Week 305 · about 45 minutes
1 Samuel 30
1 Samuel 30 · Memory verse 1 Samuel 30:17
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Queues the lesson plan, this story’s coloring page (1 Samuel 30), the matching word search and answer key (1 Samuel 30 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 30 in about four minutes, stopping at 1 Samuel 30:17: “David struck them from the twilight even to the evening of the next day. Not a man of them escaped from there, except four hundred young men, who rode on camels and fled.” Ask, “What does this prop have to do with 1 Samuel 30?” Let two children answer, then say the memory verse together.
Story script
1 Samuel 30 is a real chapter from the Old Testament. It starts, “When David and his men had come to Ziklag on the third day, the Amalekites had made a raid on the South, and on Ziklag, and had struck Ziklag, and burned it with fire,” 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, “When he had brought him down, behold, they were spread around over all the ground, eating, drinking, and dancing, because of all the great plunder that they had taken out of the land of the Philistines, and out of the land of Judah.” 1 Samuel 30 opens with these words: “When David and his men had come to Ziklag on the third day, the Amalekites had made a raid on the South, and on Ziklag, and had struck…” The line to keep is 1 Samuel 30:17: “David struck them from the twilight even to the evening of the next day. Not a man of them escaped from there, except four hundred young men, who rode on…” Carry the word “david” from that verse into the rest of the day.
The line worth learning out loud is 1 Samuel 30:17: “David struck them from the twilight even to the evening of the next day. Not a man of them escaped from there, except four hundred young men, who rode on camels and fled.” If the rest of the chapter feels crowded, hold that one sentence until the room is quiet.
What happens first in 1 Samuel 30? Then try this: Read “David struck them from the twilight even to the evening of the next day. Not a man of them escaped from…” 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 30. Every time you freeze, a child says one word from 1 Samuel 30:17. The last child says the whole verse.
Craft
On a US Letter sheet, draw one picture from 1 Samuel 30 and write 1 Samuel 30:17 under it. Send it home as tonight’s reminder, not as a decoration contest.
Memory verse
1 Samuel 30:17
“David struck them from the twilight even to the evening of the next day. Not a man of them escaped from there, except four hundred young men, who rode on camels and fled.”
Take-home prayer
Father, thank you for 1 Samuel 30. Help us remember 1 Samuel 30:17 when we wake up, and teach us to notice you in an ordinary night. Amen.