It's a puzzle, the Bible is! That's the way it seems when we first venture into that big, thick book. This object lesson uses a jigsaw picture puzzle to encourage kids to keep their nose in God's word. Part of that encouragement is to keep showing up at your classes and midweek events. Over time, those pieces of the puzzle will come together to form a beautiful picture of the Lord.
Click the image to watch. Runtime: 2:47
You'll use one jigsaw puzzle in a box for the object lesson and, if you wish to do the Extra Fun activity mentioned below, you need one puzzle per small group. Each of those extra puzzles must be the same.
Good for Middle Elementary on up
Suggested Scriptures: Nicodemus in the Gospels: John 3:1-21; 7:50-52; 19:38-42. Initially Nicodemus was unsure of who Jesus was, but he wound up a committed believer.
Description: This object lesson uses a jigsaw puzzle to talk about how puzzling that big thick book we call the Bible can be for the kids we teach. It takes time and effort to put the pieces together. This object lesson serves to encourage new believers to begin a lifelong journey with God’s Word.
The Object Lesson: The message you want to give your audience as you shake the puzzle box and show a puzzle piece is this: "We want you here every week as we open up God's Word, the Bible. As you come to understand how all the events of the Bible, its wisdom and its truth fit together like pieces of a puzzle, you'll come to see the beautiful picture of who God is and how much He cares for each of us."
Activity Page: Nicodemus was Puzzled. This activity is really easy; kids look at cartoon puzzle pieces to determine what order to place them in to find the answer to this question: “Nic went from CONFUSED to…what?” The answer is commitment.
• Variation: Write the answer on the blank back of several real puzzle pieces. This way you can make an entirely different question/answer—make the challenge more or less difficult depending on your groups’ age-level. Plan to make one puzzle challenge for every two or three players to solve together.
Extra Fun: if you want the kids to remember this object lesson, gather your listeners into small groups of five kids or less and give each group a puzzle—the exact same puzzle for each group. At your signal to start, the groups race to see which can assemble a puzzle first. Puzzles of 100 pieces or less (depending on the age of your gang) don’t take too long to complete.
As always, we have a helpful PDF lesson plan to download, no sign up required. Click HERE.
