2/21 Sunday School "Ethos-Knowing Your Audience"

Senior High- Lindsay Graves, Junior High-Jared Graves

Introduction

Form teams of 3-4 people. They are to draw a “product” and an “audience” from a hat. They have 5 minutes to collaborate on how they are going to pitch the product to their given audience. They must then give a minute infomercial on that product for that audience.

How hard was it for your team to reach out to the given audience?

If you have a satellite television, or you travel much, you get the opportunity to see how advertisers reach out to people, selling the same product, but in very different ways. People know that based on different areas of the country, economic statuses, and backgrounds they have to appeal to different types of people. Last week we talked about the need to be credible when we are evangelizing. This week we are going to talk about the importance of knowing our audience.

Lesson

Everyone turn to Acts 3. We will be reading verses 11-26. Let’s give some background before we start. What we are reading today is after Pentecost, and is following Peter healing someone

Read Acts 3:11-12

What does the term, “Men of Israel” mean? (They are Jews)

Read Acts 3:13-15

He acknowledges that they worship the same god (The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob)

Read Acts 3:16-17

Peter isn’t being too kind to the people right now. He puts the blame on them for Jesus’ death, and then said it happened due to their ignorance. How is he getting away with this?

Read Acts 3:18

Why did he bring up the prophets? (They are Jews and looked for the prophets to tell them what to look for in the Messiah)

Read Acts 3:19-23

He asks them to repent, but then throws in the Moses reference to make sure that they see the connection.

Read Acts 3:24-26

How do you think this would have been received?

Application

By looking at Peter’s speech, how do we know that he knew his audience well?

What did Peter say that would speak to the Jews listening?

What are the different audiences that we face while trying to spread our message?

How can we say the same message in different ways?