Are you thirsty?
Children's Activity
Object:
In today's gospel reading, Jesus is having a conversation with a Samaritan woman. They are sitting by a well and Jesus asks her for a drink of water. While they are talking, Jesus takes the opportunity to teach the woman about the difference between what the world has to offer and what he has to offer. Suddenly a conversation about an ordinary thing, water, becomes a conversation about something extraordinary: eternal life. The simplest of things becomes a tool for learning.
The New Testament is full of stories about Jesus using ordinary things to teach ideas that were unfamiliar to people. He taught about heaven by telling a story about a man who sold everything he had in order to acquire a pearl of great price. In another conversation about heaven Jesus spoke of a tiny mustard seed that grew so large that all the birds of the air came and made their nests in its branches. Jesus used five ordinary loaves of bread and two fish to perform the miraculous feeding of the 5,000.
Every lesson Jesus taught is important. This week, sit with your children and think about why Jesus used the examples he did when he told his stories. How can our understanding of very basic things help us understand God better? Why would Jesus have used the images he chose to teach his people? Consider the following statements and discuss why they might have been chosen to make a point:
o I am the vine and you are the branches (John 15:4-7)
o I am the bread of life (John 6:35)
o Seek first the kingdom of God (Luke 12:29-31)
o In my father's house are many mansions (John 14:1-4)
o You are the salt of the earth (Matthew 5:13)
The New Testament is full of stories about Jesus using ordinary things to teach ideas that were unfamiliar to people. He taught about heaven by telling a story about a man who sold everything he had in order to acquire a pearl of great price. In another conversation about heaven Jesus spoke of a tiny mustard seed that grew so large that all the birds of the air came and made their nests in its branches. Jesus used five ordinary loaves of bread and two fish to perform the miraculous feeding of the 5,000.
Every lesson Jesus taught is important. This week, sit with your children and think about why Jesus used the examples he did when he told his stories. How can our understanding of very basic things help us understand God better? Why would Jesus have used the images he chose to teach his people? Consider the following statements and discuss why they might have been chosen to make a point:
o I am the vine and you are the branches (John 15:4-7)
o I am the bread of life (John 6:35)
o Seek first the kingdom of God (Luke 12:29-31)
o In my father's house are many mansions (John 14:1-4)
o You are the salt of the earth (Matthew 5:13)
