This week's lesson are three parables from Jesus. These are the visuals I set up. The barn is a bird house I found at a craft store and painted. I found the grain stalks during the fall and added some Fisher Price fencing and more bales of grain. The Pearl of Great Price is a basket with larger (8 mm) pearl beads. The treasure is a wood box that I found at Hobby Lobby. I just used brown fabric (or felt or actual dirt). I let the students have a treasure chest, added a pearl bead and a grain stalk. Then, add stickers of Jesus, the Bible, Heaven and discuss what real treasure is.
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In Jesus’ day, usually when a father died, the oldest son inherited two times what the other children received.
There was crowd of people where Jesus was teaching and someone said to Jesus “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” Jesus asked him who made Jesus the judge? Jesus isn’t here to settle these problems, He wants to preach the gospel. Jesus said to be careful of being greedy because your life isn’t about having an great quantity of things.
Jesus told this parable in Luke 12:13-21 to help the people understand the point He wanted to make. There was a rich man and his fields had produced so much that he thought to himself: “Now what should I do? I do not have enough room to store all my crops?”
The rich man told himself, I’m going to do this… I will tear down the barns that I have and build BIGGER barns. That’s where I’ll store my crops and property. And I will say to myself, You have so much stored up, enough for many years. I’ll take it easy and celebrate!
But God said to the rich man, “You’re a fool! Tonight you will die, then who will prosper from all your possessions?"
There are a lot I’s in today’s parable.. vs. 21 “So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.” Jesus told them not to worry about THINGS, but our Bible verse for today says: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Jesus is telling the people, what good does it do for you to make a lot of money, and save it and not help others and give back to God? This rich man should have thought about who needed his help, since he had more than he needed.
Let's look at two other short parables that Jesus told in Mathew 13:44-46. They tell us about how great the kingdom of Heaven is and how our whole goal should be to go there.
This first parable is about a man that found a hidden treasure in a field. The man hid the treasure, then he went and sold everything he had so he could buy that field. Since he now owned the field, he also owned the treasure! It was worth the cost to sell everything he had!
This next parable Jesus told is about a merchant. He was looking for beautiful pearls. The merchant found a pearl that was worth a lot of money! The merchant sold everything he had, just so he could buy that one pearl! Jesus, said it is worth giving all you can to enter the kingdom of Heaven!
All of these parables are telling us to make sure we have our priorities in the right place, and Jesus said that it worth giving up all the worldly stuff to go to heaven. This project requires some work on the teacher's part before class, but it is a great discussion starter. I left some of the jewels blank for the students to add thoughts that are brought up during the discussion. You can print it here.
Today's Bible Verse: For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Luke 12:34 (NKJV) Click on the picture to print the NKJV Bible Verse & Teacher's Visual.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Used by permission.