces, you just don’t

know what will be on certain places 

Devotional:Of course all of the pieces of the puzzle are important. You may begin to put a puzzle together

 by piecing together the outside edge pieces, but without the center pieces you only have a frame,

not a puzzle. So really, no one piece of the puzzle is more important that any other piece of the puzzle. All of the pieces fit together to make the puzzle complete. Even if pieces are missing

from the puzzle, they are still part of the puzzle.

In a lot of ways our lives are like these puzzles. We each search for a place where we belong.

We search for a place that fits our gifts and our abilities. We try out different places that look likewe might belong, much the same way that people putting a puzzle together try pieces in different

 places. Sometimes we try out new sports or new activities. Sometimes we try out new personalities and new friends. As we do that, we try to figure out who we are and how we fit into

this puzzle of life.

 Read Ephesians 2:19-22

In the book of Ephesians, the people of Ephesus were trying to figure out where they belonged.

They argued about where they each fit in this new Christian church and what the new converts tofaith needed to do in order to follow after Jesus. Paul told them they were no longer wanderingexiles; they were no longer strangers because they had found a new home. They had found where

they belong in this new faith called Christianity. And it didn’t matter where they had come fromor what they had done, they had as much right to this new family name, “Christian”, as anyone.In other words, all of these odd shaped pieces of the puzzle that didn’t seem to fit or that were lostwere still a part of the puzzle, they were part of God’s puzzle and they were being fit together,

 piece by piece into this new puzzle, this new life, this new faith called Christianity.

That same message is for us today as well. We spend a lot of time trying to figure out where we

 belong and how we fit into this big puzzle of life. Paul’s words tell us that we have a place wherewe belong. We have found our home in God’s community of love, in God’s kingdom. We findour place piece by piece, brick by brick as we are built into this beautiful puzzle that is life with

God. We belong here, with as much right to the name Christian as anyone. So, knowing that weall belong to this beautiful new community God is creating, let’s work together to find that placewhere we each fit in God’s big puzzle called life.

Prayer:  God our creator, piece by piece, brick by brick, your kingdom is taking shape. We pray

you would continue to be at work in us, helping us to see how you can use us to further your workand your grace in this world.