Day 1 (Monday)

Exodus 2:11-25

Welcome to Week 12. Last week we saw the birth of Moses, and how his mother hid him in the rushes in the river, and how Pharaoh’s daughter found him and adopted him. This week we will see him all grown up. Let’s see what he does.

11 One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and saw their forced labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his kinsfolk. 12 He looked this way and that, and seeing no one he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. 13 When he went out the next day, he saw two Hebrews fighting; and he said to the one who was in the wrong, “Why do you strike your fellow Hebrew?” 14 He answered, “Who made you a ruler and judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and thought, “Surely the thing is known.” 15 When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses.
But Moses fled from Pharaoh. He settled in the land of Midian, and sat down by a well. 16 The priest of Midian had seven daughters. They came to draw water, and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock. 17 But some shepherds came and drove them away. Moses got up and came to their defense and watered their flock. 18 When they returned to their father Reuel, he said, “How is it that you have come back so soon today?” 19 They said, “An Egyptian helped us against the shepherds; he even drew water for us and watered the flock.” 20 He said to his daughters, “Where is he? Why did you leave the man? Invite him to break bread.” 21 Moses agreed to stay with the man, and he gave Moses his daughter Zipporah in marriage. 22 She bore a son, and he named him Gershom; for he said, “I have been an alien residing in a foreign land.”
23 After a long time the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned under their slavery, and cried out. Out of the slavery their cry for help rose up to God. 24 God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 25 God looked upon the Israelites, and God took notice of them.

Discussion questions:

1) Do you think it was a good thing that Moses did at the beginning of the story? Or a bad thing? (It’s interesting that the text doesn’t say. However, we will see just a few chapters later, when God gives Moses the Ten Commandments, that “You shall not kill” is one of the commandments. And Moses suffers the consequences of his actions, in losing his place in Pharaoh’s house and having to flee into the desert. So I think that it was complicated, because Moses was trying to save the slave who was being beaten, but ended up doing even greater violence himself, so whatever good he managed to do was tainted by the violence he did.)

2) What happened when Moses tried to stop the two Hebrews from fighting? (They asked him who had made him the boss of them, and whether he planned to kill them like he killed the Egyptian.)

3) What did Moses do when he realized that he had been seen killing the Egyptian? Where did he go? (He ran away from Egypt, and went to the land of Midian)

4) What happened to him there? (He helped seven sisters water their flock, and ended up marrying one of the sisters and living as a shepherd with their father and his family. This may be a good time to point out the importance of doing what is right, even in strange circumstances. Moses was a stranger in a strange land, but he still acted to help the sisters care for their flocks, when stronger shepherds were treating them poorly. So he defended the weak. Likewise we can see the importance of hospitality; the father of these seven sisters scolded them for not bringing the man that had helped them home, and made a point to give him food, both because he had helped them, and because he was a stranger and a traveler, and caring for them was, and is, an important thing for righteous people to do.)

5) What were the names of Moses’ wife and child, and what did the name of his son mean? (His wife was Zipporah, and his son was named Gershom, which means “a stranger there,” because he was a foreigner among his wife’s people).

6) What happened at the end of today’s reading? (It says that the Pharaoh died, and things got worse for the children of Israel, and they prayed to God for help, and God remembered them and the covenant He had made with Abraham. So we see that it was the end of the 400 years that God had told Abraham about, and it was time for Abraham’s descendants to leave Egypt. This means that in our next reading, we are going to see God start to take action to save His people.)

Day 2 (Wednesday)

St. John Chrysostom on Suffering

Note to parents – this is a heavy topic, and St. John is not always the easiest person to follow. However, the question of why bad things happen to good people is a question that all of us ask, and many children ask it quite young. St. John gives a fearless answer that calls us to consider what it really means to follow Christ – I urge you to at the least discuss this passage together yourselves, and with your older children. I also urge you to not be afraid to talk about it with the younger children, or at least in front of them. If nothing else, it is important for them, and for all of us, to be reminded that, for Christian people, suffering is not something by which we should be surprised, and very often, it is in suffering, rather than the good times, that we see God at work in our lives.

We talked last week about St. John Chrysostom and his life, exile, and death, and this week we see Moses going into exile from Egypt. Both of these are saints of the Church, and yet we see them suffering a great deal. Sometimes people have asked why it is that God allows His saints, those who serve Him best, to suffer. It’s an important question for us, not least because we ourselves experience suffering throughout our lives. Now there are two possible answers. Sometimes God allows us to suffer the consequences of our wrong actions, in order to call us back to repentance after we have sinned. This seems to be what happens to Moses after he kills the Egyptian, as we saw on Monday. Sometimes, though, we see righteous people suffer, even when they have done nothing wrong, as we saw with St. John Chrysostom. Why God allows this to happen is a difficult question, but St. John actually talks about it in one of his sermons, so let’s see what he says about it!

“For we often hear the question asked of why God allows humble and righteous people to suffer, and some have found fault with the Saints, because they experienced sickness and disease, or poverty, hunger, prison, torments, & discomfort, or were despised by others, or suffered every other evil thing that comes in the present life. (Some have said that they must have been evil if God punished them with such suffering, or that God is not just if He rewards them with suffering in exchange for their righteous deeds). So we need to give a solution to the problem, an answer to those who are inclined to find fault.
There are many answers that may be given, but they can be reduced to two. First, the Lord allows the Saints to suffer for their own profit and benefit. Second, He allows them to suffer for our benefit, and for that of all who see and hear of them.
1) When we say that God allows the Saints to suffer for their own good, it is specifically because suffering is a remedy for pride. And pride is a danger for the Saints, for nothing is so likely to feed pride as a life that is full of good works, and a soul that lives in confidence that it has done everything it should do. In order that His saints might escape from pride, then, God allows temptations and tribulations to afflict them; for these are have a great power to shrink human pride, and to teach us to be moderate and humble in all things.
Still more, when the saints suffer, and their own pride falls, God’s own power is revealed in them instead. He triumphs, and overcomes, and advances the preaching of the Word of God through people who are weak, and imprisoned, and in many troubles.
We see throughout the Scriptures, in fact, that suffering is profitable to the saints, to help them to exercise moderation and lowliness, and to keep them from being puffed up by their miracles and good works; and it is for this profit that God permits them to suffer.. For examples, we can hear the same thing affirmed by both David the prophet and Paul the apostle. For David says, “It is good for me, Lord, that I have been in trouble, that I might learn thy statutes” (Psalms 119:71), and Paul says, “I was caught up into the third heaven, and…and lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me with persecutions and afflictions, that I might not be too much exalted” (2 Corinthians 12).
2) Besides the benefits of suffering for the Saints themselves, God allows them to suffer for the sake of those who see and hear about them, so that we may have them for an example.
Their suffering is a safeguard to make sure that no one thinks that they are superhuman, or mistakes them to be gods and not men. For if they were more than human, than it would be impossible for the rest of us to imitate their righteousness, and they would be irrelevant to us. But their suffering shows them to be human beings, as we are, and therefore it is possible for us to imitate their example.
Their suffering also shows us what it means to trust God, for in it we see that they do not serve God to earn a reward. Instead, we see the depth of their trust in God when they serve Him even when they are suffering many evil things.
Their example then gives comfort to everyone who encounters troubles in life. When we remember that the Saints suffered like we do, and even more than we do, we come to understand that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, and this both inspires us to imitate them, and reminds us that we are not alone in our suffering.
All of this helps us to understand the true nature of our life. We are often tempted to think that those who enjoy ease and pleasure in this life, even though they are evil, are blessed, and that we who struggle to follow Christ, and suffer many troubles and struggles, are cursed. But when we look at the example of the saints, who suffered and were crowned with glory by God, we learn what it truly means to be happy (that is, to be united with the Lord), and what it truly means to be miserable (to be distant from Him).”
(Adapted from Homily 1, Concerning the Statues, given in Antioch)

Discussion questions:

1) What is the problem that St. John is talking about? (Why it is that God allows good people to suffer, and especially why we see the saints suffer so much when we read their lives).

2) What does St. John say are the basic reasons that God allows the Saints to suffer? (First, for their own sake, and second for the sake of those who see or hear about the Saints, that is to say, for our sake).

3) How does suffering help the Saints? (It keeps them from becoming proud, and helps them to see God’s power at work in them.)

4) How does the suffering of the Saints help us? (It helps us to understand that they aren’t any different from us, and encourages us to imitate their example, even when we experience troubles and have problems. More than that, their suffering reminds us that we are not alone when we suffer, but that we are surrounded by a great crowd of witnesses, who pray for us and hope in the Lord along with us).

5) Who does St. John say is most blessed in life? Is it the people who are rich and comfortable and never have any problems? Or is it the people who suffer and have many problems? Why does he say that this is so? (He says the people who suffer, but are with the Lord are the ones who are truly happy, because they are not alone, but are always with the Lord, and with all the Saints).

Day 3 (Friday)

Luke 6:1-16

Last time, we saw the Pharisees start to criticize Jesus and His disciples because they weren’t fasting. This week, they will get even more angry at Him when He doesn’t act how they think He should act on the Sabbath Day. Let’s see what happens!

6 One sabbath while Jesus was going through the grainfields, his disciples plucked some heads of grain, rubbed them in their hands, and ate them. 2 But some of the Pharisees said, “Why are you doing what is not lawful on the sabbath?” 3 Jesus answered, “Have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? 4 He entered the house of God and took and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and gave some to his companions?” 5 Then he said to them, “The Son of Man is lord of the sabbath.”
6 On another sabbath he entered the synagogue and taught, and there was a man there whose right hand was withered. 7 The scribes and the Pharisees watched him to see whether he would cure on the sabbath, so that they might find an accusation against him. 8 Even though he knew what they were thinking, he said to the man who had the withered hand, “Come and stand here.” He got up and stood there. 9 Then Jesus said to them, “I ask you, is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to destroy it?” 10 After looking around at all of them, he said to him, “Stretch out your hand.” He did so, and his hand was restored. 11 But they were filled with fury and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus.
12 Now during those days he went out to the mountain to pray; and he spent the night in prayer to God. 13 And when day came, he called his disciples and chose twelve of them, whom he also named apostles: 14 Simon, whom he named Peter, and his brother Andrew, and James, and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, 15 and Matthew, and Thomas, and James son of Alphaeus, and Simon, who was called the Zealot, 16 and Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.

Discussion Questions

1) Where are the Pharisees angry at Jesus about in this reading? (They are angry because Jesus isn’t observing the Sabbath day in the way that they think He should).

2) What was the Sabbath day, anyway? (The Sabbath day was, and is, the seventh day of each week. In our week, it’s Saturday, which is still called Σαββατο in Greek. The Jews rested from work on the Sabbath Day, because God had rested on the seventh day of the week after He created everything.)

3) What two things had Jesus and His disciples done that the Pharisees were unhappy about? (His disciples had picked some heads of grain to eat while they were walking through a field, and Jesus had healed a man’s hand.)

4) What was Jesus’ question to them about the Sabbath? (He asked them what the Sabbath was for: to do good or to do harm, to save life or to destroy it. He made the point that rest is a good thing, but starving yourself, or refusing to help people, are not good things, and that they were taking their rules too far. He also claimed to have authority over the Sabbath, when He said that the Son of Man was the lord of the Sabbath.)

5) What did Jesus do at the end of the reading? (He picked twelve special disciples from those who were following Him Note, disciple is just a fancy word for a student, someone who is learning from a teacher.)

6) How many disciples did Jesus pick? (Twelve – this is a good time to point out that there had also been twelve tribes of Israel, because Jacob/Israel had twelve sons. So Jesus is re-building the chosen people, since so many of the twelve tribes had abandoned the Covenant over the centuries since Moses).

7) How many of the Apostles do you recognize? What stories do you remember about them? (This is an open question, a chance to see what all of us remember about these pillars of the Church…and the one who betrayed his calling.)

Day 1 (Monday)

Exodus 2:1-10

Welcome to week 11! Last week we saw that Abraham’s descendants, the Israelites, had settled in Egypt, and had multiplied so much that the Egyptians decided to make them slaves in order to keep them under control; when they kept on growing more numerous, the Pharaoh decided that all the baby boys should be killed by throwing them into the Nile River to drown, or to be eaten by crocodiles. Let’s see what happens next.

2 Now a man from the house of Levi went and married a Levite woman. 2 The woman conceived and bore a son; and when she saw that he was a fine baby, she hid him three months. 3 When she could hide him no longer she got a papyrus basket for him, and plastered it with bitumen and pitch; she put the child in it and placed it among the reeds on the bank of the river. 4 His sister stood at a distance, to see what would happen to him.
5 The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her attendants walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid to bring it. 6 When she opened it, she saw the child. He was crying, and she took pity on him. “This must be one of the Hebrews’ children,” she said. 7 Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get you a nurse from the Hebrew women to nurse the child for you?” 8 Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Yes.” So the girl went and called the child’s mother. 9 Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will give you your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed it. 10 When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and she took him as her son. She named him Moses, “because,” she said, “I drew him out of the water.”

Discussion questions:

1) Do you remember who Levi was? (He was one of Jacob/Israel’s sons, so he was a great-grandson of Abraham. Moses’ father and mother were from the tribe of Levi.)

2) How long did Moses’ mother hide him? (For three months – it doesn’t say exactly why he couldn’t be hidden any longer after that. I am guessing that it had to do with him growing bigger and louder, but maybe she had to go back to work at that point. She would have been known to have been pregnant, so maybe she claimed that the baby died, and she needed time to recover from the pregnancy before she went back to work…but all that is just speculation. It is a good opportunity, though, to think about what things must have been like for her, and to try to understand what might be going unspoken here because it’s assumed everyone knows what is going on already)

3) What did Moses’ mother do when she couldn’t hide him anymore? (She got a basket, and coated it in pitch to make it waterproof, and she put the baby into it in the river water among the reeds along the shore).

4) Do you think she was just leaving Moses there during the day while she worked, or was she placing him in God’s hands once she realized she couldn’t keep him? (This isn’t clear…the text doesn’t say anything about the family getting Moses and bringing him home at night, so it seems as though the second option is more likely. She did everything she could to let him live, but ultimately entrusted his life to God. If that’s the case, then what happens at the end of the story is extra beautiful).

5) What happened to Moses after he was left among the reeds? (Pharaoh’s daughter found him and decided to adopt him, even though she knew he was a Hebrew baby.)

6) Who nursed the baby after Pharaoh’s daughter adopted him? (That’s the special part. Moses’ sister volunteered to go find a Hebrew woman to nurse him for the princess, and then of course she brought her own mother, and Moses was sent home with her under the protection of the princess, and was able to live there until he was weaned).

7) What does all that tell us about how Faith and Trust in God? (Moses’ mother did her very best, and when that wasn’t enough, she entrusted her son’s life to God. God’s response to that was to give her son back to her, and, as we will see, to do wonderful things through Moses. This is the same thing as the Lord tells us will happen when He tells us that “whoever tries to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for the Lord and the Gospel will save it”).

Day 2 (Wednesday)

St. John Chrysostom

St. John Chrysostom is one of the most important saints in the Orthodox Church. He put together the Divine Liturgy that we do every Sunday, and he is considered the ideal standard of an Orthodox Christian priest. He was a man of unshakeable integrity, a preacher of clarity and authority (for which reason he is called Chrysostom, which means “Golden-mouthed”), and a determined and faithful servant of Jesus Christ. He criticized extravagance and corruption for both clergy and laypeople, and insisted that both the clergy and laity be faithful to the call of the Christ in the Gospel. In particular, he insisted that Christian people must care for the poor. Like the martyrs, he suffered greatly as a result of his faithfulness, but through his suffering, his defeat and exile, and indeed his death, the truth and rightness of his preaching and teaching was established. He remains one of the most powerful witnesses to the glory of God in the Orthodox Church.

November 13 – John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople

This greatest and most loved of all Christian preachers was born in Antioch the Great in the year 347; his pious parents were named Secundus and Anthusa. After his mother was widowed at the age of twenty, she spent her time and energy in bringing up John and his elder sister “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4). John received his literary training under Anthragathius the philosopher, and Libanius the sophist, who was the greatest Greek scholar and rhetorician of his day. Libanius was a pagan, and when asked before his death whom he wished to have for his successor, he said, "It should have been John, had not the Christians stolen him from us." With such a training, and with such gifts as he had by nature, John had before him a brilliant career as a public speaker and teacher of rhetoric. But through the good example of his godly mother and of the holy Bishop Meletius of Antioch, by whom he was ordained reader about the year 370, he chose instead to dedicate himself to God. From the years 374 to 381 he lived the monastic life in the hermitages that were near Antioch. His extreme asceticism undermined his health, and forced him to return to Antioch in 381, at which point St. Meletios ordained him a deacon. Five years later, he was ordained a presbyter (priest). Upon his elevation to the priesthood his career as a public preacher began, and his exceptional oratorical gifts were shown to the world through his many sermons. They show a mastery of Scripture, an easy and fluid eloquence, and a clear understanding of the workings of God’s plan for salvation in the world. St. John spoke with authority against the abuse of wealth and property, and insisted that Christian people care for both the spiritual and practical needs of the poor. Most of all, his sermons show a natural earnestness and moral force which clearly come from the heart of a blameless and guileless man who lived first what he preached to others. Because of his fame, he was chosen to succeed Saint Nectarius as Patriarch of Constantinople. He was taken away by stealth, to avoid the opposition of the people, and consecrated Patriarch of Constantinople on February 28, 398.

From the beginning, he was an unusual bishop. He hated the fact that Imperial court protocol gave him access to privileges greater than the highest state officials, and during his time as bishop, he refused to host lavish entertainments. This meant he was popular with the common people, but unpopular with the wealthy and the clergy from the beginning. In a sermon soon after his arrival he said, "people praise the predecessor to disparage the successor." His reforms of the clergy were also unpopular. He told visiting regional preachers to return to the churches they were meant to be serving, refusing to allow them to make extra money in the city while neglecting their flocks at home.

His time in Constantinople proved short and full of controversy. The Emperor at the time was Arcadius, a man of weak character, and much under the influence of his wife Eudoxia, who was offended by St. John’s insistent condemnation of the lax morals of the wealthy and powerful in the city. She formed an alliance with others of like mind, both clergy and laity, and in 403 they held a synod which falsely accused him of heresy, and he was deposed and banished to Pontus. The people were were very angry about his departure, and the next night an earthquake shook the city. This so frightened the Empress Eudoxia that she begged Arcadius to call Chrysostom back. While his return was triumphant, his reconciliation with the Empress did not last long. When she had a silver statue of herself erected in the forum before the Church of the Holy Wisdom (Agia Sophia) later that year, and had it dedicated with much unseemly revelry, Saint John thundered against her, and she could not forgive him. In June of 404 he was exiled to a city in Eastern Asia Minor.

The pope in Rome (Innocent I at this time) protested at this banishment, but to no avail. During his exile, John wrote letters to some faithful friends in the City, and these letters were considered a sufficient threat to his enemies that they had him exiled still further, to Pityus, in modern Georgia. The journey overland was filled with bitter sufferings for the aged bishop, both because of the harshness of the elements and the cruelty of one of his guards. He did not reach Pityus, but gave up his soul to the Lord near Comana in Pontus, at the chapel of the Martyr Basiliscus (see May 22), who had appeared to him shortly before, foretelling the day of his death, which came to pass on September 14, 407. His last words were "Glory be to God for all things."

His holy relics were brought back to Constantinople thirty-one years later by the Emperor Theodosius the Younger and Saint Pulcheria his sister, the children of Arcadius and Eudoxia, with fervent supplications that the sin of their parents against him be forgiven; this return of his holy relics is celebrated on January 27. He is also celebrated as one of the Three Hierarchs on January 30, together with Saint Basil the Great and Saint Gregory the Theologian.

Normally, a saint’s feast day is celebrated on the day of their death. However, since he died on September 14, the Feast of the Elevation of the Cross, his feast-day has been transferred to November 13th."

Discussion questions:

1) What is the most frequently read thing that St. John Chrysostom wrote? (The Divine Liturgy that Orthodox Christians celebrate every Sunday)

2) What does his name “Chrysostom” mean, and why? (It means “Golden-mouthed,” because his preaching was so excellent)

3) What was his life like before he was ordained? What thing in his life is most different from what we do in the Church today? (There is a lot that could be said, and it would be good to talk about how John was a hermit before he was ordained, and how he was extremely strict in his fasting, to the point that his health suffered and he was unable to continue as a monk. From his “failure” as a monk, however, the Church in the world gained him as a deacon, a priest, a bishop, a preacher, and a saint. Moreover, it is clear that his pastoral wisdom came in large part from his personal experience of spiritual effort, in which he found both the limits of human endurance, and the strength that comes from God alone)

4) What was his life like once he was ordained? (It was a good life. He became a very popular preacher, because his sermons were easily understood and were relevant to the people. He preached a great deal on the Scriptures, and emphasized the importance of caring for the poor. His people seem to have appreciated his skill in preaching and his practical advice).

5) What happened to him next? (He was selected as the new Bishop of Constantinople, the capital city of the Empire. Everything that had made him popular in Antioch caused him trouble there. The common people loved him, as they had in Antioch, but the wealthy and powerful grew quickly to hate him).

6) How did he die? (He was exiled by his enemies in the city, and died on the road due to the strenuous journey. It is worth noting that after a period of time, his relics (his body) were brought back to Constantinople, where the emperor begged his forgiveness, and he was glorified as a saint within living memory of his ministry in the city)

Day 3 (Friday)

Luke 5:27-39

Last week we say Jesus heal a leper and a paralytic, and saw an example of what prayer and faith look like. This week we will see him call another disciple, and answer some criticisms made against his followers.

27 After this he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, “Follow me.” 28 And he got up, left everything, and followed him.
29 Then Levi gave a great banquet for him in his house; and there was a large crowd of tax collectors and others sitting at the table with them. 30 The Pharisees and their scribes were complaining to his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” 31 Jesus answered, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; 32 I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance.”
33 Then they said to him, “John’s disciples, like the disciples of the Pharisees, frequently fast and pray, but your disciples eat and drink.” 34 Jesus said to them, “You cannot make wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them, can you? 35 The days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days.” 36 He also told them a parable: “No one tears a piece from a new garment and sews it on an old garment; otherwise the new will be torn, and the piece from the new will not match the old. 37 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. 38 But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. 39 And no one after drinking old wine desires new wine, but says, ‘The old is good.’”

Discussion Questions

1) What was the name of the next disciple that Jesus called to follow him? What was his job before Jesus called him? (Levi was his name, and he was a tax collector. He was also called Matthew, and it is by that name that he is most often remembered. To be a tax collector was to be despised and hated by the people at the time, because they worked for the Romans and betrayed their fellow countrymen by taking their wealth, giving it to the Romans, and skimming off the top to enrich themselves)

2) What did Levi do when Jesus called him? (He left everything and followed Jesus, but first he threw a big party, and invited all his sinful friends, and they ate together with Jesus and his disciples)

3) What did the Pharisees think about this? (The Pharisees didn’t like it; they thought that a teacher of the law, like Jesus was, should be pure and keep himself separate from sinful people. So they criticized Jesus to the disciples).

4) What did Jesus say to this? (He said that people who are healthy don’t need a doctor, but people who are sick do. For that reason, He came to call sinful people to repent, but to do that, He needed to spend time with them).

5) What else did the Pharisees criticize the disciples for? (They complained that they didn’t fast, like other faithful Jewish people did).

6) What did Jesus say to that? (He made a comparison with a wedding reception, and said that it didn’t make sense for wedding guests to fast while the Bridegroom was still there at the party, but that after the bridegroom left, then it made sense for people to go back to normal life, which would include fasting).

7) What other story did Jesus tell them to explain how things were changing? (He talked about old and new cloth and old and new wineskins. The point in both cases is that materials like that, once they have aged, can’t be sewn together with new material, because things will stretch in different ways, and the patch won’t last.)

8) What do you think Jesus meant by this? (Answers may vary here – it seems, though, that Jesus is pointing out that not only are his disciples not fasting while He is with them, but that probably once He leaves them, how they fast, and how they live, will not be the same as it was before. We certainly see this to be true in the Christian life; many things are different between what we do now, and what the Jewish people were doing before the Messiah came to them.)

Day 1 (Monday)

Exodus 1:1-22

Welcome to week 10. So…we have skipped ahead quite a lot. From Adam and Eve, past Noah and the Flood, to Abraham, who we saw last week. Abraham had a son named Isaac, and Isaac had a son named Jacob, who was also called Israel, and Israel had twelve sons, and all of them, together with their families, ended up in Egypt during a famine. One of them, named Joseph, had a high office in Egypt (by which I mean he was important and powerful, not that he had a corner office in an Egyptian skyscraper). The first book of the Bible, Genesis, ended with all of them arriving and settling down in Egypt. So this week, we pick up the story chapter 1 of the next book of the Bible, Exodus. Now…there’s a spoiler built into the title here. Exodus means “the road out”, so Abraham’s family are clearly not going to be staying put in Egypt. Let’s see what happens.

“1 These are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob, each with his household: 2 Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, 3 Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin, 4 Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher. 5 The total number of people born to Jacob was seventy. Joseph was already in Egypt. 6 Then Joseph died, and all his brothers, and that whole generation. 7 But the Israelites were fruitful and prolific; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them.
8 Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. 9 He said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. 10 Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.” 11 Therefore they set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor. They built supply cities, Pithom and Rameses, for Pharaoh. 12 But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread, so that the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites. 13 The Egyptians became ruthless in imposing tasks on the Israelites, 14 and made their lives bitter with hard service in mortar and brick and in every kind of field labor. They were ruthless in all the tasks that they imposed on them.
15 The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, 16 “When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live.” 17 But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live. 18 So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this, and allowed the boys to live?” 19 The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.” 20 So God dealt well with the midwives; and the people multiplied and became very strong. 21 And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. 22 Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every boy that is born to the Hebrews you shall throw into the Nile, but you shall let every girl live.”

Discussion questions:

1) How many sons of Jacob ended up in Egypt? How were they related to Abraham? What was Jacob’s other name? (All twelve of them ended up in Egypt, and they were Abraham’s great-grandchildren. Jacob’s other name was Israel, and the people descended from him are usually called by that name)

2) What does the story say was unusual about the people of Israel in Egypt? (It says that they were “fruitful and prolific” which means that they had a lot of children, so there were more of them in the land every year)

3) What did the people of Egypt think about this group of people that kept getting more numerous every year? What did they do about it? (They were afraid of them – so they decided to enslave them before they got too powerful, and they made them build cities and work in the fields)

4) Did all that stop the people of Israel from growing more numerous? Did the Egyptians stop being scared of them and oppressing them? (Not at all)

5) What was the king of Egypt called? What did he do next? (The Egyptian king was called a “Pharaoh,” pronounced “Fair Oh.” He called the midwives, the women who helped Israelite mothers give birth, and told them that when the babies were born, he wanted them to kill all the boys, but they could let the girls live).

6) Did the midwives do what he wanted them to do? What happened to them? (Not at all – they made an excuse about how the Israelite women were strong and usually were finished giving birth before they got there. God was pleased with them for not doing the evil thing the king wanted them to do, and He blessed them).

7) What did the Pharaoh do next? (He told his own people, probably his soldiers, to go and do the job the midwives refused to do, and to throw all the baby boys born to Israelite mothers into the river, where they would drown or be eaten by crocodiles).

8) What do you think is going to happen next? (This is an open question – most of the kids probably remember this story, but it can be good to see how what we remember matches with what the Bible actually says. Oftentimes our memory of the story comes more from storybooks or movies than from the Bible itself).

Day 2 (Wednesday)

Sixth Prayer of Orthros

There are twelve prayers that the Priest prays at the beginning of the Orthros service. In all of them, he prays for himself and for all the people, and gives thanks to God for the rest of sleep and for the opportunity to wake up and offer worship and thanksgiving and prayers to God. It is important to understand that the Orthros service is the service that the Church does at sunrise; it begins when it is still dark, and continues as the sun comes up. These twelve prayers, then, reflect what we can and should think and feel and say to God as we wake up and begin our day. This sixth prayer talks about the connection between prayer and worship and the living of the Christian life.

“SIXTH PRAYER
We give thanks to you, Lord God of our salvation, for you do all things for the well-being of our life, that we may at all times look to you, the Saviour and Benefactor of our souls. We give thanks to you, for you have given us rest in the part of the night which has passed and roused us from our beds and placed us here for the worship of your honoured name. Therefore we beg you, Lord: Give us grace and power, so that we may be counted worthy to chant to you with understanding and to pray without ceasing in fear and trembling, as we work out our salvation through the assistance of your Son. Remember too, Lord, those who cry out to you by night. Hear them and have mercy, and crush beneath their feet their invisible and hostile foes.
For you are the King of peace and the Saviour of our souls, and to you we give glory, to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever, and to the ages of ages. Amen.”

Discussion questions:

1) What is the Orthros Service? (It is the morning service of the Church, done when the sun rises, as the day begins. On Sunday, it is the service that we do right before the Divine Liturgy, starting at 9 am or so, and finishing at 10 am).

2) How many prayers does the priest pray at the beginning of the Orthros Service? (Twelve. He reads half of them inside the Altar, and the other half outside in front of the icon of Jesus Christ on the Iconostasis/Icon Screen).

3) What do these prayers say? (They say quite a lot, but generally they emphasize three basic points: they give thanksgiving to God, they talk about the things God has done for us, the things that we are thanking Him for, and they ask Him for continuing grace and mercy)

4) Who does the priest pray for in these prayers? (For himself, and for all the people).

5) What are some of the things this Sixth Prayer thanks God for? (Well-being/health, in life, the ability to pray to God, sleep at night, waking up in the morning, and the ability to worship God)

6) What sort of things does this prayer ask God for? (Grace, power, worthiness to sing to God with understanding and to pray all the time, and that God will hear the prayers of those who ask Him for help during the night)

7) What does this prayer say about our salvation? (Try to get especially the older kids to zoom in on this phrase: “to pray without ceasing in fear and trembling as we work out our salvation through the assistance of the Son of God.” It says that we have work to do in our salvation, and also that we can’t do that work without the Lord’s help. As it says elsewhere in the Scripture: “without Him we can do nothing,” (John 15:5) – but we have work to do as well, and that work is done in prayer)

Day 3 (Friday)

Luke 5:12-26

After Jesus calls the first four disciples (Simon, his brother Andrew, & their partners James & John), the story goes on to tell of two miracles that He does; he heals a man with a horrible skin disease, and then He raises a paralyzed man from his bed and gives him strength to walk (and even to carry his bed home with him).

“12 Once, when he was in one of the cities, there was a man covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he bowed with his face to the ground and begged him, “Lord, if you choose, you can make me clean.” 13 Then Jesus stretched out his hand, touched him, and said, “I do choose. Be made clean.” Immediately the leprosy left him. 14 And he ordered him to tell no one. “Go,” he said, “and show yourself to the priest, and, as Moses commanded, make an offering for your cleansing, for a testimony to them.” 15 But now more than ever the word about Jesus spread abroad; many crowds would gather to hear him and to be cured of their diseases. 16 But he would withdraw to deserted places and pray.
17 One day, while he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting near by (they had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem); and the power of the Lord was with him to heal. 18 Just then some men came, carrying a paralyzed man on a bed. They were trying to bring him in and lay him before Jesus; 19 but finding no way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down with his bed through the tiles into the middle of the crowd in front of Jesus. 20 When he saw their faith, he said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven you.” 21 Then the scribes and the Pharisees began to question, “Who is this who is speaking blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” 22 When Jesus perceived their questionings, he answered them, “Why do you raise such questions in your hearts? 23 Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Stand up and walk’? 24 But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the one who was paralyzed—“I say to you, stand up and take your bed and go to your home.” 25 Immediately he stood up before them, took what he had been lying on, and went to his home, glorifying God. 26 Amazement seized all of them, and they glorified God and were filled with awe, saying, “We have seen strange things today.””

Discussion Questions

1) What kind of example, good or bad, are the two men that come to Jesus in this reading? Should we imitate them? How can we tell? (I would say that both of them are a good example, and we should imitate them; we can tell because both of them receive what they ask for).

2) What did you notice about what they did? (There will probably be a lot of variation to this, but it is important to notice, at the least, that both of them asked Jesus to help them, and believed that He had the power to do so, but they didn’t demand that He help them. They cast themselves on His mercy, and entrusted themselves to His will).

3) Does the paralyzed man do or say anything before Jesus heals him? (No – but his friends do. This story is an example for us of the power of prayer. We don’t know anything at all about this paralyzed man, although of course Jesus knew, but what it says is that Jesus healed him, and forgave his sins, because of the faith of his friends.)

4) Why do you think Jesus forgave his sins first, and only healed him afterward? (This is intended as a prompt for free conversation, and there may be many answers. It is good to point out that by forgiving his sins first, Jesus is making a strong statement about what is the bigger problem. Being paralyzed is bad, sure…but unforgiven sins are worse. Jesus fixes both, but He deals with the larger issue first).