Scripture: Exodus 18
Learning Objectives:
- Students will learn God provides godly people to help give us godly advice.
- Students will learn God expects us to follow godly advice.
- Students will learn God wants us to divide the work He gives us amongst several people and to not try and do everything ourselves.
- Students will learn how to use punctuation.
Guiding Question: How is different punctuation used within writing?
Materials: Copies of the story of Jethro’s counsel, additional passages from the Bible with punctuation removed, pencils
Procedure: Review the story of Jethro’s counsel to Moses focusing on how he gave clear instructions on how to follow through with the advice. Explain that there is a difference between regular advice and godly advice. God wants us to follow godly advice because it comes from His Word and will help us lead a godly lifestyle. God will put people in our life to give us that kind of advice and we need to be open to listening to them. Sometimes it can be hard to ask for help or advice but God does not want us to try and do everything ourselves. He wants us to ask for help when needed from the right people.
Introduce the activity. Give the students the passage of Jethro’s counsel with punctuation including quotation marks removed. Work with the class through this passage, reviewing any punctuation rules they may have forgotten. Give them other passages with punctuation removed. Have them work in pairs and then alone as they become more comfortable with punctuation rules.
Additional Questions: How can students practice fixing punctuation?
Supplemental Activity: Have the students create small paragraphs for each with missing punctuation. Have the students fix each other’s paragraphs and check each other’s work.