Lessons // Videos // 2-Month Roster // Leader Contact Info // Leader FB Group // Old Lessons Unit 3 Session 3 Joseph Sent to Egypt BIBLE PASSAGE: Genesis 37:1-36; 39:1-41:57 MAIN POINT: God sent Joseph to Egypt. KEY PASSAGE: Genesis 26:24 BIG PICTURE QUESTION: What can stop God s plan? Nothing can stop God s perfect plan. PREPARING FOR THE LESSON 1) PRAY. 2) READ THE VERSES: Genesis 37:1-36; 39:1-41:57 Genesis 26:24 That night the Lord appeared to him and said, I am the God of your father Abraham. Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bless you and will increase the number of your descendants for the sake of my servant Abraham. Maybe Joseph felt alone in the well and in prison. Did God forget Joseph? No. God was with Joseph, and He had a wonderful plan. God raised up Joseph into a position of power in Egypt. God used Joseph to establish a remnant a small, surviving group of His people. Centuries later, God sent His Son, Jesus, into the world as part of that family. 3) WATCH THE VIDEO Bible story video: https://vimeo.com/254775814 Discussion starter video: https://vimeo.com/257243403 Optional Songs: http://subiaco.church/wp-content/uploads/pri-unit3_music_restinhispromise.mp3 http://subiaco.church/wp-content/uploads/primary-unit3_video_iamwithyou.mp4 http://subiaco.church/wp-content/uploads/primary-unit3_video_restinhispromise.mp4 4) READ/FAMILIARIZE YOURSELF WITH THE OPENING ACTIVITY ACTIVITY: Ingredients (this leads straight into your review)
Ask the kids if they would like really yummy things to eat. From the bag/box pull out two eggs and offer them to the kids to eat. (Hopefully they will not want to eat the eggs raw, shell and all). Then pull out a bottle of cooking oil and ask them if they would like to have some of the cooking oil instead. Do the same with the bag of flour and bottle of vanilla. Try and seem confused about the fact that the children don t like any of the ingredients. Try to get them to say something to the effect that these items don t taste very good. Once you have established this, pull out the picture of the cake and tell them that all these items are some of the ingredients in a cake. Explain to the children that sometimes things happen to us that we don t like. They are like ingredients that don t taste good, but God has a plan and His plan is like the cake. But what can stop God s plan? Nothing!. Discuss: We should trust God to take care of us, even when things happen to us that make us sad. Just like some of the ingredients of a cake don t taste good by themselves, they can be used with other things to make something wonderful in our lives. This is similar to what happened to Jacob and Esau. Jacob did some bad things but eventually Jacob was blessed by God and Jacob and Esau reconciled and God s plan was accomplished. Fill in the details of the Jacob and Esau s story for the review points you d like to share. 5) READ/FAMILIARIZE YOURSELF WITH THE AFTER-STORY ACTIVITIES ACTIVITY: Discussion Starter Show the discussion starter video. Lead kids to talk about a time they moved away or a time a best friend moved away. Prompt discussion with the following questions: 1. Have any of you ever moved to a new place? 2. What did you like least about the move? 3. What did you like most? Lead kids to talk about situations that seemed bad at first that turned out to be good. Be prepared to share a couple of examples of your own. Discuss: When we hear about Joseph and know the whole story, it s easy to see that God used Joseph s suffering for good. Do you think Joseph knew what God was up to when he was sitting in jail? Maybe not. Sometimes we have to trust God s plan even when we do not understand what He is doing. God used Joseph s suffering for good, and He can use hard things in our lives for good, too. Remember that God is in control over everything. He is good, and He has a plan. What can stop God s plan? Nothing can stop God s perfect plan. ACTIVITY: Coat of Many Colors Lower Primary Glue colored strips of paper on one side of the paper with the coat/robe outline. Once the coat is fully covered, using the outline on the opposite side, use scissors to cut out the coat. ACTIVITY: Brothers Jump Game *If you feel this game is too difficult for your group with all the names, change the names to small true/false statements about the story. Kids jump for true, don t jump for false. Read them yourself or invite a volunteer(s) to read the names of Jacob s 12 sons from Genesis 35:23-26. Be prepared to assist with pronunciation: 1. Reuben (RHOO ben) 2. Simon (SIGH muhn) 3. Levi (LEE vigh) 4. Judah (JOO duh) 5. Issachar (ISS uh KAHR) 6. Zebulun (ZEB yoo luhn) 7. Joseph (JOH zif) 8. Benjamin (BEN juh min)
9. Dan (DAN) 10. Naphtali (NAF tuh ligh) 11. Gad (GAD) 12. Asher (ASH uhr) Read the names again slowly. Encourage kids to pay close attention to the names of Joseph s brothers. Then using masking/painters tape, make a long line on the floor. Have all the kids line up along one side of the line (shoulder to shoulder but with space between them), facing the line. Then call out a name. Instruct kids to jump over the line if the name is one of Joseph s brothers. They will jump over the line forwards for the first brother name, backwards for the second brother name and so on back and forth. Randomly call out names like Noah, David, Paul or a name from one of the kids in the class. Any kids who jump when a name that does not belong to Joseph or his brothers is called, must sit down. Play until one or two kids remain. DISCUSS: Joseph s brothers decided to throw Joseph into a pit, and then they sold him to some travelers going to Egypt. Joseph s brothers rejected him, but God had a plan to use Joseph to help the brothers and their families. God used Joseph s suffering for good. God blessed Joseph so that he rose to a position of great authority. God used Joseph to help his family and many others. Like Joseph, Jesus gave up His position of authority to be the Savior of the world. ACTIVITY: Where did Joseph Travel ALTERNATE OPTION: Draw the map on the white board. Ask the kids 1) where he started, 2) where he went next 3) etc. When a child answers correcting have them come up and draw that portion of the map. You can tell them, correct, now draw a house right here etc. If they can think of key characters, have them draw stick figures for Joseph, Potiphar, etc. SAY: We are going to take a journey around the room. I want you to fold your paper in half and bring a marker/pencil/crayon/pen with you. Let s review the story and draw our own map of what happened in Joseph s life. Travel around the room, stopping to discuss each place that Joseph went. Discuss when he lived in Canaan and his brothers sold him into slavery. Guide kids to draw a house and write home on one side of their paper. Then, walk to another area of the room and talk about Joseph s time at Potiphar s house in Egypt. Guide kids to draw a house on the opposite side of the paper, with dotted lines connecting the two. Kids may write Potiphar s house under the new house they drew. Travel again, and discuss the jail where Joseph was kept after Potiphar s wife lied about him. Travel again and tell kids that Joseph became second-in-command in Egypt and lived at Pharaoh s palace after he was in jail. Everywhere Joseph went, God gave him favor and was with him. Discuss: God used Joseph s suffering for good. Each place Joseph moved led him to Pharaoh s palace, where he would help many people have food for the seven years of famine that would soon come. What can stop God s plan? Nothing can stop God s perfect plan! ACTIVITY: Care for people who suffer Invite kids to create care cards for people who are on our church prayer list. Provide markers/crayons/pencils for kids to decorate a folded piece of paper. If they don t know what to write/draw, remind them that Jacob gave Joseph a colorful coat; suggest they decorate their card Joseph s coat. Kids may also write encouraging notes or the big picture answer: Nothing can stop God s perfect plan. Pray together as a group for those in our congregation that are in need of prayer. Leave the cards in the classroom and they will be sent to people on our prayer list over the next few weeks. Discuss: God cares about people who are suffering. We can pray for people who are suffering and serve them. Suffering is hard, but we can trust that God is in control. God used Joseph s suffering for good, and He can use others suffering for good too. ACTIVITY: Dream Sequence LOWER PRIMARY
Show kids the four dream sequence pictures. Demonstrate motions for each object in the pictures: wheat Wave your arms overhead. stars Do a jumping jack. moon Hold your arms in a circle overhead. sun Spin around one time. Option 1: Post them in separate corners of the room. Invite kids to choose corners to stand in. Call out one of the objects. Kids in that corner must perform the motion. The last player to do so is out. Between rounds, kids may move between corners. Play until one kid remains. Option 2: Hold each picture up one at a time. The kids must perform the correct motion for each picture as you change the picture you re holding up. Get faster and faster as allowed. Discuss: A boy named Joseph had dreams about these items. We ll find out in our Bible story what they meant. ================================================================= RUNNING THE LESSON ON THE DAY RUNNING SHEET 1) Hello! Welcome back! etc 2) Opening Activity: Ancient Egypt Facts UP, Dream Sequence - LP 3) Review Review will transition from the opening activity (cake ingredients). Help the kids to understand that Joseph is still part of Abraham s direct family (great grandson). God made a covenant with Abraham to make his descendants as numerous as the stars. God also said that He would bless all the world
through those descendants. This promise continued to Isaac and Jacob and Jacob s family, which is where we find ourselves today. Remind them of the promise God made to Abraham and how God had confirmed the promise with Isaac and then Isaac s son Jacob. Explain that Jacob had 12 sons, and one of those sons was Joseph. 4) Pray 5) Watch the video 6) Discuss the story Use the well story review script attached. 7) Activities (in no particular order) Discussion Starter Brothers Jump Game Coat of many colors LP Where did Joseph Travel Care for people who suffer
WELL Story review: How to tell the story: This is a story told as a game of musical chairs, except that you will use narration and the word WELL instead of music to start and stop the action. Put the chairs ina a fairly large circle in the room. Every time the storyteller begins to speak the children should begin moving around (inside) the circle of chairs. As soon as they begin to move, a helper should take a chair from the circle and move it away. Then, when you say the word WELL in the story, everyone should quickly find a seat and sit down. The person who cannot find a chair to sit on is out of the game. Instruct the students to stand up again and start walking around (inside) the circle of chairs. This sequence continues until only one child is left sitting on a chair. Depending on the number of children playing the game, you can pull out more than one chair at a time if you have a lot of kids or take out some of the que words (done below for only 6-8 kids). Less than 6 kids, use the first couple as practice. 9 kids or more - Storyteller: Joseph was one of the twelve sons of Jacob. His brothers did not like him very WELL. That was because they were jealous of Joseph. WELL, one day, Jacob sent Joseph out to find his brothers who were in the field watching their father s sheep. When they saw him coming in the distance, they said, Here comes Joseph. Let s kill him and throw him in a WELL. We can tell our father that the animals ate him up. But, Reuben didn t like that plan. Don t kill him. Just throw him in the WELL. Reuben said this to rescue Joseph from them and take him back to his father. So, when Joseph came to his brothers, they beat him up and threw him in the (Pause) cistern which is another word for a WELL. As they sat down to eat their meal, they looked up and saw a group of hairy Ishmaelites coming towards them. WELL, they decided to sell Joseph to the Ishmaelites instead of killing him. When the Midianite merchants came by, his brothers pulled Joseph up out of the uh out of the...um, WELL, cistern. They sold him for twenty shekels of silver. Joseph was not doing WELL, was he? But God had a plan for Joseph. You see, the Ishamaelites took Joseph to Egypt and eventually he came into great favor with the Pharaoh. Pharaoh put Joseph in charge and Joseph did very WELL. 6-8 kids - Storyteller: Joseph was one of the twelve sons of Jacob. His brothers did not like him very WELL. That was because they were jealous of Joseph. One day, Jacob sent Joseph out to find his brothers who were in the field watching their father s sheep. When they saw him coming in the distance, they said, Here comes Joseph. Let s kill him and throw him in a WELL. We can tell our father that the animals ate him up. But, Reuben didn t like that plan. Don t kill him. Just throw him in the WELL. Reuben said this to rescue Joseph from them and take him back to his father. So, when Joseph came to his brothers, they beat him up and threw him in the (Pause) cistern which is another word for a WELL. As they sat down to eat their meal, they looked up and saw a group of hairy Ishmaelites coming towards them. They decided to sell Joseph to the Ishmaelites instead of killing him. When the Midianite merchants came by, his brothers pulled Joseph up out of the uh out of the...um, cistern. They sold him for twenty shekels of silver. Joseph was not doing great, was he? But God had a plan for Joseph. You see, the Ishamaelites took Joseph to Egypt and eventually he came into great favor with the Pharaoh. Pharaoh put Joseph in charge and Joseph did very WELL.