It's Summer!

We never like to let good curriculum go to waste: That is the rationale for continuing our class into the summer at my house! (The truth is, this class is just too precious to stop.) We have kept basically the same schedule but have a little more time each week, which is a wonderful luxury. We finish by having lunch together, and I love that my own children get to share in the special fellowship of this class.

This week, we combined two stories of miracles God performed through His gentle prophet Elisha: God's display of gracious provision when He increased the widow's scant oil in her jar, and His display of power over "incurable" disease when He healed Naaman's leprosy.

We opened class by building some curiousity about what was to come. We had them trace their hands on a piece of paper and then draw sores all over the hands. I told them that in today's story, we would hear about a man who had sores covering his body. The children put real Band-Aids over the sores they had drawn, and then we were ready for our story.

We moved from the table to the couch and I introduced the story, telling them that we would hear about two miracles -- two wonderful things that only God could do. I had hidden some cups around the story area and asked the children to go and find them and bring them over. I had a small bottle with a tiny bit of olive oil in it and told the children that I was going to fill all four cups that they had found. They knew that it wouldn't work, but we tried anyway. Of course, it only filled the bottom of one cup. I said, "I can't MAKE anymore oil. I can't make oil out of nothing." The children were so sweet because they were very helpful. Patrick offered, "You could go to the store and get more?" I agreed, but said, "The only way I can get more oil is to go to the store and use money to buy some more," repeating, "I can't make oil out of nothing. But Someone can. Let's listen and find out who."

I emphasized in this story that we are all hopeless without God's merciful provision in our lives. We all suffer from an "incurable" disease like Naaman -- it's called SIN. Only God has the cure (Jesus) -- and He provided it! Sending Jesus was another wonderful thing that only God could do.

When we had finished, we moved on to a Question and Answer time that tied the verse to the story. We talked about how just as Elisha refused to boast in the miracle God had done, we too should refuse to boast -- except to give God credit for EVERYTHING. We talked about this in length and the children gave many good examples of improper boasting and proper boasting. Glory connected this verse to Ephesians 2:8, about not boasting in our salvation, a very appropriate verse to go along with our lesson!

In game time, we reviewed these Scriptures thoroughly by singing them as we batted balloons, then did our musical chairs game.

Another application of this story is that we please God when out of faith in His promises, we try to do exactly what His word says. (We had SarahClaire stand in a blue hula hoop and demonstrate how many times Naaman dunked himself in the Jordan River -- "Not 8, not 5, not 4, but SEVEN, exactly the number that God had told Elisha he should.") This is where Proverbs 1:10 comes in. We did not get to talk in depth about this Scripture, but will expound on it next week. (Jingles for the summer verses are found at the "Verse Jingles 2008-09" link to the right of this screen.

JULY 1 and 8 CLASSES: Before our break, we had set the stage for the prophet Elisha's ministry by finishing up our study of Elijah, the stern prophet. We emphasized again the Omnipotence of God Alone by telling how He defeated the prophets of Baal and later took Elijah up to heaven in an unconventional manner: using horses made of fire. Each of these stories emphasizes the power and wonder of what God can do and shows His unusual, miraculous actions. We live in an era that would tend to debunk such stories and I emphasized that these stories are history, events that really happened in the past. Patrick said, "I wish God would do something like that now." I said that God can do a miracle anytime that He pleases and He still does them, but that was a very special time in history and God was Establishing His Testimony. He was revealing His character and preparing people for Jesus through the events He was ordaining. We talked about how that was BEFORE Jesus had entered Time, BEFORE God's people had been given the whole Bible or the Holy Spirit to live inside of us. The people in Elijah's time had only had part of the story and hints of what was to come. So even though the people who lived in Elijah's day got to see God throw fire down from heaven and consume soaking-wet offerings -- believers today actually have it better because we have seen JESUS Himself clearly through the Scriptures, and we can see the complete story of redemption layed out in the Old and New Testament -- the completed Bible -- and we have the Holy Spirit living inside of us helping us to understand. We talked about this and Patrick added, "Yes, and if you saw the fire -- once it was over, it would be over. That would be it." He's right -- even if you've seen a miracle, we're called to live by faith and not by sight. Because the miracle becomes a memory the minute it's over. So I'd say this class counts as philosophy for all the homeschoolers!