A hearty hello to all of you! Thanks for joining me on our blog for the second and last lesson for this month.
      Each lesson I write has one section for children and one for adults.
     There are two important events I want to share. Sunday School will gather at church on December 15 and our Christmas program will be on December 22. More details can be found at the end of this document.
     Our selected story is “The Young Hero and The Horrible Giant” found on pages 122-129 of The Jesus Storybook Bible written by Sally Lloyd-Jones.
Children  Please oral read the story yourself and check out the pictures for additional information.
     We left our discussion last week about David and Goliath when King Saul accepted David’s offer to take on Goliath one-on-one in battle! This does appear to be a silly offer by David, and a crazy one for King Saul to hear, but David had two great reasons to feel confident. He shared both with King Saul, and the king agreed.
     Reason #1 -> In the Bible, David said to King Saul, “I have been keeping my father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it.  I have killed both the lion and the bear; this Philistine will be like one of them.” David was confident he could deliver a life-ending blow with a rock and his sling.

​December Week 1, 2024 Learning Together
     Happy December to you all! Welcome to our Learning Together blog based on The Jesus Storybook Bible written by Sally Lloyd-Jones, which is available free at our church or can be purchased online.
     Each lesson I write has sections for both children and adults.
     This month will have only Week 1 and Week 2 lessons posted (rather than the usual three), Sunday School will meet in person at church on December 15 at 11 am-12 pm, and our church’s Christmas program will be celebrated on Sunday, December 22 at 10 am. You and your family are invited to attend any or all of these events!
     Our new story, a continuation of our discussion about King David, is titled “The Young Hero and The Horrible Giant” and can be found on pages 122-129. My lessons created for this story will allow you to think and read and imagine and create.
Children - Please find a comfortable place to listen to our story being orally read to you at the beginning of this blog. As you listen, imagine pictures in your head as the story unfolds. You may want to draw your own pictures.
     If you recall from last month’s lesson, David, son of Jesse and the youngest and weakest of seven brothers, was chosen by God to be the future King of Israel.
     But before he became king, a big fight started between Israel and their enemy called the Philistines. This fight was close to Jesse’s home, and some of David’s brothers fought in it. One of David’s jobs was to take these brothers food each day.
     On one of these food trips, David first saw the giant of a man who was the Philistine’s secret weapon – a soldier called Goliath! All of Israel’s soldiers were totally freaked out about fighting this enormous, mean man who wore impressive armor and for weeks shouted bad things at them about making them slaves and “eating” them for lunch.
     But David was NOT afraid of Goliath and volunteered to fight him. He believed God would help him defeat this enemy of his people. Saul, the present-day king, allowed David to try.
     Our story will continue next week.
     Skip the next section for adults and scroll to the bottom to read the weekly prayer and the reminders of upcoming events.
Adults - Taken from 1 Samuel 17, New International Version.
Now the Philistines gathered their forces for war and assembled at Sokoh in Judah. They pitched camp at Ephes Dammim, between Sokoh and Azekah. 2 Saul and the Israelites assembled and camped in the Valley of Elah and drew up their battle line to meet the Philistines. 3 The Philistines occupied one hill and the Israelites another, with the valley between them.
4 A champion named Goliath, who was from Gath, came out of the Philistine camp. His height was six cubits and a span (a cubit is roughly 18 inches long, and a span is about 9 inches long). 5 He had a bronze helmet on his head and wore a coat of scale armor of bronze weighing five thousand shekels (a shekel is a unit of weight, around 9.6 or 9.8 grams); 6 on his legs he wore bronze greaves (a greave is a type of defensive armor that extends from the foot to the knee.) and a bronze javelin was slung on his back. 7 His spear shaft was like a weaver’s rod, and its iron point weighed six hundred shekels. His shield bearer went ahead of him.
8 Goliath stood and shouted to the ranks of Israel, “Why do you come out and line up for battle? Am I not a Philistine, and are you not the servants of Saul? Choose a man and have him come down to me. 9 If he is able to fight and kill me, we will become your subjects; but if I overcome him and kill him, you will become our subjects and serve us.” 10 Then the Philistine said, “This day I defy the armies of Israel! Give me a man and let us fight each other.” 11 On hearing the Philistine’s words, Saul and all the Israelites were dismayed and terrified.
12 Now David was the son of an Ephrathite named Jesse, who was from Bethlehem in Judah. Jesse had eight sons, and in Saul’s time he was very old. 13 Jesse’s three oldest sons had followed Saul to the war: The firstborn was Eliab; the second, Abinadab; and the third, Shammah. 14 David was the youngest. The three oldest followed Saul, 15 but David went back and forth from Saul to tend his father’s sheep at Bethlehem.
16 For forty days the Philistine came forward every morning and evening and took his stand.
17 Now Jesse said to his son David, “Take this ephah (a Hebrew unit of dry measure that is roughly equivalent to a bushel, or about 35 liters) of roasted grain and these ten loaves of bread for your brothers and hurry to their camp. 18 Take along these ten cheeses to the commander of their unit. See how your brothers are and bring back some assurance from them. 19 They are with Saul and all the men of Israel in the Valley of Elah, fighting against the Philistines.”
20 Early in the morning David left the flock in the care of a shepherd, loaded up and set out, as Jesse had directed. He reached the camp as the army was going out to its battle positions, shouting the war cry. 21 Israel and the Philistines were drawing up their lines facing each other. 22 David left his things with the keeper of supplies, ran to the battle lines and asked his brothers how they were. 23 As he was talking with them, Goliath, the Philistine champion from Gath, stepped out from his lines and shouted his usual defiance, and David heard it. 24 Whenever the Israelites saw the man, they all fled from him in great fear.
25 Now the Israelites had been saying, “Do you see how this man keeps coming out? He comes out to defy Israel. The king will give great wealth to the man who kills him. He will also give him his daughter in marriage and will exempt his family from taxes in Israel.”
26 David asked the men standing near him, “What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and removes this disgrace from Israel? Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?”
27 They repeated to him what they had been saying and told him, “This is what will be done for the man who kills him.”
28 When Eliab, David’s oldest brother, heard him speaking with the men, he burned with anger at him and asked, “Why have you come down here? And with whom did you leave those few sheep in the wilderness? I know how conceited you are and how wicked your heart is; you came down only to watch the battle.”
29 “Now what have I done?” said David. “Can’t I even speak?” 30 He then turned away to someone else and brought up the same matter, and the men answered him as before. 31 What David said was overheard and reported to Saul, and Saul sent for him.
32 David said to Saul, “Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him.”
33 Saul replied, “You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a young man, and he has been a warrior from his youth.”
34 But David said to Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, 35 I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. 36 Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. 37 The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine.”
Saul said to David, “Go, and the Lord be with you.”
     Next week will be part two of this biblical reference.
For Children and Adults  
~This Week’s Prayer~
Dear God, please help me to believe in you as David did.
     Allow me to remind you of our December’s up-coming events: Our last online lesson next week, Sunday School gathering on December 15, and Christmas program on December 22.
 
Wear your mittens,
Margo Greer