We are weak but he is strong

"As a father has compassion on his children,

so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him. 

For he knows what we are made of,

remembering that we are dust."

Psalm 103v13-14

John 1 Sunday School lesson

 I have just finished a PowerPoint for teaching John chapter 1 (v1-18) to kids. I actually taught this a couple of years ago, and I thought it might be helpful to someone.

Notes:

• These were 5-7 year olds, familiar with the Bible.
• I only read a few verses. I covered more of the content in paraphrase, but didn’t include everything in the passage. Better to explain a few things well, than overwhelm them with what is a very abstract passage for this agegroup.
• I used verse 1 from the NIV, as that was the translation we learned our memory verse in. The other verses we read from our class Bible, which was the NIrV - it’s much easier for kids, as you don’t need to explain every second word!

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What I used for visuals

• Two acetate circles , one with ‘God’ on it at the top, and one with ‘Word’ at the bottom.
  I used stick on foam letters because I had some, and got a bit carried away decorating with gold paint sticks, but you could also just write with permanent markers. (If you don’t have acetate, cut up a plastic pocket)
• Sellotape to attach circles to the whiteboard – bluetack wouldn’t hold them.
• A small globe
• A baby doll in a manger
• An action man made to look like adult Jesus (beard painted on, and a bit of cloth for clothes)

Craft materials

• Large roll of paper
• Bible verses about God in giant print, which I had cut apart in advance. (here is a selection you can use)
• Glue sticks
• Glitter (star stickers would have been as fun and less chaotic J)

Other resources

A phone and speaker, with Awesome cutlery’s Party sketch and God doesn’t have a Birthday song.

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Lesson

[Note: All questions were genuine questions, not rhetorical. I let the kids answer, and then carried on.]

 

Who have we been learning about?
[Recapped previous teaching series - very briefly]

Today, we’re going way back before that, to the beginning of the world.

Who made everything?

GOD was there before the world –
God has always been there, no matter how many years you go back: a hundred… a thousand… a million… a billion… a trillion.... Right back to infinity.
He never had a beginning.

Do you know a Bible verse that talks about the beginning? [This was a verse we had learned a week ago in Junior Church - otherwise I would just have read it here]

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. John 1v1

Someone was with God – who?
The WORD

 What else does it say about the WORD?
He was God.

 (overlapped acetate circles)

He was with God AND he was God. 

God is not like humans.
I’m with you – I can’t be you!
God is so amazing we can’t understand him!

He made everything – do you know how?
“God said” (point to WORD)

He gives Life
He is the Light. 

[Read first part of v14]

“The Word became a human being. He made his home with us.”

What did the WORD do?
Do you know who the WORD is?
JESUS. He is with God (he’s God’s Son)
and he IS God. 

When did Jesus become a human being?

He’s different from us - we didn’t exist before we were in our mum’s tummy. Jesus did.
The great big God [spread out hands high and wide] became a tiny little baby [cup hands together].

He came to the world he had made, to show what God is like.
He looked ordinary (he was a normal human being), but he was God – with God’s love & power.

 

Did everyone accept/welcome him?

• Some did
• Some killed him.

Does everyone today accept/welcome him?

• Some do.
• Some don’t believe.
• Some hate him.

[Read v 12]

“Some people did accept him and did believe in his name. He gave them the right to become children of God.”

The Bible says that those who believe in him become God’s children.
It’s not about if your family believe, or you go to church. What matters is that YOU believe.

Craft

[Showed printed out Bible verses.] The Bible says lots of things about God – lots of words.
Jesus is God – what the Bible says about God is true of Jesus.

Drew round the tallest child on a large piece of paper. Let the kids stick the verses on. Added glitter. Wrote “The Word became a human being” beneath it.

Trinity explanation

As we had a bit of spare time I very simply explained the Trinity using a triangle. This could be heresy but I don’t think it is, as I explain here. ymmv.

Listen

And finally, to wind down, we listened to Party by Awesome Cutlery.
Followed by God doesn’t have a Birthday.

 

Acknowledgements: the circle idea is loosely adapted from an idea in the Mustard Seeds materials. “The great big God became a tiny little baby” is from a Go Teach lesson in, I think 2005.

Immigrants

I made this poster in response to the really concerning stuff that's going on right now.

There's a free high-res version with various colour variations, and a colouring picture here.

New Testament money (part 2) - updated

 You'll need to read part 1 for this to make sense.

Some examples:

Judas betrayed Jesus 

for 30 pieces of silver - that's £3,000

Parable of the talents

He gave them 5, 2 and 1 talents - £50,000, £20,000, and £10,000 respectively. Not just a few pounds!

Parable of the two debtors 

One was forgiven a debt of 500 denarii, the other a debt of 50 - that's £50,000 compared to £5,000

Parable of the unmerciful servant

The servant was forgiven a debt of 10,000 talents, yet threw his fellow servant in jail for a debt of 100 denarii. The first debt was £100 million(!), the second was £10,000.

So it's important not to imply that the smaller debt was insignificant. It was a real debt - other people do us real wrongs (for some people - horrendous wrongs. And Jesus is not saying these don't matter). We should forgive, not because it doesn't matter, but because we realise how impossibly large is the debt God has forgiven us (do we?)

Widow's mite

She put in two small copper coins - that's £1

It was not 2p, as we sometimes imply. 2p is worthless, so you might as well put it in. £1 could buy something to eat, yet she gave it.

New Testament money (part 1) - updated

Back in 2017 I wrote a couple of posts on how much Bible prices would be now. But the minimum wage has changed a lot since then - so here's an adapted version for 2025. I also used a squiggly equals sign this time ≈ because I've been illustrating a maths book that used them!

 

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I find it really helpful, when reading (or teaching) passages that involve sums of money, to translate them into modern money. After all, what does 'silver coin' or 'talent' or 'copper coin' actually mean to the average 21st century person? Was it a lot? A little? How much? How little?

So here's how I do it. It's not foolproof, but it's helpful

Denarius

(aka silver coin/drachma - same thing, different translations )

http://www.cngcoins.com

1 Denarius = a days's wage for a worker.
So take this to be minimum wage.

In the UK the minimum wage is currently £12.21 per hour. (You can substitute the minimum wage in your country.)
Assuming an average 8 hour workday, that's £97.68 a day.

So 1 denarius ≈ £100. 

 

Talent

A talent was 100 denarii.
That's £100 x 100

So 1 talent ≈ £10,000

 

Mite

(aka copper coin)

This was the smallest coin at the time.
192 in a denarius (what a weird number!)

£100÷192=0.520833

So 1 mite ≈ 50p


Of course, different things had different value in those days - clothes were incredibly expensive; rent was cheap. Some food was dearer than for us; I think some was cheaper. Still, it's a help.

Read part 2 of this enthralling story here... 

Good Friday

"He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree; so that, having died to sins, we might live for righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you were like sheep going astray, but you have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls."

~ 1 Peter 2v24-25

Isaiah 40 playlist

I was reading Isaiah 40 and was amazed at how much of it has been turned into songs I was familiar with.

So I made a playlist. (Some of them have a verse/chorus/bridge that is not from Isaiah 40, but the main body of all of them is) 

Quite a variety of styles! 

List of songs:

• Comfort Ye / Every Valley - Handel's Messiah
• The Word of the Lord - Seeds Family Worship
• O Thou that Tellest Good Tidings to Zion - Handel's Messiah
• Like a Shepherd He Feeds His Flock - Robert J Dufford (No idea why I know this - school choir, maybe?)
• Behold Our God - Sovereign Grace (Although I've used the Accapella Company's version)
• Do You Not Know - Slugs & Bugs
• Soar Like Eagles - Seeds Family Worship

Merry Christmas!

 I've been enjoying this song.

Swallowed a dictionary

Tidying out, and came across a piece of paper from a number of years ago, where I'd jotted down a quote from a kid at Sunday School.

Me:This story will be familiar to all of you

Child: That doesn't look like a story I'm familiar with - according to my calculations 

Solitary sheep

I'm reading Genesis at the minute, and I got to the bit where Jacob sent a gift to appease his brother Esau: 

🐐 200 female goats, 20 male goats, 

🐑 200 female sheep, 20 male sheep, 

🐪 30 female camels with their babies, 

🐄 40 cows, 10 bulls, 

🫏 20 female donkeys, and 10 male donkeys.

It made me think of the time we did that story at Sunday School and one small boy started giggling.

Because, he said, "180 female sheep wouldn't be able to get married".

Last Words

Words and music by Andrew Peterson and Ben Shive

Analogies are not (necessarily) heresy

Wrote this aaaages ago - finally got round to finishing and posting.

From time to time, people claim that this analogy or that analogy of the Trinity gives the wrong idea of God, or is even heretical. I'm sure that's sometimes true. But sometimes I think it's just that the people criticising it are trying to make an analogy do more than it's meant to.

For example, take the triangle. People say it's a bad way to explain the Trinity because each member of the Trinity is fully God, whereas each side of a triangle is not a triangle. But, I don't think it's bad, just - like all analogies - incomplete. It would only be a bad analogy if you were saying that a triangle says everything that's to be said about how the Trinity relates - and that's not how analogies work.

Craft we made, based on these instructions.

 

I have used the triangle analogy in Sunday school. I'm teaching people who may not yet even know that Jesus is God. So all the analogy is meant to say is that:

• The trinity is a thing.
• There is one God, made of three people, (who are all God).
• They are the Father, the Son (Jesus) and the Holy Spirit.

It's true in what it intends to teach - it's not the last word on the subject.

Actually, it's the same with the analogies of Jesus which are used in the Bible. He is variously described as our father, future husband, brother, master, shepherd, a lamb, a vine, a gate, bread, water, light... If you took any of those to extremes you could easily make a heresy. And some of them are mutually contradictory.

 

But the point is that Jesus - who is far more than we could ever understand - is a little bit like all those things (and the context usually makes it clear in what way).

Here's a quote:

We have to think about Christ using ideas and images, but if we put our trust in these symbols, rather than in the One they symbolize, we will be making a big mistake. [...] By using more than one image for God, we remind ourselves that any image we use is only temporary; it must be corrected and relieved by other images. These images serve our minds; they do not save our souls. A fork is not food.

~Michael Ward, The Narnia Code

Forks

I've wanted to use wooden forks as kings for aaages! 

King David

We made these yesterday.

With more time, glitter or gold paint on the crown would have been nice.

💣 Patience

A verse for anyone that has to relate to other Christians:

"I ... urge you to live worthy of the calling you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace." Ephesians 4:1-3

(The emoji in the title is meant to represent having a long fuse 😁)

The Hebrew words for clothes are driving me maḏ (pun intended)

Thinking out loud here, for some illustrations I'm doing, but it might be interesting to other people. Sorry I haven't linked the verses - that would be a massive faff.

In 1 Samuel 18v4:

Then Jonathan removed the robe he was wearing and gave it to David, along with his military tunic, his sword, his bow, and his belt.

The clothing words chosen by translators can vary widely, so it's always worth checking out the original Hebrew (While looking up an interlinear is not a substitute for actually knowing Hebrew, I do know about ancient clothes, which, by the word choices they sometimes make, most translators don't. Not their fault - they can't know details of every subject!)

So, what Jonathan gave David was a mᵊʿîl, a maḏ and a ḥăḡôr (plus the sword and bow).

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mᵊʿîl is a fairly clear clothing word. 

• The high priest wore a blue one over his tunic (kutōneṯ), with pomegranates & bells round the hem and an opening in the center. Exodus 39v23-25
• Samuel's mother made him a little one every year 1 Samuel 2v19, and he wore one as an adult too 1 Samuel 15v27 (and as a ghost 1 Samuel 28v14). Saul wore one too - and in both cases they had a corner (or edge) that could be torn/cut off 1 Samuel 24v4.
• The 'long-sleeved/decorated robes' (pas kutōneṯ) that David's daughters wore were a kind of mᵊʿîl 2 Samuel 13v18 - and since Joseph also wore a pas kutōneṯ Genesis 37v3, I'm guessing his was also a kind of mᵊʿîl.  
• David wore a linen one (plus an ephod) to dance before the ark 1 Chronicles 15v27.
• Various people also tore theirs when mourning, but that doesn't really tell us what they're like, except that they're occasionally mentioned in addition to 'beḡeḏ' (clothes)  e.g. Ezra 9v3. And some random princes in a prophecy took them off Ezekiel 26v16.
• It's also used metaphorically for being clothed in joy, wrath or strength.
  

Therefore, I think 'robe' sounds like a good translation. Not a basic everyday tunic, but serving a similar purpose of clothing the whole body. Sometimes (always?) worn over a tunic. And, based on the descriptions, I think a voluminous, belted-poncho type robe, common in many ancient societies, such as Egypt, Persia, Greece & Rome.

Persian guard in the British Museum

My reconstruction. It's just a rectangle with a hole, but gives the impression of long sleeves.

I like to draw their style based (loosely) on the rather unintelligible clothes on this ivory from Megiddo:

This is bronze age, therefore close to David's time.

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ḥăḡôr is definitely a belt, or anything you gird yourself (ḥāḡar) with Genesis 3v7 - sometimes specifically a military belt 2 Samuel 20v8 (and sometimes used as a metonymy for being armed 2 Kings 3v21) . Sometimes not military at all Isaiah 3v24. 

In context, a military belt would make sense.

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And then there's the maḏ. Unfortunately there aren't that many instances of it, and they don't all appear to be referring the the same thing.

• It is once used to refer to a priest's linen robe (usually called a kutōneṯ) Leviticus 6v10.
• Ehud strapped his 18" sword to his right thigh under his maḏ, and was able to access it quickly with his left hand Judges 3v16-21. 
• In a clearly military context, Saul lent his to David, and he strapped his sword over it 1 Samuel 17v38-39. Joab also wore one with a belt and sword over it 2 Samuel 20v8. An unnamed Benjamite fled from battle with a torn one (in mourning?) 1 Samuel 4v12.
  
• People who travel the roads on white donkeys sit on them 🤷‍♀️ Judges 5v10.  
• It's used metaphorically in a Psalm - 'He wore cursing like his maḏ" - which could be any kind of clothing Psalm 109v18.
• And that's it*. 

In three of those instances someone 'puts it on' (lāḇaš), but Joab 'girded himself' (ḥāḡar) with his. So are we talking about a kilt? A military kilt? Kilts certainly were worn in warfare, sometimes with nothing else - see the armed man in the ivory above. 

But what style of kilt? Why did Saul think it would help David, instead of him just wearing the armour over normal clothes? Were his normal clothes loose and baggy? Or was the kilt reinforced or padded in some way? What would it look like? Was Jonathan wearing it over his mᵊʿîl (certainly a kilt over a robe was sometimes worn by people like Philistines, Syrians, and Kushites)? Or, based on the order the clothes are mentioned, was he at that point only wearing the mᵊʿîl (presumably over a tunic), not any of his military gear, which it doesn't specifically mention him taking off?

Watch this space for my solutions...

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*It also seems to mean 'measure' Jeremiah 13v25, but that doesn't help, as the etymology of clothing words is often weird - in English, 'shirt' and 'skirt' come fom the same root!

Colosseum / Herod's temple size comparison

 Answer to question in previous post:

(very simplified plans)

Amazon Bible review

 At first I thought - is this an elaborate metaphor?

Amazon Customer

3.0 out of 5 stars Fine but...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 16 December 2015

Verified Purchase

Nice product, nice to handle and clean however I do find that I have to cut the lemon, cross on the top to help break the back of it to enable me to get juice out easier. Requires strength to use, as one would expect. As for any claims about it being the best lemon squeezer I don't agree I think I'll be going back to my traditional lemon squeezer. I could of course be using it incorrectly.

Ahhhh... I see what's happened :-D 

Oddly, underneath it says "One person found this helpful"

Lord, help me to love

Help me to be patient,
Help me to be kind.

Don't let me envy,
Don't let me be boastful,
Don't let me be arrogant,
Don't let me be rude,
Don't let me be self-seeking,
Don't let me be irritable,
Don't let me keep a record of wrongs.

Don't let me find joy in unrighteousness
Help me to rejoice in the truth.

Help me to bear all things
Help me to believe all things
Help me to hope all things,
Help me to endure all things.

Help my love to never fail

Amen

(With apologies to the apostle Paul - 1 Corinthians 13v4-8)

Wow these things are hard!

Women's work

Google's doodle today is for International Women's Day.

It shows a series of women's arms doing various things: writing, science, being an artist, winning the Nobel prize*, voting, singing, typing, making a political speech, climbing a mountain, conducting an orchestra, getting a degree, making a film, being a judge, astronaut, pilot, animator, footballer, photographer, architect, etc...

I'm glad that women have so many opportunities today.

But I was disappointed that, in all the pictures, there was not a single domestic thing represented. No cooking. No cleaning. No childcare.

Are women not worth celebrating when they're doing stereotypically 'feminine' things? The things that no-one will particularly notice, or applaud them for?

"Honour her for all that her hands have done,
    and let her works bring her praise at the city gate."

Proverbs 31v31 (emphasis mine)

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*At least, some medal like that

Mary's Song

I like this version, because it's sung by someone the right sort of age (Randall Goodgame's daughter Liv, who would be about 16ish at the time)