Scripture: Judges 13-15
Learning Objectives:
- Students will review the story of Manoah’s wife giving birth to Samson and dedicating him as a Nazarite as God instructed her.
- Students will learn how God expects families to learn about his Word together.
- Students will create family devotional books to use with their families at home.
Guiding Questions:
How can we encourage our families to spend time with God together?
Materials: construction paper, crayons/colored pencils/markers, pencils, stapler
Procedure: Review the story of Samson’s early life focusing on how his mother dedicated him to be a Nazarite. Review some of the specific instructions that God gave Samson’s parents to raise him. Emphasize how parents should teach their children to know God. Family devotionals are a good way to learn. Instruct students in creating devotional books to use at home. Take several pieces of construction paper in a stack and fold them in half. Staple them together to create a book spine. On each page students can write parts of the Samson story to share with their family at home. Have them illustrate each page and write a simple description to help them tell the story.
Possible devo book sections based on Judges 13-15:
- God’s angel tells Manoah and her husband they will have a child.
- Samson defeats the lion and tells his riddle to the companions.
- Samson’s wife tells the answer to his secret riddle and Samson is angered.
- Men from Judah come to hand Samson over to the Philistines, Samson defeats them using a donkey bone
- God provides Samson with water and Samson leads Israel for 20 years.
Have students create a section in their book on Bible riddles that they can work on with their family and treat as games. This can be a list of clues and the answer is a specific Bible character or story. Encourage them to include some blank pages to make more riddles with their families.
Additional Questions:
- Which of Samson’s choices would God have been proud of? Which ones would God have been disappointed about?
- What were Samson’s consequences for trying to marry a Philistine woman? Why was it wrong to do that?
Supplemental Activities:
- Students can create a daily devotional plan to do with their families. Have them include check boxes that they can put stickers in to keep them accountable. Emphasize that these types of tools serve as great reminders during busy weeks to spend time with God. However, being a Christian is more about relationships than to-do lists. Though it is good to do your best, God does not love them any less if they do not adhere to their plan.
- Encourage older students to write a life application section for each day. Help them consider the life lessons that they can learn from each part of the story.
Written by: Savannah Negas