We were supposed to have started on Week 6 last week, but things fell on the wayside.

But well, the lovely thing about homeschooling is you can just pick up and go!

One of the things I love about JBC (and every other subject using the Principle Approach) is that we must continually come back “to teaching concepts and principles and reasoning skills.” (Burtness, page 12). Each week, as I prepare my lessons, I have to remind myself that. It's so easy to get bogged down with details. Maybe this will become more part of me one day!

We had quite a fruitful experience with Theme 1 and I now look forward to starting on Theme II. In the next two months, we shall be looking at how God prepared the key characters for “Godly self-government and liberty”. As part of my own preparation, I shall be doing key sheets for myself. After two years, I'm just getting the hang of it. Boy, I'm a slow learner! But like what dear Ms. Katherine Dang says, “IV-drip”, and “kernel by “kernel” and I claim those wonderful picture reminders for myself too.

Some notes

1. Based on this chart. Noah was still alive when Abram was born. He died when Abram was 58 years old and Shem, the son of Noah, died 35 years AFTER Abraham died. Can I assume that Abram must have heard about the flood many times? So while his father was not a good example, he probably had other godly influences. 

2. The timeline here is different from above.

   Too bad I don't have the time to compare all the various time charts and to reason out which is more accurate. The point is whether Abraham had interacted with Noah or Shem, he did get the account of the flood first hand!

3. It was possible too that Noah had at least a second hand account of the creation because his father Lamech was 58 years old when Adam died.

4. I enjoyed this article.

   
   

JBC: Year Two Theme II Week 6

“God prepares a people for Godly self-government and liberty”

For the coming week, the theme focus will be based on the following passages:

Genesis 12:1-4
Genesis 12:4-9

For this lesson, I'll bear in mind the following concepts.

(My personal study of Abram will go beyond the recommended passages for my dd.)

1. Hand of God in history

God is sovereign and He had supreme authority over Abraham.

I enjoyed reading this lesson as part of my preparation.

Notice the covenantal view of the relationship between grace and works here.  “God clearly takes initiative with Abram.  God’s favor falls upon Abram and it is not Abram’s fault.  But Abram has responsibilities in this relationship.  Every relationship, by definition, is bilateral.  There are responsibilities in any significant relationship in life.  There are responsibilities on the part of both parties and Abram’s are frankly spelled out first here in Genesis 12. “

Why did He ask Abram to leave his country?

2. Hand of God in the life of Abraham

a) How did God prepare Abram?

b) Godly influence/s on Abram?

c) Godly character developed?

d)Abram's contribution in God's purpose

3. Relationship between individual (Christian) character and national liberty.

This is related to 2d above.

Okay, how will I be approaching this lesson? I plan to complete it in four days.

Laying the Foundation

I will print out the timeline and we will go over it. (Since I'm more familiar with AIG over the other two websites mentioned above so I'll use their timeline for this lesson).

Presentation

We will take turns reading the passages.

We will do some mapwork.
Map 1 and map 2. Quite cool.

Check out this too.

Discussion

We'll use the key sheet on Abraham for this.

Documentation

She will document on the keysheet

Other Activities

1. She loves to color and do crossword puzzles so I'll search for some of these worksheets for her.

2 Josh loves to role play, so we'll involve him in the journey Abram made. I'll have write out the various destinations based on the given passage, stick them around the house and we can recreate the journey.

Let's see, we will have : Ur, Haran, Schechem, Hill Country and Southern Desert.

The southern Desert is not the end of the journey, but we'll end there. Each time they reached a “destination”, Abram built an altar and worshipped God. Maybe we could all kneel and give thanks when we reach each destination.

Application

This will come to me while we're doing the lessons. :)

 1 Now the LORD had said to Abram:

“Get out of your country,
From your family
And from your father’s house,
To a land that I will show you.
2 I will make you a great nation;
I will bless you
And make your name great;
And you shall be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you,
And I will curse him who curses you;
And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

4 So Abram departed as the LORD had spoken to him, and Lot went with him. And Abram waswere then in the land. seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. 5 Then Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people whom they had acquired in Haran, and they departed to go to the land of Canaan. So they came to the land of Canaan. 6 Abram passed through the land to the place of Shechem, as far as the terebinth tree of Moreh. And the Canaanites

7 Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” And there he built an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him. 8 And he moved from there to the mountain east of Bethel, and he pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; there he built an altar to the LORD and called on the name of the LORD. 9 So Abram journeyed, going on still toward the South.