Week Two

‘Pegs’ A Priscilla Case Study

Without pegs a tent is just a very large kite. The early church had many pegs who while able to look up to the heavens but could also hold firm to the ground they were set in. This week we turn to such a figure: Priscilla, a tentmaker, literally and figuratively, who was a shaper of the early church.

SEEDS TO SOW: WHAT KEEPS A PEG IN THE GROUND & WHAT KEEPS US GROUNDED? *

Read Acts 18: 1-3

We begin this week by thinking about both literal and metaphorical tent making. Paul, Aquila and Priscilla, — tentmakers by trade — were all people out of place finding a new way of being.

Do you think the work of making tents helped inspire them in the metaphorical tent making of forming new communities in the Jesus movement? If so, how?

And how can we be tentmakers in our communities? People creating space for others to gather together and shelter under?

Read Acts 18: 24-28

Priscilla and Aquila helped Apollos to understand the way of God more accurately. To keep our peg imagery going they helped this enthusiastic square peg to fit!

How can we follow their example and compassionately and sensitively help guide others in life and faith? And how can we be humble and self-aware in our own lives, willing to accept help from grounding pegs like Priscilla and Aquila?

Read 1 Corinthians 16: 19

A very short fragment here giving us another glimpse of Priscilla. You’ve heard of pillars of the community, well what about pegs of the community? Priscilla was one. Pegs, less showy than pillars perhaps, but vitally important for keeping things together. A tent without pegs after all is just a big kite...

There quite a few greetings being passed on like this in the New Testament, a crisscross of communication — pegs to hold in place this fledgling new community. How must it have felt before modern technology to hear these ‘shout-outs’ every so often?

Who would you say are the pegs in our communities — the people who quietly hold things together?

* SEEDS TO SOW: These are open-ended and optional prompts and are designed for people wanting to develop their own resources in response to the themes. Perhaps if you are using this material as a group you could use these prompts to inspire a time of prayer, or drawing, or creative writing? They are a short and sweet, simply a starting off place for you and your imagination. Tailor and develop as suits your group.