Last Wednesday, February 3rd, my Education class was cancelled so I was able to teach the children’s group at church. With the Super Bowl coming up on Sunday, I decided to talk about the widow’s Super Bowl.
2 Kings 4:1-7
1 Now the wife of one of the sons of the prophets cried to Elisha, Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that your servant feared the Lord, but the creditor has come to take my two children to be his slaves.2 And Elisha said to her, What shall I do for you? Tell me; what have you in the house? And she said, Your servant has nothing in the house except a jar of oil.3 Then he said, Go outside, borrow vessels from all your neighbors, empty vessels and not too few.4 Then go in and shut the door behind yourself and your sons and pour into all these vessels. And when one is full, set it aside.5 So she went from him and shut the door behind herself and her sons. And as she poured they brought the vessels to her.6 When the vessels were full, she said to her son, Bring me another vessel. And he said to her, There is not another. Then the oil stopped flowing.7 She came and told the man of God, and he said, Go, sell the oil and pay your debts, and you and your sons can live on the rest. (ESV)
Now, I know it probably wasn’t a bowl the widow poured the oil from–I took some liberty there. However, the notion of talking about the Super Bowl did get their attention.
Due to a school sports event, many of the children weren’t there Wednesday. So, I asked my pastor if it would be acceptable to teach a shortened version of the lesson for the children’s sermon on Sunday, the day of the Super Bowl. He told me that one of his seminary professors said “if a sermon is good enough to preach once, it’s good enough to preach twice.” Consequently, I did just that. Now, on Wednesday, I threw out an arbitrary number, 98, as the amount of vessels the widow collected from her neighbors to fill with the oil from her regular bowl that God turned into a “Super Bowl.” Sure enough, when I began discussing those vessels in the children’s sermon, one little girl who had been there on Wednesday leaned over and whispered “there were 98.”
Gospel Early & Often
It’s so pleasing to know that children pay attention and retain what they hear! Therefore, we should tell them the Gospel early and often. Just be sure to leave out what we don’t want them to retain!
I later specified to the children that we don’t really know how many vessels there were, but we do know there were enough to get the widow out of debt and provide for her and her sons; God gave her what she asked for and more.
