It's decision time. How much am I going to say about Hannah? I need to at least mention her because any discussion on Samuel would be incomplete without going over who his mother was and the circumstances of his birth. I'll start by introducing Hannah by saying that she was married but couldn't have any kids. (There will be no need to mention her husband's fruitful other wife.) We'll read 1 Samuel 1:11, which outlines Hannah's deal with the Lord, and we might even mention that the prophet Eli told her that she would get what she asked for (skipping over the part where he thought she was drunk). We could then read 1 Samuel 1:24-28 to see that the deal went down exactly as planned. That's about all we need from Hannah, except that I might mention that she was able to have other kids after that, so that's nice.
From then on, the story is all about Samuel. We might read 1 Samuel 2:26, which says that Samuel "was in favour both with the Lord, and also with men," and draw the obvious parallel from there. Samuel was a pretty good kid. After that, we're into the main Samuel story, which we can cover by reading the first half of 1 Samuel 3, pausing at various points to discuss what's going on in the story, ultimately finishing with the part where Samuel says "Speak; for Thy servant heareth."
From there, it's an easy step to the two main lessons I said we can learn from that phrase, namely that we need to actively listen to the Lord and that we need to be prepared to act on His message.
And if we have any time after that discussion, we can play more hangman. That's the plan.
No comments:
Post a Comment