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).