JBC Lesson Plan: Year One Week 11

General Theme: Redemption- God prepares a people for Godly self-government and liberty

Theme Focus: Ten Commandments – God's Law of Love

Leading Idea: God gave the Israelites statues so they could rule themselves in a God-pleasing manner

Principle: Individual Self-government

Scripture Passage: Ex. 19, 20, 32:1-14

Statement of Theme : Ex. 20:1-2

Copy work: Ex.20:1-2

I guess I'm getting lazy, lol. My lesson plans are becoming more general! But the notes do help set the stage so it's better than nothing, I guess! I hope to have a more detailed review though.

Chapter 19 was an awesome chapter to read and study!

Three months had passed since they left Egypt. In the interim, God had taken care of them by supplying them with food and water. The Lord had also helped Joshau defeat the Amalekites. During that time, Moses was reunited with his family and he also listened to his father-in-law 's wise counsel about governing the people. In this chapter, we will see how God led the children to Mt. Sinai for a very special reason. God wanted to speak with the people! But they had to consecrate themselves first. God is holy. No one was to approach Him flippantly.

Chapter 20

A preamble was inserted to the 10 Commandments before its proclamation:

"And God spoke all these words, saying:
'I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of
the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.'"
EXODUS 20:1-2

The children were in bondage. Now they were free. To ensure true libery, they must have self-government. The 10 Commandments when obeyed would assure that!

God chose to reveal himself through the 10 Commandments. The Decalogue are divided into two sections:

a) Laws governing man's relationship with God

b)Laws governing man's relationship with fellowmen

I shall be spending some time on each commandment (crafts and all; maybe). I may need two weeks on this chapter so I don 't have to rush through each commandment. I think the activities will be fun too.

Chapter 32

The children of Israel knew why Moses was up on Mt. Sinai. Moses was there to receive further isntructions from God. They were afraid to hear God's voice and had asked Moses to meet God on their behalf. Deut. 9:9 tells us tha Moses was away from 40 days and nights and during that time, he fasted.

"When I went up into the mountain to receive the tablets of stone,
the tablets of the covenant which the LORD made with you,
then I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights.
I neither ate bread nor drank water."
DEUTERONOMY 9:9

Well, the children of Israel were impatient and when they saw that “Moses delayed in coming down from the mountain,” they sinned dreadfully!

Impatience and dissatisfaction with God led to murmuring, which advanced to disobedience and idolatry. It is hard to imagine why in the world the children of Israel wanted to build an idol and why Aaron helped them along.

It will be interesting for dd to see how little self-government the children of Israel and Aaron had. We will be seeing which commandments they broke. They had after all heard from God Himself what the commandments were! (Ex. 20:1-18)