The Old Testament for Seventh Graders (in Four Weeks!)

As the senior pastor of a small church I take the time once a month to change from leading my weekly adult Bible study to once a month lead the youth group. I always look forward to this time with the youth of my congregation. Since I get very little specific time with them I decided this year I'd endeavor to take them through the entire Bible in six months (as that covers the months where I actually have one week with them).

What follows in the next several posts are the four handouts I gave to my youth and taught from over the course of four different weeks concerning a summation of the Old Testament written with seventh graders in mind. I chose a title for each paragraph of several simple sentences. Several (hopefully) representative passages and the word in capital letters at the end of each paragraph was a picture that I drew and had them draw if they wanted of something somehow to help connect to that particular part of the Old Testament. I'd be interested to know what others think of this approach and of the specifics of what I did. Each handout was intended to be a half-sheet of paper.

Creation and Fall - Genesis 1-11

Creation – God IS.  Everything exists because He made it.  Everything was made “good” in the beginning.  SEVEN

Man and Woman – Man and woman were created in “God's image” and for all things good and were told to have children and spread out over the earth and take care of it.  TREE

Sin/Curse/Death – Man and Woman disobeyed.  Disobedience concerns everyone throughout all time and is under the curse of God demanding death and actually brings death to everything and everyone.  It also means removal from God's presence and that we can have nothing good apart from God providing this Himself to us.  LAMB

Flood – People got worse and worse over time and disobeyed God more.  God destroyed the earth and saved only Noah and his family and animals for refilling the earth, because Noah loved and obeyed God.  After the flood God promised to never destroy the earth in the same way again. RAINBOW

Babel – Later, the people united against God, but God confused them and spread them out over the earth like they were supposed to have done in the very beginning.  TOWER