Hello all! Today we did the story of David and Mephibosheth from 2 Samuel 9. Our lesson and craft can be found HERE.
We found THIS VIDEO posted by tim vanderbilt by Wonder!
and THIS VIDEO from SabbathSchool.
Thanks for joining us and following through the Bible with us this year! Love to you all.
Hi all! Tonight’s story is from 2 Samuel 6.
Do you remember the ark of the covenant…that special box of God’s power? It was still away from the church where it was supposed to be. The Philistines had taken it a long time ago and brought it back, but it was just at some guy’s house. (His name was Abinadab and he and his family had been taking good care of it, but it was supposed to be in the tabernacle.)
David, now that he was king, decided NOW was the time to bring it back where it belonged. David and a LOT of helpers went to the man’s house and they very carefully carried the box just the way God wanted. They weren’t supposed to touch the box…only the poles it rested on.
But along the way, they almost dropped it and one of the guys reached out to help the ark so it wouldn’t fall and he died right then and there! That may seem mean, since he was trying to help…but God had been very clear: the people were NOT to touch the ark. David was so so scared and so so sad that he said “No more. We’ll leave the ark right here.” They were right by another man’s house named Obed-edom. The ark stayed there at that man’s house for 3 months and then someone told King David “God has been very good to Obed-edom since he has been taking care of the ark of the covenant.” So David decided maybe they could try again.
This time, they did carry the ark back into the city to the tabernacle and everyone was SOOOOO happy! The special box that showed all the people God’s power was BACK! They played music and danced and sang songs, some people cried! Oh they were SO happy! (It’s like if you lost your FAVORITE stuffed animal, or if you got lost from your mom or dad and then you FOUND your favorite thing, or your mom or dad and all went back home together…how HAPPY that would be!)
Even King David was so happy HE was dancing. But his wife was not happy. “That’s not very dignified. YOU are the king. You shouldn’t be out there being silly like THOSE people. You are supposed to be important….in charge…you should not be dancing.”
But David said, “Ha! I was dancing for God! I remember all the good things God has done for me. He made me king, He chose ME! I don’t care HOW silly I look! I want to praise God!”
Do you know there’s no wrong way to praise God? To thank Him for the things He has done for us? Sometimes at church we talk to God to say “thank you” or we sing songs or play music–you can draw a picture, you can write your own songs or dance as silly as you want. You can celebrate God however you want…and it doesn’t matter HOW silly you look! God LOVES a thankful heart–when we praise Him, it makes Him so happy.
What are you thankful for today? What do you want to celebrate about God? Now take some time with your family to praise God–with music, art, prayer, dancing…whichever way you want!
Thanks for joining us! Love to you all!
Welcome back. Today’s story is from 1 Samuel 31-2 Samuel 5. Today’s story has a LOT of people making bad, sneaky choices.
The Philistines attacked Israel (again) and King Saul and his boys were helping to fight. Three of Saul’s boys died and Saul was so sad, he fell on his sword so he could die too. Jonathan (David’s best friend) died that day too.
When David found out, he was very very sad. The man who told David Saul and Jonathan were dead said that HE killed Saul. That man lied. David answered, “Why did you kill the man God put in charge as king? Weren’t you scared to kill the man God chose?” Then David had that man killed too. The man lied…and then he died because of his lie.
Now, if you remember, there were 12 tribes (like big family groups) in Israel. Only one of the groups, Judah, wanted David to be their king. The rest wanted Saul’s son to be king. He has a long, confusing name: Ishbosheth. For a long time the people fought over who they thought should be king. A lot of people died. Which was kind of silly because God already said He wanted DAVID to be king…but the people didn’t listen. The leader of David’s army and the leader of Ishbosheth’s army fought and fought. The leader of Ishbosheth’s army, Abner, killed the brother of the leader of David’s army. So the leader of David’s army, Joab, killed the OTHER leader. See ALL these people making bad choices?? They ALL forgot that you’re not supposed to be mean to people just because they are mean to you. Lots of people kept dying because they were all being sneaky and lying and forgetting to obey God.
David and his army got stronger and stronger and Saul’s son and his army got weaker and weaker. Finally one day two men killed Ishbosheth (which did not make David happy–he was sad Ishbosheth had died). Then all the people decided David would be their new king.
David made a covenant (like a promise) to the people of Israel to be a good king and all the people decided yes, he would be the new king over all the families in Israel. David will make his own bad choices too. When we read the Bible there aren’t just “good” people and “bad” people. EVERYONE except Jesus makes bad choices, disobeys God and sins. And LOTS of people in today’s story made bad choices too.
God still had good plans for His people though and He put David in charge because David had a heart like God’s. He wasn’t happy when people died. David didn’t want the people to fight. But now all of Israel was following him and we’ll learn more about King David next time. Thanks for joining us, love to you all.
Welcome back! Today’s story is from 1 Samuel 25. This is a story about David and a woman named Abigail.
David and his men were running away from King Saul (again) and they were tired! And hungry!
There was a man named Nabal who was having a feast (like a big party) at his house. He had LOTS of food to share. David sent one of his helpers to ask Nabal to share some food with them. But Nabal did not have a happy heart. He said “NO! I don’t want to share! Especially with YOU guys?! Who do you think you are?!” And he sent the helper away with nothing.
When the helper got back to David and told him what Nabal had said…David was angry. He was going to be the king of Israel some day! He had saved Israel in lots of battles. David and his men had even helped Nabal before…taking care of his sheep. Nabal SHOULD share…but he wouldn’t. So David was angry and he said “Fine! Let’s go show this guy a lesson!”(He wanted to go fight and maybe even kill Nabal).
But when Nabal’s wife, Abigail, heard that her husband had not been nice…she knew it meant trouble. So she came up with a plan. She quickly got together a bunch of the food and sent it to David. She went out to see David and said, “I am so sorry. I know Nabal is not a very nice guy. Please take these presents and forgive us. I never knew your helper came, or I would have given you food. I know God wants you to be king someday and I know you obey God. Please don’t make a bad choice by going to kill Nabal. Don’t fight with him. Make a good choice. Don’t be mean just because he was mean to you…that would be disobeying God. Remember, God wants you to be nice to people who are mean to you.”
David thought about what Abigail said. “Yes! Thank you. You are right. I should not be mean to Nabal even though he was mean to me.”
Abigail was a peacemaker. She kept the men from fighting. She even reminded David that God wants us to be nice to people, even when they are mean to us. (Romans 12:21, Matthew 5:38-40)
Did you know that sometimes grown ups and even people in charge FORGET God’s rules? They forget what God says! We can HELP EACH OTHER remember what God wants us to do. Even kids can help grown ups remember! The Bible tells us what God wants, so it’s important that we read the Bible often so we won’t forget what He tells us.
We found THIS VIDEO posted by Nickandmarisaparker that illustrates today’s story.
Thanks for joining us, love to you all.
Hi all…today’s lesson is a variance on David the shepherd. Today’s lesson is more focused whereas last year’s lesson was more broad. (Found HERE.)
Do you remember what David was doing before God said he would be the new king? He was taking care of the sheep! That’s called being a shepherd. What kinds of things do you think a shepherd has to do? (Feed the sheep, get them water, keep them safe, show them where to go, keep them healthy.) The shepherd loves his sheep.
When David got bigger, he was like a shepherd to the people of Israel. He became king and he took care of the people just like he took care of the sheep! He kept them safe, fighting in battles, and he made sure they had food and water. He led the people to God and he obeyed God which helped remind the people to obey God too! (2 Samuel 5:2, 1 Chronicles 11:2, Ezekiel 34:11-23, Psalm 78:70-72)
David would get married and have a baby boy. And that boy would grow up and have a boy and he would have a boy and on and on for 14 times, until another baby boy was born–Jesus. Jesus is like a shepherd too. He leads us to God and He keeps us safe. David wrote a lot of songs and in those songs, David called God “our Shepherd” a lot. (Psalm 23:1-3, 28:9, 95:7, 79:13, 100:3)
He takes care of us…and even more important than making sure we have the THINGS we need, He takes care of our hearts. Jesus doesn’t just take care of us, He loves us, just like a shepherd loves his sheep. (Isaiah 40:11, 53:6, Micah 7:4, Jeremiah 31:10)
Sometimes if a wolf or other scary animal would come and try to eat one of the sheep, the shepherd would fight the animal–even if he died..he would try to fight to save his sheep. Do you remember Jesus died for us? Sin (anything that disobeys God) wants to have our hearts…which keeps us away from God forever…but Jesus, the Good Shepherd, fought and died to save us. (Isaiah 53:6, John 10:11). But He didn’t stay dead–because unlike a regular shepherd, Jesus, the Good Shepherd, is stronger than sin and death. Not EVEN dying can keep Jesus away from us or away from loving us.
God gave His people in Israel a good shepherd, David to lead them and protect them. But later He would give ALL of us Jesus, the Good Shepherd (the best shepherd of all) to love us, protect us, and save our hearts.
For today’s craft, we cut out a sheep’s head and then glued some fluffy cotton balls to make a sheep.
Thanks again for joining us. Love to you all!
Hi all–today we did “David spares Saul’s life” found HERE.
We found THIS VIDEO from SabbathSchool.
Tomorrow we’ll be back with a lesson on David the shepherd.
Thanks for joining us this year as we learn our way through the Bible. Love to you all!
Welcome again! Today’s story is from 1 Samuel 18-21. Last year’s lesson can be found HERE.
David was now traveling around with King Saul, defeating all their enemies. Saul had a son named Jonathan and Jonathan and David fought together against the other armies and they became best friends. Every time David won a battle, the people liked him more and more. Eventually they liked him MORE than King Saul. This made the king very VERY angry.
Besides being a good fighter and a good shepherd, David was also good at music. Sometimes when the king was feeling sad, he would have David play some music for him. One time, while David was playing music for him, the king started thinking about how everyone liked David more than him…he got so mad he threw his spear (like a really big, really pointy stick) at David to try to kill him! But he missed.
So then he decided to just keep sending David to fight (hoping he would die while fighting). But every time David listened to God, he won (and the people liked him EVEN MORE!)
So again, King Saul tried to kill David by throwing his spear at him…but David got away again.
That night, he ran away. Jonathan found him and they promised to always be friends, no matter what, and they promised to always help each other.
David said, “The king has asked me to join him at a party tomorrow. But I won’t be there. I will be hiding in this field. When he asks where I am, you can tell him I had to go somewhere else. If he’s ok with it, then everything is ok. If he is angry, then I’ll know he’s really trying to kill me and you can warn me or let me know it’s all ok.”
Jonathan went to the feast and king Saul asked where David was. When Jonathan told him David was gone he was very very angry!
So Jonathan ran to the field with a small servant boy. He shot three arrows into the field and told the boy to go! go! go! GO! far into the field to go get the arrows. (He was telling the boy to go get the arrows, but he was REALLY yelling to David to “GO! Run away! because my father Saul wants to kill you!”)
Then Jonathan ran out into the field to David and they said goodbye. They were both very sad that David had to go for now, but they promised again to always be friends and take care of each other.
In this story Jonathan was a good friend to David and later David will be a good friend to Jonathan’s family. Today we talked about how WE can be a good friend.
Some of our ideas were: help reach things, take turns, help clean up, help them laugh if they’re sad, invite EVERYONE to play, give a hug, share toys, and pray for our friends.
Thanks for joining us! Love to you all!
Welcome! Today’s story is from 1 Samuel 17. Last year’s lesson can be found HERE.
The Philistines again went to war with Israel. Saul, the king, and the Israelite army went to meet them. There was a valley and each army was on either side.
The Philistines had a champion named Goliath. He was REALLLLLY tall (like a big basketball player). He had scary armor, a big sword and a BIG shield.
Kind of like this guy:
Everyday Goliath stood and shouted to Israel, “Choose one of your men and have him come down to me. If he is able to fight and kill me, we will become your servants; but if I kill him, you will become OUR servants!” Saul and all the Israelites were very sad and very scared.
But do you remember David? He was the littlest son of Jesse from Bethlehem. Samuel had said that one day he would king! Jesse’s three oldest sons had followed Saul to the war and David went back and forth from Saul to taking care of his father’s sheep back home.
For forty days Goliath the Philistine came forward every morning and evening and said mean things about God and asked the Israelites to send out a champion to fight him.
Jesse told David to go to Saul and check on his brothers and give them some food (because they had been gone a long time by now.)
So early in the morning, David left the sheep, loaded up and set out. He reached the camp as the army was going out to its battle positions. Israel and the Philistines were drawing up their lines facing each other. David left his things, ran to the battle lines and asked his brothers how they were. As he was talking with them, Goliath stepped out from his lines and shouted his usual words “Who will fight me?!” But whenever the Israelites saw the man, they all ran away from him very afraid.
David asked the men standing near him, “What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine? Who does this guy think he is that he should defy God and His people?”
“He will be given great honor, get to marry the king’s daughter and get to work for the king!”
David went to find Saul and said to him, “I, your servant, will go and fight Goliath.”
Saul answered, “You can’t go out to fight this Philistine!? You are only a young man, and he has been a warrior his whole life.”
But David said to Saul, “When a lion or a bear came and carried off one of my sheep, I went after it, killed it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. Your servant has killed both a lion and a bear; this guy will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of Goliath.”
Saul said to David, “Ok, go, and may the Lord be with you.”
Then Saul dressed David in his own armor and put a heavy helmet on his head. David fastened on his sword and tried walking around, because he was not used to them.
“I can’t go in these,” he said to Saul, “I am not used to them.” So he took them off. Then David took his staff (his big stick) and he chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in the pouch of his shepherd’s bag and, with his slingshot in his hand, went up to Goliath.
Goliath looked David over and saw that he was just a boy and he hated him. He said to David, “Am I a dog, that you come at me with sticks?” And Goliath said bad words to David. “Come here,” he said, “and I’ll kill you and feed you to the birds and the wild animals!”
David said to him, “You come against me with sword and spear, but I come against you in the Name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel. This day the Lord will give you into my hands, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. This very day the whole world will know that there IS a God in Israel. Everyone here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.” (God would defeat Goliath, not any army or staff or slingshot).
Reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, David put it in his sling and slung it around and around and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell facedown on the ground. Goliath died. Then David ran over and chopped off his head (ew).
When the Philistines saw that their hero was dead, they all turned and ran.
From that day on, David stayed with Saul and fought with him against all of Israel’s enemies. God had big plans for little David. He would one day become king of all Israel.
Even though he was young and small, God still used him to do big things. Even though YOU might be young or small God can do big things with you right now too! We just have to trust Him. David knew when he fought Goliath he wouldn’t be alone. Every battle (every hard thing) we have to do, belongs to God. He will help us.
For this story we enjoy the veggie tales “Dave and the Giant Pickle.” (Currently 2.99 to rent on Amazon).
Thanks for joining us. Love to you all.
Hey everyone! Welcome back! Today’s story comes from 1 Samuel 16. Last year’s lesson can be found HERE.
So God was unhappy with Saul as king and He told Samuel to go pick a new one. God would show him who should be king next.
God told Samuel to go to Bethlehem (that’s the city where Jesus would later be born). There he should find a daddy named Jesse. One of Jesse’s boys would be the new king. So Samuel found Jesse and he found Jesse’s biggest boy. The biggest boy was VERY big..and handsome and strong…everything a king should be.
“This is him, right God?’ asked Samuel.
“No” answered God. “I have not chosen him….don’t just look at how big and strong he is. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
One by one Jesse brought each of his boys before Samuel (just like the step sisters in Cinderella) but every time God said no.
“Are these ALL of your boys?” Samuel asked.
“Well…” Jesse said, “There’s my youngest boy…but he’s out taking care of the sheep.”
Samuel said “Go get him.” So they went to get David, the littlest boy and God said, “THIS is the one!” Samuel poured special oil on David’s head and declared him the new king. (I wonder how his brothers and his dad felt!?)
God knew that David would love him. God doesn’t always pick the biggest, smartest, prettiest, or tallest. God doesn’t care if you have yellow hair or black hair, purple skin or blue skin, if you wear glasses or braces, if you can’t speak very well or if you’re not very good at school work. What matters to God is what is in your heart. Do you love God? Will you obey Him?
God chooses people who will love and obey Him. He chose little David. God had big HUGE plans for David, and He has big plans for you too if you will love and obey Him.
For our craft today, we cut out people shapes and decorated them. Then we took a heart sticker and added it and our text which reads: Man looks at what’s on the outside, but God cares about what’s in our hearts! 1 Samuel 16
Thanks for joining us! Love to you all!
Welcome again!
This month we are learning about God, God’s son Jesus, and Jesus’ earthly family.
The next person in Jesus’ family after Ruth and her husband had a boy named Jesse, then Jesse had sons, one of which was named David.
Our lessons can be found here and here. In the Bible, David’s stories cover from 1 Samuel 16-2 Samuel and the book of Psalms.
David was just a boy when God first chose Him. And David was a shepherd. A shepherd is someone who takes care of sheep. He would feed them, make sure none of them were lost or chased by bigger animals. David had to fight off a couple of big animals and that helped get him ready to fight the giant Goliath later.
One day, God would choose David, “just” a shepherd to lead His people, Israel. Being a shepherd was probably good practice for leading all of Israel. He took care of the people and showed them how to love God. God loved David very much and was very happy that he took good care of the people.
The Bible tells us (1 Peter 2:25, Psalm 23) that God is Our shepherd. He cares for us, protects us and leads us.
So when Jesus was born, there were shepherds in the fields, taking care of their sheep (it was night time then and even then they had to watch the sheep and make sure they were ok.) The angels came first to the shepherds (not the kings, not the fancy rich people…but to the shepherds) and told them that a Savior had been born and that He was the Messiah, Christ the Lord.
The shepherds were scared, but they ran to see baby Jesus and then they ran and told EVERYONE the good news!! They were so excited that Jesus was here! Nobody quite knew yet what kind of King Jesus would be (that He would die for all our sins) but the shepherds believed!
Bible Story: David, the shepherd
Attribute of God: Shepherd
Jesus’ birth story: the shepherds learn of Jesus’ birth
Craft:
Side one of our ornament is a shepherd. We made him using a circle marker for the head and then we drew on a face. We gave him some clothes and used a toothpick for his staff (a big stick the shepherds would use to lead the sheep around). Then we glued on some marshmallows to be little sheep. (You could also use pom poms or cotton balls).
Our text reads: David was a shepherd. 1 Sam 16, 2 Sam 5, God is our Shepherd. 1 Peter 2:25, Psalm 23
Side two of our ornament today is three surprised shepherds looking up at an angel. We again used circle markers to make all the heads and we drew surprised faces on the shepherds and (it was) a happy face on the angel. We gave the angel wings made from a cut up muffin/cupcake liner.
Our text reads: The angels appeared to the shepherds. Luke 2
Thanks again for joining us. Love to you all!
He Bids Them Come 