Chapter I: Stories of the Beginnings (2)

Explain to the pupils that each one is to have a card on which is some question, and if he can answer it, he is to keep the card, if he cannot answer it, the one next to him on the left may try, and so on around the class. If no one can answer, the card is to be laid aside to be drilled on later. If it is answered, the one who gives the correct answer keeps the card. Most of the cards are made out in such a way that it makes no particular difference which side up they are placed; that is, whichever side is up will suggest to one who knows what is on the other side. But in the questions on the Bible, books, etc., the cards should be placed with the question up. Of course it is obvious that the pupil who has the most cards in his possession at the end of the review has done the best work in it.

LESSON 5

Review

=Teaching Material.=—Genesis, chapters 1-4.

=Pupil’s Work.=—Answering questions and reading Genesis 4:20-22.

LESSON PREPARATION

Read at one sitting the first four chapters of Genesis, and then think through the stories to get at the inner meaning which you have tried to bring to the children. The class review with the cards will have brought the more mechanical facts that have been learned sufficiently to mind. This review should emphasize the truths that the stories hold in solution, but should do this, not by dogmatizing concerning them, but by leading the children to make the statements for themselves. Because of the natural interest of children in the origin of things enough new matter is introduced in the Pupil’s Book for Work and Study to give the names of the persons to whom are ascribed the originating of tent life, music, and the making of instruments of metal. These things should not be touched upon in this lesson, however, but left as a surprise for the home work.

LESSON PRESENTATION

Recite to the children the lines from Joseph Addison’s hymn, “The Spacious Firmament on High” (quoted in the first lesson). Why is it that the sun, the moon and the stars make people think of the power of God? What else that you see every day reminds you of God’s handiwork? Can you tell the story which was given us in the Bible to teach us that God made all things? (Have the story told briefly and as nearly as possible in the Bible words.)

What is the name of the beautiful home which God gave to Adam? What did Adam have to do in the garden? Why could not the animals be his true companions and friends? What did God do for him? (Let the children describe what they think might have been a day in the life of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Mention the two trees and the command concerning them if the children do not do so, and see if without any reminder or suggestion from you, they tell that in the cool of the evening God walked with the pair in the garden.)

What a happy home that was in the Garden of Eden! Were Adam and Eve always happy there? How was it that one day instead of looking forward with joy to the time when God would come to talk with them, they tried to hide from him? Yes, they had not been strong enough or loving enough to obey, and having been disobedient, they were afraid to meet God. Was it right for them to try to hide? What should they have done?

We had a story of two brothers. What were their names? (Let the children tell the story briefly.) What was it that made Cain do such a dreadful thing? Could he have conquered the sin that crouched like a wild beast at the door of his heart, if he had tried?

I am going to ask you four questions, and I think you can answer each one of them in the words of a Bible verse. Who made the world? What did God give Adam to do in the Garden of Eden? Can anyone hide from God? Tell me two things that love does and one that love will never do.

LESSON 6

THE CORRELATED LESSON

(As the references to Jabal, Jubal, and Tubal-cain are the first passages that have been given in the pupil’s book without being first presented in the class, it will be interesting to see how well the children have succeeded in getting at the facts.)

What was our picture for this last week? How many people were there in it? What were they doing? What was the name of the man who is called “the father of all who play upon the harp and the organ”? So we found from our Book which tells us of the beginnings of things, that way back in the ages of long ago people learned how to make instruments of music and to play upon them. To-day we have wonderful instruments, great pipe organs, violins, pianos, cornets and other instruments of brass, and whenever we see these or hear their music we will remember that the Bible tells us that the one who first thought of making music in that way was named Jubal.

When a man is taking care of large herds of cattle, what does he need to find for them? It is not easy to find pasture for a great many cattle, and it would be very tiresome and even impossible to go back every night to the home. It would not be comfortable to sleep on the ground with no protection from the rain or cold. Who was it that first thought of having a tent to live in, and carrying it with him wherever he went? So Jabal was the father of all such as take care of cattle and live in tents. Are there any people to-day who live in tents all their lives?

(With a class of boys the reference to Tubal-cain could be introduced by asking for a penknife and getting the pupils to tell of the man who first thought of making tools and weapons out of metal. Ask if anything is being invented to-day. Lead the children to see that the possibilities of discovery and invention are by no means exhausted, and help them to realize the wisdom and love of God in giving to man power to think out such things.)

LESSON 6

The Building of the Ark

=Teaching Material.=—Genesis 6:5 to 7:5.

=Pupil’s Reading.=—Genesis 6:5, 9, 14-22.

=Memory Text.=—Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he. Genesis 6:22.

LIGHT FROM OTHER BIBLE PASSAGES

Psalm 103:17, 18; Proverbs 1:33; 19:16; Jeremiah 18:7-10; Ezekiel 33:14-16; Matthew 24:35-39.

FROM THE COMMENTATORS

The narrative here becomes more circumstantial than it has been in chapters four and five, for the Flood is the first event of crucial importance since the Creation and the beginnings of man upon earth (chapters one to three), of which Hebrew tradition told. The Flood marks the end of a past age and the beginning of a new one; it is thus an event in which the purposes of God may be expected to declare themselves with peculiar distinctness; and it is, accordingly, treated as the occasion of a great manifestation both of judgment (chapter 6) and of mercy (8:15 to 9:17). The Flood is a judgment upon a degenerate race: Noah, with his family, is delivered from it on account of his righteousness; as humanity starts upon its course afresh, new promises and new blessings are conferred upon it.—_The Book of Genesis_, _S. R. Driver_.

What, then, is the purpose of inspiration? Is it to insure that we shall have clear and infallible information on certain questions of geology and astronomy, or on the way in which God created the heavens and the earth? Is it to keep us from mistakes about the history of Israel?... Surely not. God had no intention of giving us an encyclopedia of scientific knowledge, and thus depriving us of the discipline of acquiring such knowledge for ourselves.... Inspiration is concerned with what is to us of infinitely more importance—even the guidance of our conduct, the building up of noble characters for God. It has been well said that conduct forms three fourths of human life, and it is with these three fourths that the inspired writings have to do. Their inspiration therefore consists not so much in their infallible science or minutely accurate details of history, as in their teaching God’s will and God’s relation to men.... These writings concern themselves with the great moral and spiritual facts, duty, character, moral responsibility, the happiness that comes from harmony with the will of God. Their object is to teach the eternal contrast between Righteousness and Unrighteousness, Obedience and Disobedience, Selfishness and Self-sacrifice, Purity and Lust; to teach men that God is on the side of holiness and good, that his help and sympathy are near in the fierce fight with temptation, and that even when the fight is lost and the life defiled, there is a way back to holiness and God if men will but earnestly seek it.—_How God Inspired the Bible_, _J. Paterson Smyth_.

They (the Scriptures) conveyed to the Hebrews, and they still convey to us, the worthiest conceptions of God and of His relation to the world and men. They are a standing witness to the fact that the nation of Israel enjoyed a peculiar revelation of the true God. If the “folk-lore” of the Hebrews, like that of all other peoples, was inconsistent at many points with our modern knowledge of nature and history, yet it was so purified among them, under the guidance of the Spirit of God, from all taint of heathenism, that, as it stands in the opening chapters of Genesis, it contains nothing inconsistent either with the religion of Jehovah or with the fuller revelation of Jesus Christ.—_The One Volume Bible Commentary_, _J. R. Dummelow_.

AIM

=To present the ideal of unquestioning obedience to the commands of God, and through the story to deepen the impulse to choose and do the right.=

LESSON PREPARATION

A careful study of the passage of Scripture assigned for the teacher in this lesson presents much that is interesting and many points that are puzzling. For one’s own information and satisfaction it would be well to read the article on the Deluge in any good Bible dictionary and to consult commentaries on the narrative. But in preparing the lesson for the pupil attention must be centered on the story as given in the verses that the pupil is to read. The simple account of the one man who was “righteous,” “perfect [or blameless] in his generation,” and who “walked with God” in loving obedience, when the “wickedness of man was great in the earth,” and “every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually,” is one that makes a strong appeal to the children. The building of the ark; the surprise of the people as they saw a boat built upon dry land, and their undoubted ridicule of Noah; his opportunity for preaching righteousness; the completion of the ark and the going in of the animals, Noah and his family, are the elements of a story of surpassing interest, which carries also a strong religious impression in its emphasis upon obedience and its reward. The negative side should not be dwelt upon.

The teacher will need to note carefully just the point in the story where this lesson ends. The story is so generally told as a whole, including the building of the ark, its completion, the going in of animals and people, the coming of the rain, the rising of the waters, the final settling of the ark on dry land, and the going out of Noah and his family and the animals, that the natural tendency will be to encroach upon next week’s lesson without meaning to do so.

LESSON PRESENTATION

Introduction

(Have your Work Book open at page 14.) We had some rules last week in our Work Book, and they were headed, “How to Have a Happy Home.” How many of you read those rules? Suppose I read them very carefully now, and you see if you think any of them might be left out of the list. Which one of these rules do you think is the hardest of all to obey? (If the children do not speak of it themselves, call their attention to “Be willing and obedient,” and explain that it means not simply to do what you are told to do, but to do it willingly and cheerfully.) It is often hard to obey, because the command is to do some hard or disagreeable thing, and the harder it is to obey, the more temptation there is to do unwillingly what we are told to do, and to be cross about it. When one obeys in that spirit all the beauty of the obedience is taken away. One who obeys willingly will soon find that he can obey cheerfully, and it is only such obedience that is pleasing to the heavenly Father.

The Lesson Story

I have a beautiful story to tell you to-day of a man who obeyed in just that way. The name of this man was Noah. In his time there were many people living in the world, but, except Noah and his family, no one of them cared to please God, and they did not even try to obey him. The Bible tells us that “the earth was filled with violence,” and that God said the evil doers must be destroyed. But Noah was not one of these, and to him God said something like this: “The people are so wicked and cruel that I shall have to send a flood upon the earth which will destroy all those who are doing such evil things, but I want you to build an ark in which you and your wife and children shall be saved.” This ark was to be a great boat three stories high, with rooms in it, and a large door in the side. Just as soon as Noah knew what God wanted him to do he bought the wood and hired carpenters and began the work of building the ark. (Show the picture for this lesson.) Do you think it was an easy task to build that ark in a land full of wicked people? Of course, when his neighbors saw what he was doing they were curious to know what this great building was to be. When he told them, can you imagine how they would laugh at him for building a boat on dry land, and how they would laugh harder still when he said there was to be a flood? It must have been hard for Noah to stand their ridicule, but he never thought of giving up the work. He did a braver thing than just keeping on with the building, too, for all through the years he was at work the Bible says that he was “a preacher of righteousness.” He told the people of the punishment that was surely coming, and urged them to give up their wicked ways and do the sort of things that would be pleasing to the heavenly Father. But they would not listen, and would not believe what he told them. Still Noah kept patiently on working and preaching until the ark was finished. Then God said to his faithful servant, “Before very long I will bring the flood of waters upon the earth.” Let us read what it says in the Bible about the things that Noah was to do before the flood came (Genesis 6:19-21). Do you suppose that Noah did all that just as God had told him to do? Let us read that next verse very carefully together: “Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he.” Is not that a splendid thing to be said about any man? Let us read the words again and then close our books and say them, for that is our memory text this week, and it is one that we would like always to remember, I am sure.

The Bible says that God told Noah what he wanted him to do. How does God tell you and me what he wants us to do? (Guide the conversation so that the children themselves will mention the Bible, God’s message, and the Sunday school and church where the meaning of the message is explained to us and where we try to help each other to be doers of the Word. Teachers at school and those who guide and direct in the home should also be mentioned.) You see that as you obey these helpers that God has given to you, you are learning to do according to all that God has commanded you. What has Jesus said of those who hear the Word of God and keep it? (Luke 11: 28.) “Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he.” Shall we not ask the heavenly Father to help us to be so strong to obey and so willing that something like that may be said of us too?

Prayer

(To be used if the conditions in the room and the spirit of the class make possible a quiet moment in which heads may be bowed, and the words, softly spoken by the teacher, heard by all the members of the class.)

Our Father in heaven, we are glad that we have the Bible with its stories of people who loved and obeyed thee in the long ago. May we learn from these stories how to be more obedient to-day. Help us to be cheerful, loving doers of the Word. We ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

LESSON 7

THE CORRELATED LESSON

Use your own copy of the pupil’s book, and let the children talk over the lesson on the Building of the Ark freely and informally. If you should find that any one of the class has been dwelling in thought upon the people outside of the ark, and wondering why it was necessary that all of them should be destroyed, have them read Genesis 6: 11, and help them to see that people who choose to live in sin cannot be saved from its consequences. “Evil shall hunt the violent man to overthrow him” (Psalm 140: 11. See also Galatians 6: 7, 8).

People were sowing violence and reaping violence. Human life was not respected. God’s laws were scorned and ignored. There had to be a new beginning for the world, if there were to be any people left in it.

Do not refer to this side of the question unless the children speak of it. If they do, emphasize the patience of God and the warnings that were given through Noah’s preaching and the added force that his words would have because of the actual building of the ark going on daily before their eyes.

Give the children this name drill, telling them not to answer any question that cannot be answered by a name. Who lived in the Garden of Eden? Who was told to build an ark? We had a story about two brothers: what was the name of the older one? The younger? How many people went into the ark? (This should not be answered because it cannot be answered by a name.) Who is said to have been the first to make musical instruments? Who is called the father of all who live in tents? What is the name of the book in which our lessons are found?

Who is said to have been the first man to think about making weapons and tools out of metal? What is the name of the first story in the Bible? In that story what did God make first? What did God call the light? What name was given to the darkness? What was the gathering together of the waters called? What is the light that rules the day? What is the lesser light that rules the night? What other lights are there in the sky at night?

LESSON 7

The Flood and the Rainbow

=Teaching Material.=—Genesis 7: 6 to 8: 22; 9: 12-17.

=Pupil’s Reading.=—Genesis 8: 6-20; 9: 12-17.

=Memory Text.=—I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. Genesis 9: 13.

LIGHT FROM OTHER BIBLE PASSAGES

Isaiah 54: 9, 10; Jeremiah 33: 19-21, 25, 26.

FROM THE COMMENTATORS

The Noachian covenant guarantees the stability of natural law. The covenant with Abraham was confirmed in its promise to Isaac and Jacob and insured a blessing through their seed to all nations.... Of still greater significance was the covenant at Horeb or Sinai.... It was really a constitution given to Israel by God, with appointed promise and penalty, duly inscribed on the tables of the covenant which were deposited in the ark.—_Bible Dictionary_, _Hastings_.

As the expulsion from paradise and the exile of Cain gave to mankind a _new chance_, a fresh start, so with the flood. Wickedness had by this time so prevailed that the earth needed to be washed from sin; but God did not repeople it with a new race set above the possibility of wrong-doing—rather, the race of man was given a new opportunity. The moral necessity of the catastrophe is emphasized by God’s long attempt—in the preaching of Noah for a hundred and fifty years—to win men back to goodness, to induce a voluntary change of heart. The outstanding feature of the story is the covenant, which henceforth runs through the history of Israel, and of the spiritual Israel.... The emphasis laid upon the sanctity of life is especially worthy of note. The sons of Noah might well have believed that God held life cheap after its widespread destruction. Observe, therefore, the insistence upon this command, and that its sanction is still the same as before the almost universal appalling wickedness—that man is made in the image of God. The principle of the flood is not destruction but salvation, as was that of the sentence of death upon Adam. By the flood the danger of departing from God was emphasized for all generations.—_Telling Bible Stories_, _Louise Seymour Houghton_.

This word (covenant) occurs some two hundred times in the Old Testament, and the idea lies at the root of the whole conception of law among the Jews. Covenants as made between men, form the beginnings of civilized government.... The word is also used of the relation of God to man; of his justice, his unchangeable nature, and his protecting power, on the one side, and the corresponding duties devolving upon man, especially as embodied in the law of Moses, on the other. A series of covenants (with Abraham and his successors, with Israel in the wilderness, with David) runs through Old Testament history. The particular idea in the covenant with Noah is that of the uniform working of God in nature and of his loving care for his creation. On these two ideas are based all physical science, which could not exist if there were no laws of nature, and all religion, which otherwise would become mere superstitious dread of unseen powers.—_The One Volume Commentary_, _James R. Dummelow_.

AIM

=To associate the thought of God’s promises with the rainbow, and to show that his promise is to bless and that our part is to obey=.

LESSON PREPARATION

There are so many details in this story that are interesting to children that the main task in preparing the lesson, after becoming thoroughly familiar with those details, is so to arrange the different items that the climax shall stand out clearly, and the full force be given to the point of greatest teaching value as stated in the aim of the lesson.

LESSON PRESENTATION

Introduction

One summer day Alice and Kate and Robert were playing out under the trees on the lawn and having a fine time, when it seemed to them as if the sun had been put out as suddenly as an electric light is turned off. They looked up and saw that there were heavy black clouds all over the sky. “Run,” said Robert, “it is going to rain.” They hurried as fast as they could, but had barely time to pick up their toys and rush to the veranda before the rain came down in torrents. They found a sheltered place where the rain did not beat in and settled themselves to play, but they had hardly started a new game before the sun shone out as suddenly as it had disappeared a few minutes before. “It has stopped raining,” said Alice. “Yes,” said Kate, “but look at those dark clouds.” Robert ran to the steps that he might see the clouds better, and exclaimed, “O, come quick and look! It goes all the way across the sky.” What do you suppose he saw? Have you ever seen a rainbow? What is the first thing you do when you see one? Probably we all want to do as Robert did and call every one within calling distance to come and see it, for it is so beautiful. In the long, long ago I suppose children did that same thing when they saw a rainbow, but I am sure they did something else too. I think they ran to their mothers or fathers and said, “Won’t you please tell us the story of the rainbow?” The story of which those fathers and mothers always thought when they saw the rainbow and the one which they told to their children is the one that I am going to tell to you to-day. Perhaps they called it just what it is called in our books—the Story of the Flood and the Rainbow. It is another story about the man who built the ark. What was his name? (Review briefly.) What is the verse which tells us how Noah obeyed God?

The Lesson Story

Finally there came a day when God told Noah to take into the ark his wife, his three sons and their wives, together with “every beast after its kind and all the cattle after their kind and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth after its kind, and every bird after its kind. And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two, of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life.” When all were safely in the door was shut. Then the rain came and the waters rose high and higher until all the mountains were covered. Upon the waste of waters the ark floated. Days and weeks and months went by, still the waters were over everything. Then God caused a high wind to pass over the earth and the waters began to go down. One day Noah opened the window of the ark and sent a raven out and the raven did not come back. Then Noah sent out a dove, but the dove found no rest for her foot and came back to the ark, and Noah took her in. After waiting seven days more, Noah sent the dove out again and at evening time of that day she came back and in her bill she brought an olive leaf. The olive trees grow only in valleys, so Noah knew that the water must have dried off the earth. He waited seven days more and sent the dove out again, but this time she did not return. Then Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and behold the face of the ground was dry. And God spake to Noah saying, “Go forth from the ark, thou and thy wife, and thy sons and thy sons’ wives with thee. Bring forth with thee every living thing, both birds and cattle and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”

So Noah and his family once more stood in God’s sunshine upon the dry land. The first thing that Noah did after leaving the ark was to build an altar to the Lord and offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving. God was pleased with Noah’s sacrifice and gave him a promise that never again should the earth be destroyed by flood, and he said: “While the earth remains, seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease.” Just then the sun shone brightly against a dark cloud, and a brilliant rainbow spanned the sky. God said, “This is the sign of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for endless generations. I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a token of a covenant between me and the earth.”

So with the bow shining against the cloud mothers and fathers told this story to their children. To them the rainbow was the sign of God’s covenant—his promise to bless the earth and all who live upon it. They remembered something else when they saw it and that is that they had a part in the covenant. God’s part was to bless; theirs to obey. The rainbow will remind us, too, of God’s promise. When we see it stretching across the heavens, in our hearts we will praise the heavenly Father for his loving kindness, and ask him to help us to be his obedient children. How glad we are that he has said, “for endless generations,” because that means that his blessing will be for always and always.

THE PUPIL’S BOOK FOR WORK AND STUDY

Show the picture for this lesson and have the children repeat the memory text as they see the rainbow in the picture.

NOTE.—If you have not already done so, read about the Rainbow Bookmark, on page 24. You will need one to use in teaching next Sunday’s Correlated Lesson.