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Teaching Children Respect for God’s Image: VBS Reformulation

s I said, I’m dealing with teaching that was done during this past summer and how I reformulated it, re-stated it, re-taught it, or just rectified it. This comes from the VBS we had this summer, made available from Answers in Genesis.

The Teaching and Its Problem:
Lesson 3 in the book was Eternal Life and the Intelligence of Early Man with an emphasis on man being an intelligent thinking being, which God loved, instead of a mere animal. The key verse here was Gen 6:23 and the lesson was supposed to draw from Genesis 3. But the focus, once again, was on the apologetic response to the professed belief that early man was an animal whose brain evolved.

I thought that detracted from the main chapter and verse for the lesson. So I reformulated it to focus more on what Humans do to the Image of God and what that says about God.

Rey’s Reformulation:
I wanted the kids to get the ramifications of Genesis 3 as explicated by Romans 6:23 but I didn’t want them thinking about it in terms of a make-believe story that happened Once Upon A Time or some Magic Sickness. I needed them to understand what we do to the image of God.

Now, mind you, in the second lesson (not posted) I made a point of getting them to understand what the Image of God is. I had them carefully make some projects out of legos to show the concern they have for something they make in minutes then I pointed out how God is concerned with the making of people (Psalm 139).

So for this lesson, I went hard with the image bit. The previous night I had taken pictures of the kids. The next VBS day, I posted them on the board.

I had my helper stand up and dig into his ear for some nasty morsel of ear wax. Then I had him select any of the pictures on the board, and wipe it across the picture.

The class laughed at the guys picture we chose to do that to—but the kid wasn’t happy at all.

I then took another of the pictures and fake-picked my nose before following through and wiping it on the picture. The kid whose picture it belonged to yelled “HEY! NO!”

My helper then took a picture and put spit on it. The class was now saying “hey, that’s not right!”

I then took one of the girls’ picture showed it to the class and tore it to shreds. The girl was horrified. The class said “NO!” then looked horrified at me then the girl then back at me.

I then asked them why they were upset. They explained that I was being mean to the person who pictures those belonged to. I told them I’m only mistreating the picture—I had done nothing to the actual persons. They said it didn’t matter: it was a picture of the person. What I did to the picture said what I thought of the person.  It wasn’t right for me to do that.

I then showed them how they treat each other in their mind and how all this is a sin against God because we are pictures of Him. We tear up pictures of Him and He cares about those pictures: how will he respond? Well, Romans 6:23 says that He responds with rightful judgment.

I then showed how Christ is the image of God par excellence  and what people did to him and he went to the cross anyway to provide a way for people to be saved. Once again, I showed how the punishment is even more deserving.

I then slammed the necessity of trusting God.

The lesson, once again, is pithy but I think it gets the point across on how we treat the image of God, how God might feel about the mistreatment, why his judgment is right, and why people should trust in Christ—the perfect image of God.

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