Opening Activity

• Recap the commandments so far.
• Pledges and promises: Have two volunteers act out a wedding ceremony with the vows.Discuss what it means to say such things, and how important it is to stick with your word.

Bible Story

• Today we are going to learn the 7th rule / commandment which is about keeping your promises. Let’s look at a story that will explain this more.
• Joseph must have been shocked when his brothers threw him in a pit and left him.Merchant men pulled him out and sold him to Potiphar in Egypt.
• Joseph was an excellent servant in Potiphar’s house. Potiphar was so impressed with Joseph’s ability that he put Joseph in charge of all his
  Servants.
• Potiphar’s wife liked Joseph and decided that she wanted to be alone with him in a way that would be unfaithful to her husband. One day, she tried to trick Joseph into being alone with her. But he refused. He said he couldn’t sin against God. His devotion to God and his commitment to doing right made her angry.
• And she wouldn’t give up. Every time Potiphar’s wife saw Joseph, she tried to make him break his obedience to God.
• One day she told Joseph he must do as she demanded. She grabbed hold of his robe, and he had to slip right out of his robe in order to get away from her.
• She then screamed so that it would look like Joseph had attacked her. When Potiphar heard about this, he was angry. He demanded that Joseph be thrown into prison.
• It was unfair for Joseph to go to jail for doing nothing wrong. Potiphar believed the lies of his wife. But as it turned out. Joseph was such a good prisoner, that the jailer noticed all his good qualities and put him in charge of the prisoners. Eventually,Joseph was freed from prison and became second in command in all of Egypt.
• From the story we see that photiphar’s wife did not respect her marriage.
• God made marriage special for two people. A man and a woman get married and have their own home and their own family. A marriage promise is a special promise to God and to your spouse to be united into one with them forever.
• Adultery is taking God’s special gift of marriage, being brought together as one heart, and choosing to not give your best love and time and energy to your spouse, or to even decide you don’t want to be married anymore.
• God always, always, always keeps his promises. (1 Corinthians 1:9). So we should too! When we keep our marriage promise, it shows the whole world that God is a promise keeper.
• Be a promise keeper, like God. Whatever you say you will do, DO IT! (Matthew 5:33-37). Clean your room when you’re told, go to a friend’s party when you say you will, play with your little brother when he asks.
• We will now move to the 8th commandment/rule. ‘’You shall not steal” Exodus 20:15
• What is stealing? (Allow for answers) Stealing is taking something that does not belong to you without permission and without paying for it. Now of course you know that stealing is wrong. That’s why God tells us not to do it.
• Let’s look at a story of someone who took what did not belong to him. Isaac was getting old and he wasn’t able to see anymore. He wanted to give his oldest and favorite son Esau his blessing before he died. This blessing was the special promise that God promised to his grandfather Abraham, and then to his father Isaac.
• Isaac loved the food that Esau hunted. So he told Esau to go hunt and prepare a special meal for him and then he would give him the blessing. Rebekah overheard Isaac talking to Esau and rushed to tell her favorite son Jacob. She said to Jacob, “Your father is about to give Esau his blessing and I want you to have it instead. You need to go get two of our goats and bring them to me, I will prepare them just the way Isaac likes it. Then you can take it to him and he will give you the blessing instead.”
  Jacob replied, “But mom, Esau is a hairy man. What if dad touches me and realizes that I’m tricking him?”
• His mother said to him, “Don’t worry you can wear Esau’s clothes and we’ll put the goat hair on your hands and neck so he’ll never know.”
  So they did just that and Jacob went to see his father pretending to be Esau.
• “Hello father,” Jacob said.
• “Hello, and who is this?” His father asked.
• “It is me, Esau. I have brought you the food you wanted so that you can give me my blessing.” Jacob lied.
• “Come closer so I can touch you and know that you are really my oldest son Esau, said his father.So Jacob went to Isaac and he felt his hands and said, “You sound just like Jacob but your hands are just like Esau. Are you really Esau?”
• And Jacob chose to lie again, “I am.”
• So Isaac ate and when he was finished he asked, “Come and kiss me.” When Jacob went to kiss him, Isaac smelled the clothes he was wearing just to make sure it smelled like Esau. Since Jacob was wearing Esau’s clothes his father believed that he was with Esau and he gave the blessing to Jacob.
• Just as Jacob finished getting the blessing he thought he heard Esau coming so he quickly snuck out the back of the tent. Just as he was walking away Esau entered the tent with the food he had prepared for his father.
• His father asked, “Who are you?”
• “It’s me, your son Esau. I’m here to get my blessing,” said Esau confused.
• “I just gave you your blessing.” And Isaac started to realize he had been tricked just like he thought. Esau started crying and yelling, “Bless me too father!”
• “There is no blessing left,” said his father sadly.
• Esau was very upset with his brother Jacob for what he had done, so Jacob had to run away so he would be safe.
• From the story we see that when we steal we hurt and make others sad.
• Give me some examples of stealing? (Allow the children to answer) You can steal time? Think about when you are supposed to be doing your homework. If you mess around, complain, and play instead, you are stealing time from your family.
• You can also steal someone’s reputation. Your reputation is what people think of you. When you gossip, saying mean or untrue things about someone, it hurts the way others may think about them. It steals away the good thoughts others have about them.
• You can also steal ideas. For example during exams when you copy the answers from your friends
• Do you know you can also steal from God? In Malachi 3:8 it says we rob God when we do not give him our tithes and offerings like he tells us to.
• Ephesians 4:28 says, “If you are a thief, quit stealing. Instead, use your hands for good hard work, and then give generously to others in need.” From this verse, we learn that working hard and giving generously is so much better than stealing! When you are focused on sharing and giving and working hard, you won’t even be tempted to dishonor God by stealing.

Questions

1. Which commandment did photiphar’s wife break?
2. Up to this point, Joseph is a teenager. His mother is dead, his brothers almost killed him, his father thinks he is dead. What would have been wrong if Joseph gave into the temptations of Potiphar’s wife?
3. Did Joseph break any commandments?
4. Would you hire Joseph to work for you? Why or why not?
5. Why does God want us to keep promises?
   How does it help us when we keep our promises to God?
6. Is it ever right to break a promise?
7. Why is it wrong to steal?
8. Why did Jacob steal his brother’s blessing?
9. Whose idea was it for Jacob to steal the blessing?
10. What did he have to do to get it?
11. How many commandments did he break in stealing his brother’s blessing