This weekend our lesson in 1st-4th grade was from II Peter 2-3, recognizing false teachers. For my object lesson I had four dollar bills, one was a 1 dollar bible buck, 2 of them were color copies of a dollar and 1 was a real dollar. I would pick a child to come up and see if they could tell me which dollar was the real one. Amazingly, they picked a color copy every time. I would thank them for playing and give them the real dollar bill. "There are false teachers who are secretly introducing wrong teachings. They lay their wrong teachings next to the truth so people might consider them. Be Careful! These false teachings are not always easy to spot, for they wrap their wrong teachings in just enough truth to make it seem all right at first glance." Peter wrote in II Peter.
I then explained how my mom used to work at a bank and how they train bank employees to spot counterfeit (false) money. They can spot false money not because they study the different types, but because they study and are very familiar with the real thing. If you are acquainted with truth, you can easily spot what is false. If you are acquainted with God by having a relationship with Him (reading the Bible, praying, etc..) then you can easily spot what is not truth in the world. I gave the example of a field trip I went on to a cavern. We were studying stalactites and stalagmites. You know those pointy cone shaped things that grow down from the roof of a cave or grow up from the floor of a cave. The guy leading our tour was very knowledgeable about caves and about the stalactites and stalagmites. However, he said the formations were made over millions and billions of years. Well, I know that is not true because I have studied the Bible and I know the earth is only a few thousand years old... not millions or billions of years old.
After every service, I would lay my Bible on the floor of the stage with the "false" money inside it. It stuck out the top a bit and served as a book mark. At the 11 am service, I started my lesson and opened my Bible and to my surprise only the real dollar and the bible buck was in my Bible. I had a quick moment of panic and asked Ms. Sandy to find me some replacements. I had a fleeting thought of going to jail for copying a dollar. (Apparently, that is illegal. I did not know it until Dave Spear our worship pastor told Ms. Sandy.) The children were all looking a me a bit confused as I scrambled to think of a time filler. Then a little boy said "Ms. Melinda are you looking for this?" as he took it out of his pocket. I asked where he found it and he said "I found it on the stage sticking out of a Bible. I didn't think it belonged to anyone so I took it." I replied with a very shocked face and "ooh?!?" Before I could even begin the lecture about how stealing was wrong, another little boy walked up and turned his pocket inside out and there was the second missing dollar!
Needless to say the 11 am children also learned that stealing is wrong as well. LOL After the 11 am service I gave the false dollars to Ms. Sandy to shred. I guess you could say the evidence was shredded.
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