The Jigsaw Puzzle

GETTING STARTED

We were putting together a jigsaw puzzle with our granddaughter at a family gathering. She would look at each piece and then work hard to connect it to the entire picture. My wife and I kept giving clues (so obvious to us), but the four-year-old had a tougher time seeing how each piece contributed to the big picture. After we struggled through each of the pieces and the puzzle was complete, she smiled when she saw the finished work—a beautiful picture. Then she wanted to do it all over again. This next time she understood better how each single piece added to the grand picture.

  • Where do you get stuck looking at the pieces and missing the big picture?

READ THE WORD: ACTS 20:7-12 (ESV)

7 On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight. 8 There were many lamps in the upper room where we were gathered. 9 And a young man named Eutychus, sitting at the window, sank into a deep sleep as Paul talked still longer. And being overcome by sleep, he fell down from the third story and was taken up dead. 10 But Paul went down and bent over him, and taking him in his arms, said, “Do not be alarmed, for his life is in him.” 11 And when Paul had gone up and had broken bread and eaten, he conversed with them a long while, until daybreak, and so departed. 12 And they took the youth away alive, and were not a little comforted.

English Standard Version, copyright 2001 by Crossway Bibles. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

DIGGING DEEPER

  1. As believers began meeting on the first day of the week, what two key activities are mentioned in verse 7 that were the centerpiece of their meeting?
  2. Why do you think Luke mentioned the “many lamps in the upper room” (vs. 8)?
  3. Was Eutychus “taken up as dead” or “taken up dead”? Did he really die?
  4. How did this amazing episode with Eutychus affect their time of worship?
  5. Are you able to see how your life’s events fit into God’s big picture (the entire puzzle), or do you get distracted by some of the pieces?

RESPOND TO GOD

Eutychus had fallen asleep and fallen out of this smoky, stuffy third-story room. Luke, the physician, records that Eutychus “was taken up dead.” Yet, God raised him back to life through Paul. The miraculous healing of Eutychus was just one more piece in the entire picture of experiences in the early church. We, too, need to guard how we react to our experiences, viewing them as part of the grander picture of worshipping Jesus. We can get stuck on a few pieces, as dramatic as they might be, and miss the main picture of the worthiness of Jesus.

  • Pray that the reality of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection would hold your attention, even when distractions abound (good or bad).