Sunday Gathering

Preparation: Watch this 8-minute video on Tabitha / Dorcas https://youtu.be/CHk9nk8QaJ0

Opening Question: Who in your life reminds you of Tabitha?

Last week we studied the history-changing conversion of Paul. Now Luke turns our attention back to Peter, who we find in more intimate pastoral settings, where he heals Annias and raises Tabitha back to life. N.T. Wright says there are no small errands in the kingdom of God. Peter was on proper business from the Lord – to heal, encourage, and build up God’s people.

Read Acts 9:32-42

Discussion Questions:

1. Who was Aeneas and what are the effects of healing Aeneas?

Lydda is about 10 miles inland from Joppa. Joppa is a port city, near modern day Tel Aviv. Joppa is also where Jonah got on a ship sailing in the opposite direction from Nineveh.

2. Luke calls Tabitha a disciple (mathetria). What else do we know about Tabitha from this passage?

Luke doesn’t mention that Tabitha had a husband or any family. Perhaps she may have been a widow herself. Additionally, Tabitha may have been independently wealthy, for the home where she is laid out awaiting burial is presumably her home and has an upper room (Acts 9:39).

3. Luke highlights how Tabitha cared for the widows by making them robes and clothing. The way the widows grieved over Tabitha shows how much Tabitha must have loved these women in return. There are many passages about caring for the widow, orphan, foreigner, and poor in Scripture. (See Zechariah 7:10; Deuteronomy 24:17, 20-21; Ezekiah 22:7). Read James 1:27. Why do you think religion that God accepts as pure and faultless is looking after orphans and widows in distress?

In ancient times, widows had no husbands and no means of financial provision. The fatherless similarly faced economic insecurity.

4. Mother Teresa wrote, “Our work with the poor is nothing more than the love of God put into practice. In your family, if it is your vocation to have a family, love one another as husband and wife and have a family. The service you perform and the work you accomplish are your love for God put into practice.”  Name some tangible ways you can put your love for God into practice where He has placed you in your home, neighborhood, and workplace.

5. In what ways are widows, orphans, or those that are “poor” (materially or in other ways) a blessing to us? How do they enrich our lives? How can we give them a place of honor?

Pray for God to show us how we might be able to expand our house church circle to include people from different socio-economic classes.