This week’s study will focus on peace.
Day One:
1. So call me a geek, but this week I found a pretty fun kid song, and we sang it rather than just reciting Galatians 5:22-23. Here is the link to it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8j2PUWQa7fs&feature=related. Remember that you should not expect your little ones to know the entire verse yet. You are repeating it daily for them so they develop a strong familiarity with it, making it easier to memorize over the course of the coming weeks.
2. Say together, “But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, PEACE!
3. Memory work for this week: I chose 4 very short verses that I thought encapsulated the concept of peace quite well.
Psalm 119:165
Great peace have those who love your law, and nothing can make them stumble.
Proverbs 12:20
Deceit is in the hearts of those who plot evil, but those who promote peace have joy.
James 3:18
Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.
Isaiah 48:22
“There is no peace,” says the LORD, “for the wicked.”
John 14:27
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
4. What is peace? On the first day, we will learn the Greek word for peace, the Hebrew word for peace, and the basic meaning of peace in teh Biblical context.
Greek: eirene
Hebrew: Shalom
Meaning: The word “peace” in the context of the Fruit of the Spirit is different than the concept of peace we normally think of. We usually think of peace as a lack of fighting and arguing, getting along. While this can be a part of the biblical concept of peace, it is not necessarily. Peace, in this context, focuses on a rightness with God through the Holy Spirit, and the resulting freedom from spiritual chaos. This freedom manifests itself by both an inward peace of soul and mind, as well as an outward act of influence on others to help bring the peace. In this way, one is a peace maker. One tends to one’s soul by love of the law of God (implying observation of the 10 commandments), habituating oneself in righteousness, and maintaining a flourishing relationship with God through the Holy Spirit. Emphasis should be put on the fact that one cannot experience peace without a relationship with the Holy Spirit.
As an example to illustrate, I used my children’s bedrooms. We talked about how their rooms look after playing with toys all day but not cleaning up after themselves. Their rooms can become a disaster! The longer they go without cleaning up their toys, the worse it gets, and the harder it gets to think about cleaning up. On occasion, their rooms have become so messy that they don’t even want to go into them. If they do go in, it can be dangerous, as they may trip on their toys and fall. When their rooms need to be cleaned, they always ask for help, whether the mess is small, or large. We try to help them by giving them tools they can use to clean their rooms themselves. They pick up all the things that go in one bin all at once, and then move on to things that belong in another bin. Ideally, they play with one bin, put those things away, and then play with another bin, and put those things away. If they do not attend to the bins, and if they fail to clean up as they play, chaos results. They have to tend to their rooms in the same way the have to tend to their souls. If they fail to be watchful, their rooms descend into chaos, and there is no peace in that room. Even peeking in through the door makes my children discontent and unhappy. When their room is this bad, they cannot actually clean the room without help. They can clean up some of it, but invariably I have to come in and help them complete the task. Just after we thoroughly clean their rooms, there is perfect order, and they love to play there. I explained to them that our Christian lives are much like our bedrooms, and our actions and relationships are much like our toys. When we have our actions and relationships organized and in order through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we are able to keep things orderly, and we live well in the Kingdom of Heaven. When we ignore the Holy Spirit our lives descend into chaos. We are not discontent and unhappy. The only way we can restore order is through the guidance of the Holy Spirit. I stressed to them that God has been loving and made it easy to know how the Holy Spirit is guiding us, as He had given us the Bible, and prayer, and so we have everything we need to live lives free of chaos!
5. Craft: Today we made a contrast craft. I took 2 pieces of paper and taped them together, top to top, for each child, so that when laid out, you have something that looks like a book. Beforehand, I cut out several objects from white paper, a square and triangle for the pieces of a house, a trunk and simple bumpy “circle” as foliage for the pieces of a tree, some simple bird figures, a sun, and gave 2 sets to each child. Now, this does mean you will do some cutting, but it really only takes a minute to cut these shapes out. I made 6 set for 3 children, and it took me all of 5 minutes. The printable for these pieces is Sun and house pieces. Now, contrast crafts come in many shapes and forms, but this one will go as follows: You take one set of shapes and have the kids close their eyes and scatter them around one of the blank sheets of paper. Then they open their eyes and glue each piece where it fell. Next, on the second sheet of blank paper, they will glue the pieces to make an orderly picture. When they are finished gluing, they can color the pictures. My kids thought their “chaos” picture was so funny and they talked about how silly and different it was than the picture ordered as the pictures should be. We also talked about the fact that each of them ordered the pieces in a different way, but they all knew, for example, that the tree trunk went below the foliage, and the roof went on the house. This gave us an opportunity to discuss the individuality of each relationship with God, such that there is a “way things ought to be” with respect to one’s relationship with God, each person’s struggles and strengths will be different, and so each relationship will look a little different, but a right relationship with God also always has certain things arranged in certain ways (roofs never go under the house, but sometimes a tree goes to the left of a house, and sometimes they go to the right). A right relationship with God is the goal, though, and it can be achieved through the Holy Spirit. Just like when we see a picture with objects scattered randomly about, and we say, “That is not the way it is supposed to look,” and then we can work to right the pieces, and we can succeed in putting them in the right order, we can also tell when our relationship with God is not in order, and we can work to right the pieces, and succeed in putting it in the right order.
Day Two
1. Say Galatians 5:22-23.
2. Say together, “But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, PEACE!
3. Memory work for this week: Same as Day 1
4. What is peace? Yesterday we learned about the basic concept of biblical peace, which is a relationship with God that is ordered correctly. Today we will learn about some of the details regarding people who have peace. First, our memory verse (Psalm 119:165) tells us that those who love the law (implying obedience) have peace. What, then, is the law? For the purposes of this study, we will use the summary of the law, which is the 10 commandments. If your child does not yet know the 10 commandments, now is the time to present them. Children as young as 2 can memorize them, and early memorization makes early understanding of the law far easier. In our family, we usually say them every night, along with the Lord’s Prayer and the first part of the Shema. Second, those who plot evil do not have peace. Instead, they are deceitful, which means that they are in constant fear of being found out and punished. Fear is not compatible with peace, and so evil, deceitful people cannot have it. Those who do act with the goal of peace in mind will have joy, which we studied last week. Third, those who are wicked in general will not have peace.
5. Craft:
Supplies you will need:
1 sheet of white paper per child
washable finger paint or other washable paint
1 large paper plate per child
a smock or large t-shirt for each child, if you think your child may need it while using paint
a clear path to the bathroom for washing hands! 🙂
print out the 10 Commandments printable, one for each child
safe scissors – 1 pair for each child
glue
crayons or markers or colored pencils
Take a paint color and pour some onto the paper plate, one for each child. Let your child make a hand print of each hand on the piece of blank paper. You may want to have extra paper close by in case the hand print is not satisfactory to your child and another should be made. Next, wash your children’s hands and put the paint out of reach. Print one 10 commandments printable for each child. Have each child cut out each commandment, on the lines. Then, reading the commandments one by one, in order, glue one commandment on each finger of the hand print. Talk about what each commandment means, and why it is important to follow it, and why God might have thought each commandment was good for our souls.
Day Three
1. Say Galatians 5:22-23.
2. Say together, “But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, PEACE!
3. Memory work for this week: Same as Day 1
4. What is peace? We have already learned the basics of peace, and now it is time to bring in lessons about Jesus. Today we learned that as hard as we try to obey the law and avoid being a wicked person, we constantly fail to be perfect. Even those who are well-habituated in goodness and obedience to God have sinned. We are therefore not at peace with God and atonement needs to be made. In week 1, we learned 1 John 4:10, and we learned about how God sent Jesus as the atoning sacrifice for our sins. In this lesson, then, we will rely on that verse to show us that paid the price for our sins so we can be at peace with God. This does not mean that we need not make every effort to obey God’s laws. After all, the Bible teaches us that those who avoid wickedness and obey the law are the ones who will have peace. And an ability to obey the laws of God is made manageable through the Holy Spirit. Those who have the Spirit are those who can obey the law, and have peace. Therefore, the fruit of the spirit (or the things one naturally achieves when one has the Spirit) is peace. It is a natural consequence of relying on the Holy Spirit to for the help we need to obey God’s laws.
5. Craft: Today I handed each of my kids a piece of paper and some markers and asked them to draw a picture of themselves with Jesus. The results were quite interesting. As they drew, I asked them to explain their picture. They each wanted to draw two pictures, so I let them. The results were fascinating, funny, and insightful, as it allowed a perfect opportunity to discover how they see themselves with Jesus. I put their pictures into their binder.
Day Four
1. Say Galatians 5:22-23.
2. Say together, “But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, PEACE!
3. Memory work for this week: Same as Day 1
4. What is peace? Today we talked about other kinds of peace we think of in the context of the Christian life. We focused on a lack of chaos in our home, and two issues came to mind. The first is a lack of chaos in our relationships with others. We tend to have a fairly peaceful home with respect to relationships, but we do have our share of arguments over toys or over who accidentally hurt who. We also talked about chaos between parents and kids, and there was general agreement that when we speak in kindness rather than anger, our days are peaceful even if we have a very busy day. The second is a lack of chaos in our environment. With 3 children, ages 5, 4, and 3, running around, the house and yard can very quickly descend into chaos. So we talked about our efforts to maintain a clean environment, what we can do to keep things cleaner, and ideas the children have about how they can help out. My children have responsibilities around the house (folding and putting away laundry from the time they can walk, helping with putting dishes away, picking up their toys, vacuuming, etc.) and so they were all able to have a lively discussion about what they could do to keep things orderly.
5. Craft: Today we made paper plate masks. I gave each of the kids a paper plate (a pretty flexible one) and asked them to draw a face showing a peaceful spirit. We cut out the eyes and stapled elastic to each side of the plate so they could wear their masks around that day.
Day Five
1. Say Galatians 5:22-23.
2. Say together, “But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, PEACE!
3. Memory work for this week: Same as Day 1
4. What is peace? Review the biblical meaning of peace, the Greek and Hebrew words, and how one has peace.
5. Craft: Today we made a cross puzzle. The link to the cut-out is here: http://www.artistshelpingchildren.org/crafts-images/foam/foam-puzzle-cross.png
Before we started today’s lesson, I printed out a template for each of my kids and then glued the template to the back of some cute scrapbook paper. By the time we got to the craft, the glue was dry, and each of the kids cut out their puzzle along the lines. When each puzzle was in pieces, we talked about how the pieces were in chaos, but when they put the pieces together, the cross is as it should. The pieces are at peace!
Day Six
1. Say Galatians 5:22-23.
2. Say together, “But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, PEACE!
3. Memory work for this week: Same as Day 1
4. What is peace? Ask each child this question, and discuss the answers of each.
5. Craft: Shrinky Dink charm
Here is the printable I used to print out the charms. Remember, colored pencils work best for this project.
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