GOD’S WORD • Lesson Material • © Little Acorn, LLC; Apologetics Press, INC. Reproducible. | 29

Theme: The Bible is God’s WordLesson: The Bible is a treasure map

Summary: By the end of this lesson, students should understand that the Bible is God’s Word(2 Timothy 3:16), and that He gave His Word to men to guide us through this life.

Memory Verse: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Psalm 119:105).

What you will need: Day Two PowerPoint file, Clip art on page 87

Each lesson is designed to be taught in the same classroom. The classroom setting is at the Dead Sea, near the cave of the Dead Sea Scrolls. See pp. 58-64

Classroom

Introduction

Teacher: Welcome to Vacation Bible School! II am so glad you are here today. This week we are learning all about the Bible. Who wrote it, how we got it, and why it’s important. Take a look at this picture and tell me what you see.

[Slide 2]

Children: A map!

Note to teacher:Be familiar with the facts in this lesson and with

each slide.

VBS DAY TWO

(5 minutes)

Slide 1

Suggestions:• Let your class know how happy you are to be with them.• Recognize any visitors.• Review the first day’s les-son.

| GOD’S WORD • Lesson Material • © Little Acorn, LLC; Apologetics Press, INC. Reproducible.30

LESSONTeacher: Take a look at this map.

[Slide 3]

If I wanted to go to the circus, which direction would I travel?

Children: West!

Teacher: That’s right! I’d travel west. Which way would I travel to go to the zoo?

Children: East!

Teacher: Right again! What would happen if I wanted to go to the zoo, but Ididn’t want to travel east? Instead, I hopped in my car and headed west. Would I make it to the zoo?

Children: No, it would take you to the circus!

Teacher: A map does not change to suit our wants and desires. The purpose ofa map is to give us the information we need so we can make good de-cisions about the roads we need to travel. It doesn’t matter if we want to travel west to the zoo, if we want to get to our destination, we have to follow the map and travel east!

[Slide 4]

Only then will we make it to the correct location!

[Slide 5] [Hold up your treasure map. See page 87.]

Now this map is a very special kind of map. It’s still designed to guide us to our destination, except this time something is waiting for us. Can anyone tell me what it is?

Children: Treasure!

Teacher: That’s right! This is a treasure map! If I told you that this map wouldlead you to the biggest pile of treasure in the world, would you want to copy it down and take it home with you?

Children: Yes!

(20 minutes)

Teacher: That’s exactly right! It’s a map! Can anyone tell me why a map is soimportant?

Children: (Allow children time to answer)

Teacher: Maps are important because they help guide us to where we are going.(Take some time to explain how to read a map and identify those pieces of information that will help guide us.)

Slide 3

Slide 4

Slide 5

Slide 2

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Teacher: Well, this map does lead to an awesome treasure, but you don’t haveto copy it down to find it. We are going to find it right now!

Lesson Activity - Find the treasure (5 minutes)What you will need: A treasure map. (Use the clip art on page 87.)Instructions: Using the clip art on page 87, create visual markers to place on the walls of your classroom. Then create a treasure map using the same clip art that will guide a volunteer through your classroom to a hidden treasure.The treasure: Bag of candy. Something individually wrapped that the kids can eat in class or take with them.

Teacher: Was that fun?! Just like this treasure map led us to all that deliciouscandy, the Bible (hold up a Bible) is a treasure map that leads us to the most wonderful riches imaginable: a home in heaven with God!

But someone may look at this Bible and say, “How can I be sure that map was copied down correctly?” or “How can we be sure these in-structions are from God?”

Those are good questions. Since none of us was around when the Bible was written, how can we be sure that what we have in our hands is from God and says exactly what He wanted it to say? I’m going to share with you two facts that give us confidence that the Bible is from God and is our reliable, true treasure map!

FIRST FACTAncient scrolls, called the Dead Sea Scrolls, have proven that our Bible is accurate! Do you remember what the lesson was about yesterday? Who can tell me what a scribe was?

Children: Someone who copied down God’s Word.

[Slide 6]

Teacher: That’s right! If you worked as a scribe, your job was to copy letter forletter any document that you were handed. Scribes took their job very seriously. They did not want to make mistakes.

As recently as 1947, less than 100 years ago, the world still questioned whether the Old Testament had been copied by the scribes the way God wanted. At that point, the earliest copies we had of the Old Testa-ment were copied in A.D. 900. That’s 2,500 years after they were first written. That’s a long time!

But the next year, 1948, all of that changed!

[Slide 7]

This body of water is called the Dead Sea.

Slide 5

Slide 7

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[Slide 8]

Along the Dead Sea are these caves. In 1948, an Arab boy was looking for a lost goat. He threw a rock into a small cave and heard a sound like breaking pottery. Curious about the sound, he went into the cave and found some leather scrolls with ancient writing on them. It turns out that hundreds of scrolls were hidden in these caves around the Dead Sea.

Many of the scrolls were books of the Old Testament that were almost 900 years older than the oldest copies we had.

Now let me ask you a question: If I wanted to check to see if my copy of the Old Testament was accurate, what would I do?

Children: Look at the older copy.

Teacher: That’s exactly what people did. They compared their copies of theOld Testament to the older copies the boy found in the cave, and do you know what they discovered?

Children: (Allow children time to answer)

Teacher: They matched almost word for word! The Dead Sea Scrolls hadproven to the world that the Old Testament had been copied faithfully and passed down to the current time. God made sure the O.T. made it to our generation!

SECOND FACTThe Bible gives us amazing facts that the writers could not have known on their own.

[Slide 9]

What do you see in this picture?

Children: Noah’s ark!

[Slide 10]

Teacher: That’s right! In Genesis 6:15, God instructed Noah to build an ark. This is a picture of what it might have looked like. The ark was 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high.

This is a ratio of 30 to 5 to 3. Can you help me remember that? So you’ll have a better idea of just how big the ark was: it measured 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high. If you went to a football sta-dium, it would look like this...

[Show Slide 11, then Slide 12]

That’s BIG! Ok, what was our ratio?

Children: 30 to 5 to 3

Slide 8

Slide 9

Slide 10

Slide 11

Slide 12

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Teacher: The posted time for each section is only a suggestion based on a 25-30 minute class. You will want to adjust these times to accommodate your class period. Allow yourself a little time at the beginning

of class to get to know the kids, learn names, and interact with them.

Teacher: This is the SS Jeremiah O’Brien. Ship buildersmade this boat during World War II, which was eventually named “the ugly duckling!” It was made to carry huge amounts of cargo.

Do you know what’s really interesting about this boat?

Children: (Allow children time to answer)

Teacher: It’s made to almost the same ratio as the ark(30:5:3)! The engineers built this boat to stay afloat and not for speed.

Over the years there have been many boats built using this same ratio. Engineers who build our ships today have many years of shipbuilding knowledge to use, but Noah’s ark was the first of it’s kind. Where did Noah get the information to build the ark?

Children: God

Teacher: That’s exactly right! From the Master builder! We should thank God for giving us His Word, a wonderful treasure map that guides us through this life.

[End with a prayer]

Slide 13

For additional study, readHow do You Know the Bibleis from God? by Kyle Butt.

Supplemental materials: To order supplemental materials, call 1-800-234-8558 or order online atwww.apologeticspress.org/catalog/

Read your Bible:

Read your Bible,pray everyday,and you’ll grow,

grow, grow.(Repeat)

and you’llgrow, grow, grow

and you’llgrow, grow, grow

Read your Bible,pray everyday,and you’ll grow,

grow, grow!

Neglect yourBible, don’t evenpray, and you’llshrink, shrink,

shrink.(Repeat)

and you’llshrink, shrink,

shrink.and you’ll

shrink, shrink, shrink.

Neglect yourBible, don’t evenpray, and you’llshrink, shrink,

shrink!