Advanced Level, Block 10—Continuation and Increase
Week 92
Philip—Dropping the Way of Excluding Others
Point to Emphasize: Do you exclude others who are not like you?
Reference Reading: Acts 8:4, 5, 8, 26-39
Memory Verse: For there is no respect of persons with God. (Romans 2:11)
Sample Story
Today we will start by talking about an unusual saying in English: “birds of a feather flock together.” Now what do you think this means? [Let the children discuss it.] And this saying is very true about birds, isn’t it? Crows flock together with other crows. Wild parrots fly with other wild parrots. But should it apply to us? Do we have the same mentality as birds? [Let the children discuss it.] You may all say that we don’t have the same mentality as birds, but if you are observant you will notice that we often group together according to the language we speak, by the country that our families were originally from, or by some other similarity that is quite outward.
Even at a love feast, you may observe that people are grouped together with the ones that speak Spanish, or come from Korean families, or have the same interest in sports or music. Since we do not have the mentality of birds, why do we do this? And I expect that most of you behave pretty much the same way. Why do you group yourselves together like this? [Let the children discuss it.] To say that this is your comfort level does not get you off the hook! By grouping like this, you are really separating yourselves from others. If I come by and see a group of Korean or Chinese children of your age together, I know immediately that I am excluded because I am white and only speak English. You see the bird mentality that you have is actually being exclusive. Grouping like that immediately excludes others! And who gives you the right to exclude others? I hope that each one of you is feeling quite bothered inside thinking of the times you have acted that way! We should feel bad about it. We are not birds so we should not behave like them.
There is a striking example in Acts about a certain one who was narrow in this way at one time. His name is Philip. Philip was brought up as a Jew. He was very narrow; he only contacted those who were just like himself in Judaism. But after a certain point, he dropped his narrowness. Philip was not one of the apostles, so when the believers started to be persecuted in Jerusalem he headed toward Samaria. Usually, no Jew would spend time in Samaria because people living there were a racially mixed people. There were hardly any pure Jews there. But Philip, who was a Jew by birth, went there to tell the people about the good news of the gospel. This is something remarkable because Jews considered Samaritans, a low-class people. But you see, Philip was no longer living according to the narrow way of his upbringing as a Jew when meeting other people. But he did not stop there. He then did something just as remarkable. He met up with a high-ranking official from Ethiopia who was traveling through the desert. He was a black man, and he was in his chariot after his worship in Jerusalem. He was reading the book of Isaiah as he rode. This Ethiopian was actually a man with great power, and he was over all the treasures of the queen of Ethiopia. Don’t you think that there was a HUGE contrast between Philip and the Ethiopian? Surely, there was. One had a chariot, the other was walking. One was well-dressed, and the other had very simple clothes on. But it ended up that Philip ran up to the Ethiopian man in spite of this and had a very good conversation with him. To find out more you must read Acts 8. The point for us right now is that Philip dropped his concept of being narrow. He then went to contact the people in Samaria, those he previously considered low-class. Not only so, Philip approached a most “royal” and important person from Ethiopia. By his preaching to the Ethiopian, the good news, the gospel, was expanded to Africa! He did not have the bird’s mentality at all. I hope that after hearing this you will decide to drop the way of excluding others and become like Philip, a person who is able to talk to anyone. [Lead them into a discussion of how Philip dropped his narrowness that excluded others. Will they recognize their own narrowness and do the same?]