Balaam
BALAAM
Objectives:
Students should be able to tell the story of Balaam and the donkey.- Students should understand the importance of obedience to God.
Possible Lesson Plan:
- Open with prayer.
- Scripture Reference: Numbers 22-24.
- Learning Game: Who Am I? Divide into 2 teams. The teacher picks a character from the story and begins to give clues, beginning with the hardest. For example, for Balaam, you might give lives near the river, son of Peor, rides a donkey, speaks for God, etc. After each clue, pause a moment to let the teams guess if they can. The first team to guess the identity of the character gets the point.
- Discussion: Talk about angels – what are they? Where have they appeared in the Bible? What are they doing? Who in the Bible has seen one? Anyone in the class seen one? Who is Lucifer? What’s his name now? What was his sin? Why was he thrown from heaven?
What about prophets? What is their role? (They speak for God.) What did Balak want? Why couldn’t Balaam oblige? What did God want from Balaam? (obedience) Did Balaam obey? Did he want to? What about you? Do you always obey God? Your parents? Do you always want to?
Make a Spool Donkey: Paint 3 spools for each student gray. Take 4 gray pipe
cleaners. One will be the main body; thread 2 spools to near one end (the tail). Wrap another pipe cleaner around the body for rear legs and shape them. Wrap another around the other end of the body for the front legs. Take the remaining half of the body pipe cleaner and bend it upward for a neck. Use half a pipe cleaner to make the ears, then add the head spool and bend the pipe cleaner down to keep the head from falling off. Decorate with eyes, nose, etc., with markers.
- Close with prayer. Pray to hear the voice of the Lord and obey (even if it takes a flaming angel and a donkey to get our attention!).