How does God want men and women to help each other? Includes a teaching guide and game.
Needed: Bibles
Intro Game Activity: Agree or Disagree?
(Have students line up in the middle of the room. The leader reads the following statements and the children move to the right side of the room if they agree with the statement, the left if they disagree, or stay in the middle if they’re not sure. If time allows, give students time to explain their positions.)
- Men are better than women.
- Women are better than men.
- Men can do things better than women can.
- Women can do things better than men can.
- Men are smarter than women.
- Women are smarter than men.
- God likes men better.
- God likes women better.
- Men and women are equal.
Lesson
Read Genesis 2:7, 18, 21-23 (quoted here in the NIV), asking the following questions as you read.
“The LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being…The LORD God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone.'”
Why do you think it wouldn’t be good for the man to be alone? (The man might get lonely with just the animals being there. He might need help doing something.)
So God said, “I will make a helper suitable for him…”
What did God say He was going to make for the man? (A helper.)
“So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, He took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib He had taken out of the man, and He brought her to the man. The man said, ‘This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called “woman”, for she was taken out of man.'”
How did God make the woman? (He took one of the man’s ribs and made the woman out of it.)
And what was the woman supposed to be for the man? (A helper.)
God made the man first, but then He made the woman to help the man. The man couldn’t do everything by himself. That’s because God made men to be good at some things, but not so good at other things. Can you think of some things men are good at?
Can you think of some things that men are not usually as good at?
So, then, God made the woman and God made the woman to be good at some things and not so good at other things, just like the man. Can you think of some things that women are usually good at?
Can you think of some things that women are usually not as good at?
So God made the woman to help the man at the things he’s not very good at and the man can help the woman at the things she’s not very good at. Men are women are supposed to work together and help each other. God made us to all help each other.
Closing Prayer
God, You love all the men and women, boys and girls that You made the same. But You made them to be different too. Help us to understand the ways we’re different so that we can help each other like You want us to. Amen.
This lesson is included in my book, Created: Children Sunday School Lessons for Genesis 1-11.