Hi all! This month we are learning about the things Jesus taught. Today’s story is a parable, a story meant to teach something.

This story can be found in Matthew 13, Mark 4 and Luke 8.

Jesus was teaching one day and told the people this parable (story). There was once a farmer who went to plant some seeds. Some of the seeds fell along the road, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocks, where there was not much good soil. Those seeds sprang up quickly, but when the sun came up, the plants were burnt, and they withered… they could not really grow there. Other seeds fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants, so those seeds could not continue to grow. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—many many many stalks of good wheat grew there.”

But Jesus wasn’t just teaching the people how to be good farmers. He was telling them a story about God and about us. He then explained to the people what the story meant.

He said,”The seeds that fell on the road and were eaten by the birds are like when someone hears the words of the Bible and does not understand it. Then Satan comes and tries to keep those people away from God. The seeds that fell on the rocky soil and couldn’t grow are like the people who hear God’s words and obey them for a little bit, but then give up. The seeds that fell in the weeds and couldn’t grow are like people who are more worried about money and their troubles than trusting in God. But the seeds that fell in the good soil and grew and grew are like the people who hear God’s words, obey them and tell others about God.”

Let’s ask God to help us be good seeds in good soil so we can grow! We can listen to God’s words and ask Him to help us understand (we can ask our mom and dad, our grandparents, our pastor or other grown ups for help too if we don’t understand something in the Bible.) We can also pray and ask God to help us obey His words and tell others about Him.

 

For our craft today we made a book of the story.

We started by taking 4 pieces of paper. (You can use any color you want). We made green our biggest/last piece so we took a regular 8.5 x 11 piece of construction paper and folded it in half. Then we took a yellow piece, folded it in half and cut about an inch off the bottom. Then we took a brown piece, folded it and cut about 2 inches off. Then we took a blue piece, folded it in half and cut about 3 inches off.

When stacked they look like this

 

For each page, we open up the paper and the illustration goes on top half and words on the bottom half.

Page 1: We drew a road, glued on some seeds (we used various beans we had. You could use beans, actual seeds, rice, glitter, or just draw the seeds on). Then we added some birds.

Page 2: We drew the rocky soil and glued on a few seeds.

Page 3: For our thorns we drew some sticks with pokers on the sides and glued on some seeds.

Page 4: On this page we glued on a lot of seeds and drew good brown soil, and tall yellow and green grasses and wheat.

 

Then we stapled the pieces together to form our book:

 

Thanks again for joining us. Love to you all!