Object Lesson
I remember when I was teaching Jr. Church as a young student pastor, I loved using every day objects to teach important truths. I remember as a child in 5th or 6th grade a lesson that my Sunday school teacher taught because she used objects. She taught the lesson that Jesus used to describe the Pharisees. She brought four coffee mugs to sit on the table. One of the mugs was clean on the outside, but dirty on the inside. The other cup was dirty on the outside but clean inside. One was dirty on both the outside and inside while the last one was clean inside and out. I never forget the value of that lesson because I was able to see it and not just hear it.
Jeremiah was tasked with an object lesson from the Lord. He followed the Lords instruction. Check this out….
1 Early in the reign of Zedekiah son of Josiah king of Judah, this word came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 2 This is what the Lord said to me: “Make a yoke out of straps and crossbars and put it on your neck. 3 Then send word to the kings of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre and Sidon through the envoys who have come to Jerusalem to Zedekiah king of Judah. 4 Give them a message for their masters and say, ‘This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: “Tell this to your masters: 5 With my great power and outstretched arm I made the earth and its people and the animals that are on it, and I give it to anyone I please. (Jeremiah 27:1-5 NIV)
Great truth can be taught using just about any objects. Every object is created from something the Lord already made. Every object can be used to teach great truth about the Lord. I think object lessons make good teachers great. I think object lessons make truth come to life.
One of my favorite object lessons that I used was one where I used flash paper to write down the things that the children had done wrong. I was explaining how God forgives our sin and He forgets. “As far as the east is from the west so He has removed our transgressions from us.” (Psalm 103:12 NIV) After the kids had made quite a list of wrongs that they had done I took a match to the flash paper and lit it and it vanished. My mistake was that I used a pretty good sized piece of paper to write down everything so the ball of fire (aka flash) was pretty large and this one kids eyes were as big a saucers! I’m quite sure a lot of kids remembered that truth through that object lesson.
I want to be a student of the Word and understand the truth contained there. I want to pay special attention to any lessons that the Lord wants me to know of.
Pressing On!
Dwayne