What are the Scriptures? Why is it so important for us to study? Includes an object lesson, games, and craft.
Needed: For this lesson, you’ll want to gather a children’s fictional story book, Bibles, construction paper, ribbon, markers or crayons, stickers, and hole punches.
Intro Game 1: Follow the Leader
The Class Teacher chooses a Leader. Students must follow the Leader in every way, going where they go and doing what they do. Play for a specified amount of time and then choose a new Leader. Play until everyone has had a chance to be Leader or until students lose interest. After the game, explain that today’s lesson is about why we should study the Bible. When we study the Bible, we are learning how to play Follow the Leader. God and Jesus are our Leaders and the Bible tells us everything we need to know to follow Them. The Bible tells us how we can live the way Jesus lived and how we can do the things that God is happy for us to do.
Intro Game 2: Musical Chair Share
Play Musical Chairs. Remove one chair. When the music stops, the person without a chair must say one true thing about themselves. The difference with this game is that you will remove no more chairs and no one leaves the game. Continue playing with one person each round saying something true about themselves. Play until interest fades. When the game is over, explain that the Bible is like the game students just played. They told true things about themselves in the game and the Bible is the place where God tells us true things about Himself.
Kid’s Bible Lesson “Why Do We Study the Bible?”
Who knows why we go to school? Why do we study all those books that they give us? To get a good job, to learn what we need to know.
When you come to church, we also study a book. What book do we study? The Bible.
Who knows why we study the Bible?
The Bible is even more important than our school books because it tells us about God and Jesus. It tells us about how God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit love us and all the things that They have done for us and it tells us not how we can get a good job, but how we can be saved and go to Heaven when we die. It tells us how we are supposed to live our lives now. It tells us what kind of people God wants us to be and the kinds of things that He wants us to do.
Those are pretty important things, aren’t they? That’s why study the Bible; to learn all those things.
Show students a popular children’s fiction book and ask, Who can tell me who wrote this book?
Now show them the Bible and ask, Who can tell me who wrote this book?
More than 40 people wrote the Bible, people like Moses and King David and Peter and Paul. It is a collection of books, a big book made up of a lot of smaller books. There are 66 books in the Bible. But those 40 different people weren’t just making up the Bible from their own ideas, were they? They weren’t just making up a story like this fiction book, right?
The people who wrote the Bible were writing true things, things that really happened. And they were writing the things that God gave them the idea to write about.
Look up and read 2 Timothy 3:16-17 (quoted here from the NIV).
“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
What does it mean for the Bible to be God-breathed? It basically means that it comes from God. When the people were writing the Bible, God was talking to them and helping them to know what to write.
Look up and read 2 Peter 1:20-21 (quoted here from the NIV).
“Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”
This verse again tells us that people wrote the Bible, but that God, the Holy Spirit, was giving people the ideas for what to write.
Craft: Devotion Diaries
If time allows, let children use construction paper, hole punches, ribbon, and craft supplies to make their own Devotion Diaries. Students will tie construction paper into a booklet with ribbon and then decorate the covers with markers, stickers, or whatever else you have available. Encourage students to take their booklets home and record Bible verses, prayers, and important things they learn about God in them.
This lesson is the intro lesson in my book, Created: Children Sunday School Lessons for Genesis 1-11 .