Week 295 · about 45 minutes
1 Samuel 20
1 Samuel 20 · Memory verse 1 Samuel 20:7
Get the free weekly Sunday school and bedtime printable pack
For a parent or teacher. Children do not make accounts here. The pack is a week of printables, not a child profile.
Queues the lesson plan, this story’s coloring page (1 Samuel 20), the matching word search and answer key (1 Samuel 20 word search), the memory-verse tracer, and a parent slip.
Five-minute object lesson
Prop: a piece of bread
Hold a piece of bread. Read 1 Samuel 20 in about four minutes, stopping at 1 Samuel 20:7: “If he says, ‘It is well;’ your servant shall have peace: but if he is angry, then know that evil is determined by him.” Ask, “What does this prop have to do with 1 Samuel 20?” Let two children answer, then say the memory verse together.
Story script
1 Samuel 20 is a real chapter from the Old Testament. It starts, “David fled from Naioth in Ramah, and came and said before Jonathan, “What have I done? What is my iniquity? What is my sin before your father, that he seeks my life?”” That is not a motto invented for a poster. It is the first sentence a family hears when this page is opened at night.
Keep going a little further. The chapter also says, “But if I say this to the boy, ‘Behold, the arrows are beyond you;’ then go your way; for Yahweh has sent you away.” 1 Samuel 20 opens with these words: “David fled from Naioth in Ramah, and came and said before Jonathan, “What have I done? What is my iniquity? What is my sin before your…” The line to keep is 1 Samuel 20:7: “If he says, ‘It is well;’ your servant shall have peace: but if he is angry, then know that evil is determined by him.” Carry the word “well” from that verse into the rest of the day.
The line worth learning out loud is 1 Samuel 20:7: “If he says, ‘It is well;’ your servant shall have peace: but if he is angry, then know that evil is determined by him.” If the rest of the chapter feels crowded, hold that one sentence until the room is quiet.
What happens first in 1 Samuel 20? Then try this: Read “If he says, ‘It is well;’ your servant shall have peace: but if he is angry, then know that evil is…” once more. What does it show you about God? You do not have to finish every verse. You can close the book after the memory verse and still have read the Bible together.
Group game
Walk the room as if you are moving through 1 Samuel 20. Every time you freeze, a child says one word from 1 Samuel 20:7. The last child says the whole verse.
Craft
On a US Letter sheet, draw one picture from 1 Samuel 20 and write 1 Samuel 20:7 under it. Send it home as tonight’s reminder, not as a decoration contest.
Memory verse
1 Samuel 20:7
“If he says, ‘It is well;’ your servant shall have peace: but if he is angry, then know that evil is determined by him.”
Take-home prayer
Father, thank you for 1 Samuel 20. Help us remember 1 Samuel 20:7 when we wake up, and teach us to notice you in an ordinary night. Amen.