As the weeks go by I get more and more excited about our Bible story time each Friday night. You see, I start studying for it by about Sunday afternoon and then all through the week during my "quiet time" I ask the Lord what He wants me to teach the children … and would He be so kind as to help me? As a result, this has been a very precious time for me and I have learned so much that I had never even thought of before!
We've been going through the historical book of Acts … don't you love history? I do! And this week our story centered on Stephen, the first Christian martyr. As I began studying early in the week, this story was all sadness … and I struggled with how difficult it would be to teach this to the kids. But then something happened as I was reading this account over and over again. The "glory" of God was everywhere in this beautiful account of Stephen's life. I could teach the children about the glory of God, right along with teaching about the murder of Stephen!
Because, you see, Stephen's face "became as bright as an angel's" when his accusers were talking against him. Why? Why did Stephen's face glow!? I had to find out! I can't tell you all of the details here, but I went back into the Old Testament and reviewed Moses' glowing face, which shone brightly whenever he and God had conversations. Stephen had been wrongly accused of speaking against Moses, the Temple, and God. As Stephen answered these lies about him, he gave the whole history of his nation and how they had rejected every leader God had ever brought their way! Stephen begins his defense with this: "The God of glory … "
And who else glowed so brightly that the disciples fell down on their faces before him? Jesus! We read the passages about Jesus being "transformed" and how Moses and Elijah showed up with him on top of the mountain in front of Peter, James and John. And then we talked about how WE CAN GLOW because we are a child of God! "We can be mirrors that brightly reflect the glory of the Lord! And as his Spirit works in us we become more and more like Jesus and reflect His glory even more!" 2 Corinthians 3.18
We talked about the boldness Stephen was given to stand up to these very bad people; and how Stephen looked, not at his accusers, but up to heaven and saw the face of Jesus!
We talked about many happy things related to the glory of God and His wonderful Light!
But I did not neglect to tell the whole story. Because it is a very powerful account of a faithful man who remained true to God, strong in faith, full of God's spirit, who breathed out a prayer of forgiveness for his murderers with his last breath. We had such a great discussion about all of this!
Afterwards, we prayed that God would help us to follow Him, and we thanked Him for making us His children.
We also began reading the third book in our Narnia series: "The Horse and His Boy." It was quite a long first chapter and we completely intended to read another chapter Saturday afternoon, but we never got to it due to other plans that interfered. However, the children really enjoyed the beginning to another adventure in Narnia. I can't wait to continue reading it to them!
Our movie for the night was: "Two Brothers," a story of two tiger cubs (brothers) who become separated in the jungle, captured by people and then finally reunited. Sadly, I fell asleep right smack during the middle of the movie ...
… and I haven't the faintest recollection as to how the story ended ~ well, the children told me all about it after they woke me up so that I would be able to give them their back rubs before they went to sleep! The movie ended happily! And I think we were all soundly sleeping by about midnight.
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