A Teacher's Bible Study: Faith that Jesus marvels over

That prayer request that you have prayed, begged, and pleaded with God to answer—do you believe He can answer in just one word?  When circumstances scream otherwise, do you believe with everything you’ve got that Christ can rescue you with one solitary word?

First Things First:   Read about this centurion’s incredible faith in Matthew 8: 5-13 and pray for God to show you how to exercise this faith today!

Going Deeper:

If you had to pick one person with so much faith that Jesus marveled at it, who would you pick?  A disciple, perhaps? Mary? The only instance in the Bible where Jesus marveled over someone’s faith was the centurion who believed his servant could be healed by just one word from Jesus.

Pause right there.  We’ve heard this story many times growing up in church but let’s pause and ponder this.  A Roman.  Of the people most opposed to the Jews.  The very people who would carry out His crucifixion.  Not just a Roman, but a centurion!  A man of war, not peace.  A man known for pushing the power of Rome, not the power of God!

    

Yet Jesus said he had more faith than anyone in Israel!  He believed that Jesus didn’t have to travel to his house to heal his servant, Jesus only had to utter one sound and his servant would be healed.

    

Wow!  Do you have centurion-sized faith?  Do I?  That prayer request that you have prayed, begged, and pleaded with God to answer—do you believe He can answer in just one word?  When circumstances scream otherwise, do you believe with everything you’ve got that Christ can rescue you with one solitary word?

   

Jesus marveled at this man’s faith.  He must have looked at the Jewish leaders standing nearby and thought, “A pagan gets it.  A Gentile gets it.  It’s my own people who don’t get it.”

    

Notice the progression of the timeline of events here.  Jesus has just preached the Sermon on the Mount and told the people to love their enemies.  Then He heals a man with leprosy—definitely someone viewed as unclean and an enemy of the health of Israel.  Now Jesus is healing the servant of a Roman, a powerful physical enemy of the Jews.  Jesus is proving the validity of His message to love your enemies right in front of their eyes.

    

And if that wasn’t enough, Jesus told them that this Roman, this pagan, had more faith than Israel did!  Wow, what a punch in the gut that must have been for them, to see a Roman’s faith exalted, further proving that Christ had not just come for the Jews but for the whole world!

    

In your classroom, don’t doubt that the child is going to understand the math.  Exercise your centurion-sized faith.  Don’t fall into the trap of believing that your administration is always going to fail you…use that centurion-sized faith.

   

 I ask you, “Do you have faith that Christ marvels over?”  It can’t be easy for Jesus to marvel---He’s JESUS!  He created everything, breathed life into our very souls—yet marveled over this man’s faith.

    

If faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains, imagine what awesome things can be done for the kingdom (and in our classrooms!)  if you and I exercise centurion-sized faith!

Classroom Connections and Life Applications:

1.  In what areas of your life do you need to exercise centurion-sized faith?

2.  In what area of your classroom do you need to exercise centurion-sized

 faith?

3.What is one way you can show centurion-sized faith in a student today?

Five ideas for five extra minutes!

Sometimes your plan works perfectly. Sometimes you know exactly how long a lesson will take and you precisely time every moment down to the last millisecond. You are doing your final wrap up and finalizing exit tickets as the bell rings. Perfect timing.

But, alas, there are other times....

This is for those other times.

When it didn't take near as long as you thought it would.
When the assembly sent you back to class for just a few more minutes before changing to the next period.
 What's a teacher to do with a few extra minutes?!

 1. Line up with math problems. Each of my students has a student number. When we have a few extra minutes in class, instead of telling them all to line up at once, I call out math problems. They line up if their student number is the answer to the math problem.

 2. Let them write on the board. Students ADORE writing on the board. Ask them to write a quick fun fact about themselves. They get to write on the board and you get to learn something interesting about them. You might be surprised what you'll learn. You might be surprised that the shy child is almost a black belt in karate. You might be surprised that the one that is struggling in math is an excellent artist. I love learning new facts about my students! (And feel free to share something about yourself as well!)

3.  Two Truths and a Lie.  Have students write down two correctly solved math problems and one that is solved incorrectly. They are to move around the room and have others guess which one is wrong and how to fix it.

4.  List As Many As You Can.  If you are talking about equivalent fractions, tell the students they have three minutes to list as many equivalent fractions to 1/3 as they can.  They love the competition and want to be the one with the most!  This works for many different topics.

5.  Human Tic Tac Toe.  Divide students into two teams.  Place nine chairs at the front of the room.  Ask them quick questions about a topic.  If correct, the team sends a team member to sit in one of the nine chairs, trying to get 3 in a row just like tic tac toe.

A Bible Study for Teachers: Dare to Be A Daniel

If we don’t learn to say no in the small things, we won’t be able to say no in the big things...

First Things First:  Pray for God to reveal ways you can make daily small choices of righteousness as you read Daniel 1.

Going Deeper: 

Do seemingly small choices really matter?  In the grand scheme of things, does it matter if you just watch ONE episode of that ungodly TV show, just ONE time of gossiping with teachers about a student… I mean, it’s just ONCE right?

If you grew up in church, the story of Daniel and the lions den is your first encounter with him.  And it is remarkable, certainly.   But there is so much more we can learn from Daniel.  He was thrown into a wild, pagan world, yet it never permeated his heart.  The Babylonian king was pretty smart---he had taken teenagers, placed them in a palace that screamed to them from every angle to give up on God, embrace the culture, taste success by following the Babylonian way.  Most teens would easily succumb to that kind of peer pressure lifestyle.

 

But not Daniel.  He was in a divinely appointed place for proclaiming God to an unbelieving nation.  Daniel made a seemingly small choice.  He resolved to not eat from the king’s table.  It seems rather insignificant…does it really matter about a meal?

 

But the issue was bigger than vegetables vs. steak.  Daniel knew if he didn’t exercise restraint, the king’s tactic would be successful and he would slowly assimilate into this pagan culture.  So daily, in the quiet moments of eating, while others feasted on the king’s food, Daniel remembered the Greater King to Whom he belonged and to where his true citizenship lies.

 

He made daily, small choices of righteousness.  Choices that in their quietness trumpeted to this pagan world that he did not belong there.  Daniel didn’t proclaim God loudly, nor did he bellow his beliefs up and down the main square.  He resolved in his own heart to follow God, ignore even the smallest hints of assimilating with the culture, and ultimately, did not become a lion’s dinner because of his unrelenting faithfulness.

 

So, yes, those “small choices” matter.  That one TV show matters.  That one gossiping moment matters.   Daniel wouldn’t have been able to hold his distinctive stand if he hadn’t made those conscious, daily, right choices.  If we don’t learn to say no in the small things, we won’t be able to say no in the big things. 

 

Take a look at your “small choices.”  The ones where you tend to say, “Ahhh, it’s all right….Just this once.”

 

Resolve to be a Daniel.  With every “no,’ you say to the culture that you don’t belong here.  With every “no”, you tell them where your citizenship lies.  With every “no,” you are farther from assimilating into the culture and farther into communion with your Father. 

 

And, just like Daniel, you’ll escape the lions.  Because we know our enemy prowls like a roaring lion seeking whom He may devour.  He’s trying to devour you by telling you these small things don’t matter.  But, oh yes, they do.  

Let’s all  resolve to be a Daniel today.

Classroom Connections and Life Applications:

1.     What has God revealed to you are the “small choices” you are making that are displeasing to Him?

2.      What is a “small choice” you are making at school where you are saying ‘yes’ but you should be saying ‘no’ as Daniel would have done?  (Example:  gossiping about a student, ignoring someone who needs help because they haven’t been listening to your lesson, etc)

3.      How do small choices of righteousness lead to making big choices of righteousness?