Sunday School Lessons

I read an advertisement from a Sunday school publisher a few years back that claimed their curriculum gave the complete teachings of the Bible over a 7 year period. That word “complete” fascinated me. Here's just a few samples of what can be included in the complete teachings of the Bible.

Why it is important to be good.

The grand daddy of all Sunday school lessons is Noah and the ark. Lots of churches even use cute pictures of Noah's ark to decorate their Sunday school classrooms and entrance ways into the children's education wing of the building.

It’s fun for the kids to draw and color animals. They can then pretend to be animals and march into the ark.

The next part of the lesson is when you take 8 kids from the large group and put them in some pretend ark. The remainder of the kids get to scream for their lives as they pound on the door of the ark. Don't be surprised if the kids in the ark are disappointed and want to be the kids outside the ark. Kids love to scream and pound.

After about 5 minutes they have to be dead silent for another 5 minutes. (10 minutes if you have a headache from all the screaming and pounding.) After that and to finish the lesson on a positive note, you can put a picture of Hiroshima on the wall and have the kids draw a rainbow over it. Kids like coloring rainbows.

Saying sorry is important. (lots of these lessons)

Solomon’s birth. His father, King David, was a peeping tom and enjoyed seeing Bathsheeba naked while taking a bath. He instructed his servant to bring Bathsheeba to the palace so he could force her to commit adultery with him. They forgot to use precautions (good chance for some sex ed teaching) and Bathsheeba got pregnant.

Her husband, Uriah, one of David’s most dedicated soldiers was away at war. David, the man after God’s own heart, realized his mistake and had Uriah killed so he could marry Bathsheeba to make things right. Was she wife number 2 or 3? After the baby died, David did say that he was sorry. This lesson is best taught by having the kids act out the different roles.

Time management and eating a healthy diet.

After saying sorry, David had another son with Bathsheeba. His name was Solomon. He had 700 wives and 300 concubines. He had to have been a genius (he was the wisest man ever) in time management in order to keep that many women happy. You can have the children use an excel spreadsheet in order to plan Solomon’s days and weeks and months regarding those special times with his wives. As a bonus, you can do a lesson on the importance of a healthy diet. After all, Solomon must have shown great wisdom with what he ate in order to keep up his stamina.

Becoming a hero for God.

The first story of David becoming a hero by fighting Goliath is a really popular lesson with children. Boys especially like this lesson but don't think for a minute that the girls won't like it. They get to make slings to throw plastic golf balls (rocks are tough on the classroom) at a giant dummy. The first kid to hit the dummy between the eyes gets to use the wooden sword to hack off the dummy's head. The goal is to decapitate the giant dummy with one swing.

You can even put a crown on the winner's head. The crown can have "Hero for God", written on it. Warning: this game is so popular, kids will be unhappy if they don't get to play it every week.

Don't be surprised if you get an invitation from the children's public school to discuss your hands on approach to teaching children the Bible.

Everything has a purpose and can be worked out for good.

Judah’s daughter in law Tamar disguised herself like a prostitute. The girls in the class will like dressing up in pretty clothes to disguise themselves. Judah being the honorable father-in-law that he was, paid to have sex with her. In all kindness to Judah he didn’t recognize Tamar. Tamar became pregnant with twins. One of the son’s name was Perez.

You can finish this lesson with a great punchline of showing how all things have a purpose and work together for good. Perez was Jesus’ great, great…great grampa. To re-enforce the idea that good can come from bad things have the kids write stories of terrible things that have happened to them and then have them imagine good endings to their stories.

How to win the love of your life.

This lesson is especially good for young adults but apparently can be taught to children as well. This is how David won the heart of the love of his life, Michal.

This is a wonderful lesson that includes working with paper mache. First you need an example for the kids to follow of a foreskin. You may have one in your house as a keepsake from one of your kids. You need to make 100 of them as this is what was necessary for David to win Michal. The cool thing about this lesson is it also teaches how to use knives correctly. It includes a good lesson in counting, especially for children under 7, as they get to count the 100 foreskins.

As all Bible stories need application it should be noted that in all fairness it's much harder for those seeking a wife these days to really apply this lesson. It's difficult to know which guy has a foreskin and it's wrong to kill men that don't have one. This could be a test for someone's ingenuity and desire to do it the Bible way.

Next time somebody asks whether we should take the Bible literally, make sure to check if they are carrying a sharp knife.