Explorers
Explorers for grades K-5, is intended to introduce and discuss Bible stories to learn about God's love for us while having fun! We meet each Sunday at 9:10 am.
Weekly Lesson Summaries:
November 23, 2025
This week in Explorers, our 5th & 6th graders shadowed the Truthseekers’ class, in anticipation of their move up next school year. We will have them shadow one more time in the spring semester so they will feel comfortable and confident as they transition to the middle & high school class.
For our K-4th graders, we reviewed some of our past stories to make sure everyone was up to speed….there are a lot of characters, and sometimes those names get a bit confusing! Specifically, we reviewed what happened after Noah’s ark: the Tower of Babel, Abraham & Sarah, Isaac, Jacob & Esau.
There will be no Sunday school for Explorers (or Truthseekers) next Sunday, 11/30. We will resume classes the following Sunday, 12/7. Have a great Thanksgiving everyone, and safe travels if your celebrations take you out of the Tampa Bay Area!
This week in Explorers, our 5th & 6th graders shadowed the Truthseekers’ class, in anticipation of their move up next school year. We will have them shadow one more time in the spring semester so they will feel comfortable and confident as they transition to the middle & high school class.
For our K-4th graders, we reviewed some of our past stories to make sure everyone was up to speed….there are a lot of characters, and sometimes those names get a bit confusing! Specifically, we reviewed what happened after Noah’s ark: the Tower of Babel, Abraham & Sarah, Isaac, Jacob & Esau.
There will be no Sunday school for Explorers (or Truthseekers) next Sunday, 11/30. We will resume classes the following Sunday, 12/7. Have a great Thanksgiving everyone, and safe travels if your celebrations take you out of the Tampa Bay Area!
November 16, 2025
Over and over again humans continued to make bad choices…..so God decided to pick out one person (Abram/Abraham) and teach him and his family how to have a relationship with God. This family, who would become the nation of Israel (the Jewish people) would teach the world how to have a relationship with God. Abraham (and the rest of his family!) wasn’t perfect, and he made many mistakes and bad choices, but God had made a promise that He would use this man and his family for the good of the world - and God always keeps His promises. God was determined to work with humans. Even His chosen, special people were/are broken & imperfect. And He loves them (and us!) anyway.
This week we learned more about Abraham’s family…. Abraham & Sarah’s son Isaac grew up and married a woman named Rebekah. Soon after, Rebekah became pregnant with twins. While she was pregnant, it felt like the babies were fighting inside her! God told her that the babies would be the fathers of 2 nations, and the older brother would serve the younger brother. Esau, the older brother, was a hunter and was very hairy all over. Jacob, the younger brother, took care of his father’s animals, and he was very tricky.
In order to have all the rights and privileges of a firstborn son in Bible times (and Abraham’s family), that son had to have 2 things:
1. The birthright
2. The blessing of the firstborn
Instead of waiting for God to fulfill the promise that Jacob would have the firstborn privileges, Jacob and his mom, Rebekah, took matters into their own hands (which caused a ton of problems for them both later on!!)
The Birthright:
One day Esau had just finished a long day of hunting and was super hungry. He saw that Jacob was making some yummy smelling soup. Esau said, “give me a bowl of that soup, I’m starving!” But Jacob said, “I will sell you this bowl of soup for your birthright.” Esau cared more about that bowl of soup than for his birthright, so he said, “ok”. He ate and drank and then left the tent.
But what is a birthright?? Only the oldest son could be the next leader of the family. He also got twice as much of everything that their other brothers got after their dad died (land, money, and animals, etc.)
This meant that Jacob would be the leader of the family after Isaac died, and he would have twice as much of everything that Esau had. It’s crazy that Esau sold all of that to Jacob for a bowl of soup!!?
The Blessing:
Years later, when Isaac was old & blind, he told Esau to go hunting and make his favorite soup, and Isaac would give him the blessing of the firstborn. So Esau went out to hunt for meat to put into the soup. But Rebekah had heard what Isaac had said, and she wanted her favorite son, Jacob, to get the blessing, not Esau. So Rebekah made Isaac’s soup. She put animal skins on Jacob’s arms (so he would feel hairy) and dressed Jacob in Esau’s clothes (so he would smell like Esau) and told Jacob to give Isaac the soup and pretend he was Esau….so HE would get the blessing of the firstborn! And that is what Jacob did. When Esau found out what had happened and realized that Isaac couldn’t bless him in the same way, he was super mad at Jacob….so Rebekah & Isaac sent Jacob to live with his Uncle Laban.
What is so special about the firstborn blessing?? This was the passing on of God’s promise to Abraham to make the nation of Israel God’s people and a blessing to the world.
This meant that God Jacob’s family would become the chosen family and nation, and not Esau’s family. The Bible stories we will read about in the rest of the Old Testament are all stories of Jacob’s family, who are the Israelites (Jewish people).
For a great summary, here's the video we watched.
Over and over again humans continued to make bad choices…..so God decided to pick out one person (Abram/Abraham) and teach him and his family how to have a relationship with God. This family, who would become the nation of Israel (the Jewish people) would teach the world how to have a relationship with God. Abraham (and the rest of his family!) wasn’t perfect, and he made many mistakes and bad choices, but God had made a promise that He would use this man and his family for the good of the world - and God always keeps His promises. God was determined to work with humans. Even His chosen, special people were/are broken & imperfect. And He loves them (and us!) anyway.
This week we learned more about Abraham’s family…. Abraham & Sarah’s son Isaac grew up and married a woman named Rebekah. Soon after, Rebekah became pregnant with twins. While she was pregnant, it felt like the babies were fighting inside her! God told her that the babies would be the fathers of 2 nations, and the older brother would serve the younger brother. Esau, the older brother, was a hunter and was very hairy all over. Jacob, the younger brother, took care of his father’s animals, and he was very tricky.
In order to have all the rights and privileges of a firstborn son in Bible times (and Abraham’s family), that son had to have 2 things:
1. The birthright
2. The blessing of the firstborn
Instead of waiting for God to fulfill the promise that Jacob would have the firstborn privileges, Jacob and his mom, Rebekah, took matters into their own hands (which caused a ton of problems for them both later on!!)
The Birthright:
One day Esau had just finished a long day of hunting and was super hungry. He saw that Jacob was making some yummy smelling soup. Esau said, “give me a bowl of that soup, I’m starving!” But Jacob said, “I will sell you this bowl of soup for your birthright.” Esau cared more about that bowl of soup than for his birthright, so he said, “ok”. He ate and drank and then left the tent.
But what is a birthright?? Only the oldest son could be the next leader of the family. He also got twice as much of everything that their other brothers got after their dad died (land, money, and animals, etc.)
This meant that Jacob would be the leader of the family after Isaac died, and he would have twice as much of everything that Esau had. It’s crazy that Esau sold all of that to Jacob for a bowl of soup!!?
The Blessing:
Years later, when Isaac was old & blind, he told Esau to go hunting and make his favorite soup, and Isaac would give him the blessing of the firstborn. So Esau went out to hunt for meat to put into the soup. But Rebekah had heard what Isaac had said, and she wanted her favorite son, Jacob, to get the blessing, not Esau. So Rebekah made Isaac’s soup. She put animal skins on Jacob’s arms (so he would feel hairy) and dressed Jacob in Esau’s clothes (so he would smell like Esau) and told Jacob to give Isaac the soup and pretend he was Esau….so HE would get the blessing of the firstborn! And that is what Jacob did. When Esau found out what had happened and realized that Isaac couldn’t bless him in the same way, he was super mad at Jacob….so Rebekah & Isaac sent Jacob to live with his Uncle Laban.
What is so special about the firstborn blessing?? This was the passing on of God’s promise to Abraham to make the nation of Israel God’s people and a blessing to the world.
This meant that God Jacob’s family would become the chosen family and nation, and not Esau’s family. The Bible stories we will read about in the rest of the Old Testament are all stories of Jacob’s family, who are the Israelites (Jewish people).
For a great summary, here's the video we watched.
November 9. 1015
This week we learned about Abraham and Isaac. God had given Abraham a promise that he would be the father of many nations, but Abraham and Sarah had to wait 25 years for that promised son to arrive. I wish I could tell you that Abraham and Sarah did a great job waiting, but they got impatient (like we all do sometimes) and made some pretty bad choices. Sarah told Abraham to marry another woman named Hagar and have a son with her (and he did!). Abraham & Hagar’s new son was named Ishmael. (Ishmael became the father of the Arab nations.)
The only problem was that that wasn’t what God had promised or His plan. His plan was for Abraham and Sarah to have a son. That finally happened when Abraham was 100 years old and Sarah was 90 years old, and Sarah gave birth to their son, Isaac. They weren’t finished with their bad choices though and created an even bigger mess when Sarah told Abraham to send Hagar and Ishmael away. Hagar and Ishmael went into the desert and wouldn’t have made it, if not for God’s kindness to them. He made sure they got the help they needed and to a safe place.
When Isaac was a boy, God decided to test Abraham. Not like a math or spelling test, but a chance for Abraham to show his trust in God and loyalty to Him - just like Adam & Eve’s test in the garden (the tree of knowledge of good & evil), Cain’s test (resist sin & give your best to God), and Noah’s test (build an ark). This was a scary test for Abraham. God told Abraham to give up his son Isaac – to sacrifice him to God. Abraham knew that God had promised that many nations would come from this son. He didn’t know how God would work out His plan, but he trusted God, even when things didn’t make sense. Abraham & Isaac went to the top of a mountain, and just as Abraham was ready to do as God had asked, God said, “STOP Abraham! Now I see that you trust and love me. Turn around and you’ll see a ram caught in a bush. Go get the ram and sacrifice him in Isaac’s place.” Abraham did as God had said, and both he and Isaac went home.
God gives each of us opportunities to show we trust God and are loyal to Him. Sometimes it’s hard to see how things will work out, and some things don’t seem to make sense, but we need to remember that God loves us more than we could ever possibly imagine and He always wants what’s best for us. We should always trust in Him.
November 2, 2025
This week we talked about Abraham. All of the stories we’ve talked about so far have ended in humans messing up. They choose to make up their own rules and try and be the boss instead of following God and having a relationship with Him.
God decided to try something different….He chose one person named Abram and made a promise to him (a covenant) that He would bless Abram, that Abram would now be called Abraham because he would be the father the Israelites (the Jewish people) and many nations, and that all the world would be blessed through Abraham. (The Snake Crusher that God had promised all the way back in the Garden of Eden would even come from Abraham’s family!) Since humans had done such a terrible job doing the right thing on their own, God was going to hold Abraham’s hand and teach him and help him to follow God and have a relationship with Him. The only problem was that Abraham and his wife Sarah were super old and didn’t have any kids. But God told Abraham to trust Him because He had amazing things in store for Abraham. We watched two videos (part 1 and part 2 of Abraham’s story) and everyone participated in a quiz in order to earn their spot in the super fun Donut Challenge!
Next week we’ll learn about how God kept that promise, with the birth of Abraham & Sarah’s son, Isaac.
This week we talked about Abraham. All of the stories we’ve talked about so far have ended in humans messing up. They choose to make up their own rules and try and be the boss instead of following God and having a relationship with Him.
God decided to try something different….He chose one person named Abram and made a promise to him (a covenant) that He would bless Abram, that Abram would now be called Abraham because he would be the father the Israelites (the Jewish people) and many nations, and that all the world would be blessed through Abraham. (The Snake Crusher that God had promised all the way back in the Garden of Eden would even come from Abraham’s family!) Since humans had done such a terrible job doing the right thing on their own, God was going to hold Abraham’s hand and teach him and help him to follow God and have a relationship with Him. The only problem was that Abraham and his wife Sarah were super old and didn’t have any kids. But God told Abraham to trust Him because He had amazing things in store for Abraham. We watched two videos (part 1 and part 2 of Abraham’s story) and everyone participated in a quiz in order to earn their spot in the super fun Donut Challenge!
Next week we’ll learn about how God kept that promise, with the birth of Abraham & Sarah’s son, Isaac.
October 26, 2025
This week we continued our study of the New Testament by learning about the Table of Nations and the Tower of Babel. In the next chapter after Noah’s Ark (Genesis 10), we learn about a long list of the 70 tribes/clans/families that came from Noah’s 3 sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth (the Table of Nations). In those days, all the people spoke the same language. They decided that they wanted to build a giant tower to be like God, show how amazing they were, and to get to heaven on their own. (Wanting to be like God…..we’ve heard this before. I’m looking at you, Adam & Eve!) God didn’t like this, and had to stop them from building the tower, so he mixed up their languages so no one could understand each other. They stopped building the tower and all moved to different lands.
This week we continued our study of the New Testament by learning about the Table of Nations and the Tower of Babel. In the next chapter after Noah’s Ark (Genesis 10), we learn about a long list of the 70 tribes/clans/families that came from Noah’s 3 sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth (the Table of Nations). In those days, all the people spoke the same language. They decided that they wanted to build a giant tower to be like God, show how amazing they were, and to get to heaven on their own. (Wanting to be like God…..we’ve heard this before. I’m looking at you, Adam & Eve!) God didn’t like this, and had to stop them from building the tower, so he mixed up their languages so no one could understand each other. They stopped building the tower and all moved to different lands.
Humans kept messing things up. But God was (and IS!) committed to this relationship and was going to have to figure out a different way to help humans make good choices and follow Him. Tune in next week to find out the first step of His creative plan…..
October 19, 2025
This week we resumed our study of the Old Testament by learning about the story of Noah’s Ark. Several generations had passed since Cain & Abel, and things weren’t looking good….in fact, they were looking very bad!
We read Genesis 6:5 –
And the Lord saw that the evil of the human creature was great on the earth and that every scheme of his heart’s devising was only perpetually evil (people were only thinking bad things all the time and only doing bad things all the time)
and Genesis 6:12 & 13 –
And God saw the earth and look, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted its ways on the earth. And God said to Noah, “The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with outrage by them, and I am about to destroy them, with the earth.” (People were ruining God’s beautiful earth with all their evil. God could see where things were headed - that in the end they would destroy everything, so in His mercy, God sped up the process by “un-creating” all that He had made.)
It was kind of like God was “ripping off the band-aid”. We all put on band-aids and experimented with how it felt pulling it off slowly vs ripping it off quickly. (We all decided that pulling the band-aids off slowly didn’t feel very good!)
After we watched a video about the story of Noah’s Ark, we had fun with paper boat races in the fountain in the church garden.
Next week we’ll learn about the Tower of Babel.
This week we resumed our study of the Old Testament by learning about the story of Noah’s Ark. Several generations had passed since Cain & Abel, and things weren’t looking good….in fact, they were looking very bad!
We read Genesis 6:5 –
And the Lord saw that the evil of the human creature was great on the earth and that every scheme of his heart’s devising was only perpetually evil (people were only thinking bad things all the time and only doing bad things all the time)
and Genesis 6:12 & 13 –
And God saw the earth and look, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted its ways on the earth. And God said to Noah, “The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with outrage by them, and I am about to destroy them, with the earth.” (People were ruining God’s beautiful earth with all their evil. God could see where things were headed - that in the end they would destroy everything, so in His mercy, God sped up the process by “un-creating” all that He had made.)
It was kind of like God was “ripping off the band-aid”. We all put on band-aids and experimented with how it felt pulling it off slowly vs ripping it off quickly. (We all decided that pulling the band-aids off slowly didn’t feel very good!)
After we watched a video about the story of Noah’s Ark, we had fun with paper boat races in the fountain in the church garden.
Next week we’ll learn about the Tower of Babel.
October 5, 2025
Today we talked about the story of Cain & Abel. Cain & Abel are the first new characters we meet after God’s promise of a Snake Crusher. Could one of them be the promised rescuer?? Sadly, we realize neither of them will save the world from the power of sin and death, and instead it seems like they are part of the same (but worse!) pattern of bad choices and consequences we saw with Adam & Eve.
Today we talked about the story of Cain & Abel. Cain & Abel are the first new characters we meet after God’s promise of a Snake Crusher. Could one of them be the promised rescuer?? Sadly, we realize neither of them will save the world from the power of sin and death, and instead it seems like they are part of the same (but worse!) pattern of bad choices and consequences we saw with Adam & Eve.
We talked about story patterns in some familiar favorites – If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, The Magic School Bus, Harry Potter, etc.- and talked about the story pattern that we’re beginning to see in the Old Testament. Over and over again, we will see the same thing:
1. We meet a new person and ask ourselves, “Is this person the Snake Crusher?”
2. They have a choice – follow God’s rules or make up their own
3. They mess up and don’t listen to God
But why do humans keep messing up?
1. God lets us make our own choices. We are people, not puppets. We explored what this means with some actual puppets. All our puppets had to do what we wanted them to do, but all of the people in the class could choose whether or not they wanted to follow the instructions (all of the people opted out of the nose-picking instruction, but all of the puppets had to follow that one….)
2. We want to be the boss.
3. The devil wants to trick us to do bad things & we’re not smart or powerful enough to see his tricks or resist them.
That’s why we God sent the Snake Crusher to save us.
Next week Mike & I will be out of town and Father David will be leading both Explorers and Truthseekers classes for a service day activity. They will meet in the Youth Room and make cards for hospitalized kids. All adults are welcome to join! The following week, 10/19, we will continue our journey through the Old Testament and learn about Noah’s Ark.
1. We meet a new person and ask ourselves, “Is this person the Snake Crusher?”
2. They have a choice – follow God’s rules or make up their own
3. They mess up and don’t listen to God
But why do humans keep messing up?
1. God lets us make our own choices. We are people, not puppets. We explored what this means with some actual puppets. All our puppets had to do what we wanted them to do, but all of the people in the class could choose whether or not they wanted to follow the instructions (all of the people opted out of the nose-picking instruction, but all of the puppets had to follow that one….)
2. We want to be the boss.
3. The devil wants to trick us to do bad things & we’re not smart or powerful enough to see his tricks or resist them.
That’s why we God sent the Snake Crusher to save us.
Next week Mike & I will be out of town and Father David will be leading both Explorers and Truthseekers classes for a service day activity. They will meet in the Youth Room and make cards for hospitalized kids. All adults are welcome to join! The following week, 10/19, we will continue our journey through the Old Testament and learn about Noah’s Ark.
September 28, 2025
Last week we talked about the perfect world God created for us. Unfortunately, it didn’t last very long…. God told Adam and Eve that they could eat from any tree in the Garden of Eden except from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. If they ate from that tree, God said they would die. One day Eve met a talking snake that convinced her that she wouldn’t really die but would become wise like God. Both Eve and Adam ate from the tree and when God found out, He was very sad.
What’s the big deal? Why would God care that they ate the fruit from that tree??
By trying to be like God, Adam & Eve brought the powers of sin and death into God’s perfect and beautiful world. Eve and Adam didn’t eat that fruit because they were hungry. They ate it because they thought it would make them the boss instead of God. They wanted to be the ones who decided what was good and bad, and they tried to take that power for themselves instead of relying on God as the source of all goodness & and knowledge. That is one of the problems with all of us humans – we all want to be the boss of everything and everyone! And before you get too upset with Adam & Eve, let’s talk about that snake….
The snake (the devil) wants to trick us to do bad things, and humans (Adam, Eve, me, you, everyone!) aren’t smart or powerful enough to see his tricks and resist them. But it wasn’t all hopeless. God promised He would fix His world by sending someone to crush the snake and the powers that he wielded.
It all begins here. The whole story of Bible begins with this terrible start. It is the story of humans trying (and failing!) to get back to what we had in the Garden of Eden and God stepping in to fix His world and make everything right again.
We watched another video from The Biggest Story and had a rousing game/quiz of Hands & Feet Hopscotch. Next week we’ll continue learning about the Old Testament stories by looking at the story of Cain & Abel. Hope to see you there!
Last week we talked about the perfect world God created for us. Unfortunately, it didn’t last very long…. God told Adam and Eve that they could eat from any tree in the Garden of Eden except from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. If they ate from that tree, God said they would die. One day Eve met a talking snake that convinced her that she wouldn’t really die but would become wise like God. Both Eve and Adam ate from the tree and when God found out, He was very sad.
What’s the big deal? Why would God care that they ate the fruit from that tree??
By trying to be like God, Adam & Eve brought the powers of sin and death into God’s perfect and beautiful world. Eve and Adam didn’t eat that fruit because they were hungry. They ate it because they thought it would make them the boss instead of God. They wanted to be the ones who decided what was good and bad, and they tried to take that power for themselves instead of relying on God as the source of all goodness & and knowledge. That is one of the problems with all of us humans – we all want to be the boss of everything and everyone! And before you get too upset with Adam & Eve, let’s talk about that snake….
The snake (the devil) wants to trick us to do bad things, and humans (Adam, Eve, me, you, everyone!) aren’t smart or powerful enough to see his tricks and resist them. But it wasn’t all hopeless. God promised He would fix His world by sending someone to crush the snake and the powers that he wielded.
It all begins here. The whole story of Bible begins with this terrible start. It is the story of humans trying (and failing!) to get back to what we had in the Garden of Eden and God stepping in to fix His world and make everything right again.
We watched another video from The Biggest Story and had a rousing game/quiz of Hands & Feet Hopscotch. Next week we’ll continue learning about the Old Testament stories by looking at the story of Cain & Abel. Hope to see you there!
September 21, 2025
We had a lot of fun today as we began our journey through the Bible with the story of Creation! Did you know that based on what we know from math and science, the chances of our world being randomly created on its own without a Creator is so incredibly small that it is hard to wrap your brain around…it would be as if every single planet and star in the universe was made of nothing but sand and you had to pick one pre-selected grain of sand out of the 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (100 sextillion!) planets in the universe!! (WHAT?!) We tried it in class by just looking for 1 blue grain of sand in a cup that contained ½ million grains, and let me tell you, it was HARD!!!
We watched a video about the story of Genesis 1 and 2 from The Biggest Story and talked about how humans are God’s most special creation because they are reflections of Him. We can love, think, create, and know right from wrong because these are parts of God that He shared with us. And these things that we can do with our hearts and our heads reflect parts of God to the world. This means that we have a responsibility as God’s images to make good choices in our relationships with each other and with the earth.
Next week we will learn about Adam & Eve, and a very bad day in the garden. Hope to see you there!
We had a lot of fun today as we began our journey through the Bible with the story of Creation! Did you know that based on what we know from math and science, the chances of our world being randomly created on its own without a Creator is so incredibly small that it is hard to wrap your brain around…it would be as if every single planet and star in the universe was made of nothing but sand and you had to pick one pre-selected grain of sand out of the 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (100 sextillion!) planets in the universe!! (WHAT?!) We tried it in class by just looking for 1 blue grain of sand in a cup that contained ½ million grains, and let me tell you, it was HARD!!!
We watched a video about the story of Genesis 1 and 2 from The Biggest Story and talked about how humans are God’s most special creation because they are reflections of Him. We can love, think, create, and know right from wrong because these are parts of God that He shared with us. And these things that we can do with our hearts and our heads reflect parts of God to the world. This means that we have a responsibility as God’s images to make good choices in our relationships with each other and with the earth.
Next week we will learn about Adam & Eve, and a very bad day in the garden. Hope to see you there!
September 14, 2025
Hi All! We had a great start to the semester! To set the stage for the year, we began by talking about the Bible – God inspired 40 different people to write 66 books that contain between 600-800 stories (depending on how you count them) over a span of 1,500 years! Whew!! That’s a lot!!
So why should we care about a super old book about a bunch of people from a long time ago in a faraway place??
We talked about how God made us because He loves us and wants to have a relationship with us. The Bible is a book that helps us learn all about Him, so we can have that relationship with Him. When we make friends with someone, we get to know them better by talking to and listening to them. That’s exactly what God wants to do with us! We can talk (and listen!) to God by praying and by reading about Him in the Bible.
Although there are a LOT of stories in the Bible, they are all connected, and are small parts of one whole story, like the pieces of a quilt that make up one blanket or a photo mosaic that has many small photos that, when put together, make up a new giant picture.
Hi All! We had a great start to the semester! To set the stage for the year, we began by talking about the Bible – God inspired 40 different people to write 66 books that contain between 600-800 stories (depending on how you count them) over a span of 1,500 years! Whew!! That’s a lot!!
So why should we care about a super old book about a bunch of people from a long time ago in a faraway place??
We talked about how God made us because He loves us and wants to have a relationship with us. The Bible is a book that helps us learn all about Him, so we can have that relationship with Him. When we make friends with someone, we get to know them better by talking to and listening to them. That’s exactly what God wants to do with us! We can talk (and listen!) to God by praying and by reading about Him in the Bible.
Although there are a LOT of stories in the Bible, they are all connected, and are small parts of one whole story, like the pieces of a quilt that make up one blanket or a photo mosaic that has many small photos that, when put together, make up a new giant picture.
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So what IS the one giant story of the Bible??
· God made humans to be his friends and to help Him take care of the world He created
· Humans messed up
· God made a promise to send someone to fix it
· People kept waiting for that special person who would fix the world
· Jesus was that special someone, but He wasn’t at all what people expected
· The end of the story brings us back to the beginning. Jesus fixed it!
· Now get to live with God forever, just as He had originally planned it.
To help us remember that the Bible is full of many stories that all point to the one main story, we finished up today’s lesson with a “craftivity” – puppy and kitten photo mosaics!
· God made humans to be his friends and to help Him take care of the world He created
· Humans messed up
· God made a promise to send someone to fix it
· People kept waiting for that special person who would fix the world
· Jesus was that special someone, but He wasn’t at all what people expected
· The end of the story brings us back to the beginning. Jesus fixed it!
· Now get to live with God forever, just as He had originally planned it.
To help us remember that the Bible is full of many stories that all point to the one main story, we finished up today’s lesson with a “craftivity” – puppy and kitten photo mosaics!
This school year we will be focusing on stories of the Old Testament and will start next week with the story of Creation. Hope to see you there!
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St. Thomas Episcopal Church
1200 Snell Isle Blvd NE St. Petersburg, FL 33704 727-896-9641 office@stthomasstpete.org |
