Scripture: Matthew 22:34-40, Mark 12:28-34, Luke 29:39-40
Learning Objectives:
- Students will learn God wants us to love Him with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength.
- Students will learn God wants us to love our neighbors as ourselves.
- Students will learn all of God’s other commandments fall under one of those two categories.
- Students will use venn diagrams to compare the Greatest Commands.
Guiding Question: What ways can we serve God through following the Commands?
Materials: Printed Venn Diagrams, pencils, additional information: https://www.theschoolrun.com/what-venn-diagram
Procedure: Share the Greatest Commands from the scriptures above. Explain why love is so important to God and share with the students how all of the other commandments that God gives falls unders love. Share the commandments and have the students tell you how they see where love applies in those commandments. Explain that when loving others as God wants us to, that also means correcting people in a godly way when they are wrong or sinning. This should be done in a way that helps them realize their mistakes and leads them back to what God wants for them. Share with students examples of commands and godly actions that show following the command of loving God with all our heart and the command of loving our neighbors as ourselves.
Introduce the activity. Introduce a Venn Diagram. Have students share if they have used one before and how they have used it. Explain that they are going to use the Venn Diagram to sort the Greatest Commands. One side of the diagram will have “Loving God with all your heart” and the other side will have “Loving others as yourself”. Remind students of the examples of actions you shared that fall into these categories and then have students come up with their own for their Venn Diagrams. Assist students as needed.
Additional Questions: How can shapes be compared using a Venn Diagram?
Supplemental Activity: Review how to use a Venn Diagram. Give students two categories and a group of shapes for them to sort in the venn diagram.
Example: 2D and 3D shapes, shapes with a right angle and shapes with more than 3 sides