By George Nielsen
This week we covered Lesson 5 from Bible Adventures, “PRAYER School” which is a lesson to introduce the prayer that Jesus taught, which is commonly called The Lord’s Prayer. The Bible passage studied was from Matthew, chapter 6 (verses 5 -- 13), which begins with Jesus’ teaching on the kind of prayer the people of that day would have seen being said publicly -- which He condemned as hypocritical prayers, said just so the speaker could “show-off” to his listeners, appearing to be holy. Then we read verses 9 through 13 using the Scripture Spotlight text, printed in Bible Adventures.
We discussed God as our Father, and also briefly mentioned the concept of our God as a Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). Our teaching continued with:
- mention of opening the prayer with praise (‘hallowed be Your Name’),
- brief teaching on the Kingdom of God and about the presence of evil (petitioning for God’s will to be done)
- daily bread, and how this can refer to both physical food and provisions and also spiritual nourishment from revelation by reading the Holy Bible and by the leading of Holy Spirit, who is given to us as our spiritual Helper.
- receiving and giving forgiveness -- and comments on how the term “debts” should be understood to mean wrong things we have said or done; “debtors” should be understood to mean people who have wronged us; the term “trespasses” has been used, in the past, in place of debts, to convey this meaning.
- leading us is something that God desires to do; the petition about not leading into temptation is a call to God for help in following His direction; the evil one, which refers to satan, is putting temptation in our path, but we can reject it; if we do get entangled in it, this petition asks for deliverance, out of the grip of evil.
- in discussing this final petition, we also discussed the evil, vile wickedness of satan, and satan’s hatred of God and of people (since God loves people).
The Bible Adventures lesson stops with the final petition of the Lord’s Prayer. In class, after concluding the explanation of those petitions, verses 9 through 13 were reread by George Nielsen from the Holy Bible, New King James Version. This is one of the translations that includes the full text of verse 13. Verse 13 (NKJV) reads as follows:
13 And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one.
For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
The students were instructed that the text including the second sentence of verse 13 is the more accurate version, and the full verse is part of the Lord’s Prayer. The students were told that this second sentence, called the Closing Doxology (giving praise and honor to God) is important and should be said. It is a three-fold affirmation of praise and honor -- declaring that Kingship, almighty power, and radiance of glorious and holy light belong to God eternally.
Our Lesson Focus is spiritual truth that we emphasize. The kids can take away this truth from class as the application of what was taught -- especially for them.
Today’s Lesson Focus is: Jesus Taught Us How to Pray. We studied Matthew 6: 5-13, which included instructions about not being a “show-off” when we pray, and also about the specific petitions of the Lord’s Prayer. The application for them is that this is a model-prayer, that we still say today, not as a rote, spiritual duty, but as a heartfelt expression of praise and faith in God -- asking for help with the things we are petitioning for.
Today’s written Homework Assignment is to complete the copy of page 4 of Bible Adventures, The Lord’s Prayer wheel diagram, which was handed out to the students. It should be returned to class next week. This is an exercise to paraphrase the Opening verse of praise to God, and the petitions, of the Lord’s Prayer. ( Click HERE to see a blank copy of the wheel diagram. )
We have not assigned memorization of The Lord’s Prayer as homework, and recommend that parents work with their child so that they do commit this prayer to memory. Knowing The Lord’s Prayer is a basic element of Christian discipleship that we believe children should learn from their parents.
The Memory Verse assigned this week is 1 Thessalonians 5: 17.
17 Pray continually.
This week we also continued the assignment of the first Emphasis Memory Verse, Acts 10: 38 (NKJV). This verse can be recited for each class during the month of July.
38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him. --- Acts 10: 38 (NKJV)
One of the teaching points covered in 5th grade (one of our Learning Objectives) is to teach on the importance of giving and to show their understanding of the teaching point by participating in our weekly class offering. They have been encouraged to be generous, like the people in one of our earlier lessons were.
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