In the Verse Kit Box:
Review:
Lesson:
Introduce the verse by reading through the whole verse, including the small print part. Depending on the child, determine whether or not they should learn just the large print.
For older students:
Anytime a verse starts with the word “Therefore,” you need to look at what came before in order to understand the WHY behind what is about to be said. (Therefore means “because of this.”) Hebrews 11 is called the Hall of Faith for a reason. It lists Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sara, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Rahab, Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthea, David, Samuel, and others who did things “by faith.” Because they lived by faith (therefore) since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders…
This word “hinders” is the Greek word ongkos which means BULK. It’s not sin, but it’s unnecessary weight. In other words, let us throw off all the unnecessary things that keep us from “the race” God has called us to. There is so much imagery here! Just as a runner throws off one layer at a time, without piddling around, we should just as quickly remove things from our life that keep us from moving forward.
For Younger kids (and older kids too!):
Perseverance in King James means patience. Even this word (patience) is hard for young ones to understand. A sing-song rhyme that has always worked for me with little ones is the following. It has a natural rhythm to it. If you repeat the “verse” part about 3 times, they’ll have it!
Have your student read through the section they will memorize twice.
Do the review (above).
Have the student read the section again. Then start breaking it down into smaller phrases for the student to repeat after you. (Let us run. With perseverance. The race. Marked out. For us.) Once they can repeat those smoothy, add phrases together a little at a time (Let us run with perseverance. The race marked out for us.) Once they can recite those, combine to make a complete sentence.
NOTE: children will struggle to say this verse because it has an adverbial prepositional phrase placed right after the verb (“with perseverance” modifies the verb “run”). This is rarely seen/heard in modern-day American English (largely due to quick communication methods, although some tend to call it our lazy language practices!) Usually, the sentence would read “Let us run the race marked out for us with perseverance.”
Kit:
To include the whole family in today’s verse, ask mom and dad if they have run any 5Ks. Consider looking into a local 5K and running together as a family. Run with perseverance!
Use your imagination to come up with as many fun uses for headbands as you can (slingshot, pirate’s eyepatch, etc).
Bible Literacy:
Help your student find Hebrews 12:1 in their Bible and read it. Then underline or highlight it.
