Teaching the Torah to Children?!?

This is the note that is at the beginning of this week's ekidzministry blog.
Read the blog!

"Lessons in Leviticus?!?!  What is Pastor Dave thinking?"
Teachers and adults may be thinking this as we begin these lessons in Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. 

Please check out these two links before jumping to conclusions:
Blog:     blogs.faithlafayette.org/faithkids/teaching-the-torah-to-tots/
Video:   vimeo.com/22032914#

ROOM CHANGES

Important Note - Nursery Room Changes
Your child's safety and comfort matter to us! For that reason and due to the construction project, the nurseries have been changed for at least the next 2 weeks. 

• Birth - 9 mos - Room 203
• Ages 10-23 Months - Rooms 201 

Toddler 2/3s will be in the usual room.

Rooms 201 and 203 are in the chapel hallway right near check in. Signs will be in the hallway or at check-in to guide you to where to take your children.

Thank you so much for your flexibility.
Pastor Dave Rodgers

Rooms 408 and 409

Classroom 407

403. Classroom

Room 403

Chairs will be in the room 

Quarter 4: Week 4: God ordains the sacrificial system

Leviticus 1 - 7
Rationale and Resources:

RATIONALE:
Here is a blog about teaching the Torah to toddlers...

Keep in mind that the ceremonies and sacrifices of the Old Testament are actually action-oriented.  We often forget.  Reading about these ceremonies can be like reading a recipe.  The recipe itself isn’t very interesting, but it’s an important guide to the the much-more-interesting process of cooking.  While you wouldn’t sit and read a cookbook to your child, many of you might try actually cooking with your child.
Imagine taking a small child to the Tabernacle.  You’re bringing a spotless lamb to sacrifice.  Imagine the impact that watching a lamb be slaughtered on an altar would have on a child.  Most of us would cover our children’s eyes! 
But God set no age limit on those witnessing the grotesqueness of animal sacrifices.  (Is it less grotesque to think of a human sacrificed on a cross?)  Your child would see the priests wearing robes splattered in blood, probably looking more like a butcher than anything else.
So, when it comes to teaching about the Tabernacle and sacrifices and the table of showbread, act it out!  Use visual elements and props like crazy!
DO NOT simply read the cookbook.  Use the smells, sights, and sounds that God intended to accompany the “recipe book.”
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this subject as well, especially if you have any other suggestions that could help others teach this tricky area of the Bible.  http://blogs.faithlafayette.org/faithkids/teaching-the-torah-to-tots/

RESOURCES:

From http://www.truthforchildren.net/images/pdf/TTBS_Leviticus.pdf
SACRIFICE(Lev. 1-7)
As I have been trying to show you, The purpose of Leviticus is echoed in verses such as 11:44-45, 19:2, and 20:26: "Be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.” The word "holy" appears more often in the Book of Leviticus than in any other book of the Bible. The Book of Leviticus both calls God's people to be holy, and shows us how sinners are made holy by Christ.
In chapters 1-7, God gave Moses specific instructions about the sacrifices and offerings by which his people would be allowed to Through The Bible Series—LEVITICUS 12 approach him. In these five sacrifices, Israel was ceremonially provided with everything needed to make them whole, holy.
These sacrifices represent the Lord Jesus Christ, in and by whom the Lord God gives us everything needed to make us whole, complete, holy before him (Col. 2:9-10).

1. The burnt offering shows us the way to God (1:1-17). --We must come to God by faith in Christ, who was consumed by the fire of God’s wrath as our Substitute. But our Lord Jesus Christ is that Burnt Offering who consumed the fire of God’s wrath for his people. 
2. The meat offering portrays the character of Christ, the God-man (2:1-16). – He who is our Substitute is most holy  unto the Lord. – It also speaks of our consecration to God by faith in Christ.
3. The peace offering speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is our Peace (3:1-17). – Christ alone can reconcile God and man. Christ alone can speak peace to the guilty conscience.  Christ alone is our Peace. 
4. The sin offering, of course, represents Christ our Substitute (4:1-35). – Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin. There is no forgiveness with God except by the merits of a suitable, slain sin offering; and that Sin Offering is Christ.
5. The trespass offering sets before us a picture of Christ’s atonement (5:1-6:7). – Our Lord Jesus Christ made atonement for the sins of his people by paying our debt to the full satisfaction of divine justice.  I hear the Savior say,

“Thy strength indeed is small.
Child of weakness, watch and pray,
Find in Me thine all in all.”
Jesus paid it all! All the debt I owed!
Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow! 

CHEAP KINDLE BOOK

Right now Amazon is offering Brian Yawn’s book What Every Man Wishes His Father Had Told Him on Kindle for only $2.51. Below is an excerpt from Tim Challies’s very positive review.

What this book offers is interesting, helpful, mature reflections on what it means to be a man, to be a husband, to be a father. These are the little pearls of wisdom that too few men bequeath to their sons.

Derek Brown

Quarter 4: week 3: God's presence fill the tabernacle

Exodus 33-34, 40

Some Big Idea thoughts from this lesson:

God has a very special relationship with Moses BUT even with that special relationship Moses was not allowed or able to see God's face.   

The smoke reminded the Israelites that God was with them.  God wanted to remind Moses and the people that He was with them. 

What made Moses and the Israelites different than the other nations?  Exodus 33:16b "Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?”  God with them is what made them distinct. 

I have been talking with the 1st through 5th graders about the connection between magnification and glorification.

Here is an explanation of this principle by John Piper (Click HERE for the whole sermon)

How Do You Magnify the Lord?

Well, notice in Psalm 40:16 that those who love the salvation of God have a God-appointed mission: they are to say continually, "The Lord be magnified!" Now "magnify" is an ambiguous word. You can magnify with microscopes and you can magnify with telescopes. If you magnify with microscopes, you try to make something small look large. But if you magnify with a telescope, you try to make something large stop looking small and look more like it really is... 

Now the point is this. The night sky is full of wonders. Just like God is full of wonders. Look at Psalm 40:5:  "Many, O Lord my God, are the wonders which Thou hast done, and Thy thoughts toward us; there is none to compare with Thee; if I would declare and speak of them, they would be too numerous to count." 

But the problem is that in the night sky the wonders of the heavens do not appear as they really are. They seem small and not very bright or awesome. So we must magnify them. That's what a telescope is for. Not to make them look bigger than they are. But to help us, in our weakness, to stop thinking of them as small and show us how great they really are.

Quarter 4: week 2: God punishes Israel's Idolatry

Exodus 32

Students will thank God for His mercy and patience

OUR SINFULNESS:
One of the craziest statements in this passage is in verse 24.
"So [Aaron]  said to them 'Let any who have gold take it off.'  So they gave it to me, and I threw it into the fire and out came this calf."

In second hour we are going to do random art with markers and blindfolds, play dough and other mediums.  When you randomly threw play dough into a pile and draw blindfolded, you don't end up with a great piece of art.
The same is true of throwing gold into a fire and a golden calf coming out.

Our disobedience and sinful is not a accident or coincidence. 

Don't make excuses for your sin!

OUR PRAYERS:
Talk about the parts of Moses' prayer in Exodus 32:11-13
Remember God's blessings and Thank Him.
Asking for God's help.
Remember who God is and what has promised.

GOD'S MERCY:
Everyone should have died because of the sin of the people BUT that didn't happen.