Week Three

‘Snippets’ An Early Church Shapers Case Study

So back to rock, paper, scissors — and we’ll use those scissors to look for the snippets, the little tantalising glimpses we get of some of the many souls who shaped the early church. Many are drawn from the remarkable sequence in Romans 16.

SEEDS TO SOW: WHAT ARE WE SEWING AND MENDING IN OUR LIVES? *

Read 2 Timothy 1: 3-7

We begin with a snippet about Lois and Eunice, and by reflecting on how faith is shaped generationally — directly and indirectly — by parents, grandparents and all the ‘alloparents’ who raise us.

How do you think Timothy would have felt about this reference to his mother and grandmother right at the start of the letter?

Read Acts 9: 36-42

Here we get a tantalising snippet of Tabitha’s life, but what did she go on to do next? As we’re thinking about scissors and snippets this week we are mindful of her role as someone who made clothes, is this something she carried on doing do you think? What might it have been like for someone making clothes in that day and age?

Take some time to imagine snippets of the rest of her life after the events of this day, perhaps telling her nieces and nephews about it. Also take time to recall stories about different snippets of your life where people have come in and out and had a profound influence on you.

Read Romans 16

Here we see so many snippets of so many lives. It can be easy to think about people from the early church like Paul as isolated figures... but they weren’t. They were products of a vibrant community of saints living and striving together. Just like us.

There are so many fascinating glimpses here. Like Phoebe having Paul as a reference for her CV! Or the outstanding Andonicus and Junia, or Rufus’s mother who was like a mother to Paul too!

How does reading this sequence make you feel? And what does it tell you about the early church?

* 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.