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Today’s hero is Jonathan because he shows us the gift of Codes
Essential Teachers notes:
Kids love puzzles, they love secrets, and they love tricking people… the stories of Jonathan and his sister Michael tricking their father to safeguard David will resonate with a child’s sense of both mischief and justice. As this story doesn’t involve many people it’s written so that it can be acted out. While this story doesn’t directly refer to Michal and her idol switching trick do feel free to add it in if it helps. Please note : Jonathan is a character of much controversy and this lesson has been careful to avoid that.
Main Passage : 1 Samuel 20
Additional passages : 1 Samuel 18 & 19
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Olleh! That’s hello backwards, did you recognise that? I wonder why someone may want to disguise what they are saying? Today’s hero disguised his message, if you listen carefully you’ll see why.
Israel had a king called Saul (chose someone to be Saul and place them on a seat with a crown)
Saul had made mistakes, everybody makes mistakes sometimes, but this was a big mistake and God was no longer helping him
God had chosen a new king, a new secret king, and his name was David ( choose someone to be David)
God was with David and David loved spending time with God. It made David special.
David didn’t have special parents, or come from a special place, he was ordinary until God chose him to be king.
but once that happened amazing things started happening to David… perhaps you know some of them?
David wasn’t king yet, David wouldn’t be king until Saul died, so David served Saul.
David was loyal & David was brave & David did everything Saul asked him to do.
And because God was with David everything he did was great, amazing, spectacular even.
Everybody loved David, they would cheer that Saul had won a thousand battles and David had won ten thousand battles.
They made David sound better than Saul… And Saul didn’t like that. (can our Saul look grumpy?)
Saul had kids. lots of kids, some were all grown up.
Saul’s son Jonathan was best friend’s was David. (find someone to be Jonathan)
Jonathan noticed that David wasn’t around as much as before so he asked David why
David told him that Saul was angry with him
that Saul may even want to kill him
Jonathan wasn’t sure so they decided to make a test… But they didn’t want to put David in danger
There was a big event coming up, everyone would be there, there would be a seat set for Jonathan and a seat for David, nobody would sit in their seats if they didn’t go. Jonathan would go and David would stay hidden. Jonathan would wait for Saul to notice and then say that he gave permission for David to miss the event so he could visit his family. It was a good excuse, Saul should not be angry. After the event Jonathan would return to the field to practice with his bow and arrows. If Saul was happy he would tell his servant ‘Look, the arrows are on this side of you; bring them here’, but if Saul was angry he would tell his servant ‘Look, the arrows are beyond you’.
So David hid and waited
Jonathan went to the celebration and waited
On the second night Saul asked where David was and Jonathan told him the story he had prepared…..
And Saul went crazy….
really crazy,
he shouted and screamed at Jonathan,
he even threw his spear at Jonathan,
he screamed to his soldiers to ‘bring David to him, for he must die’
Jonathan left the event
He waited until the morning then took his servant to go shoot
Go collect the arrows he told his servant, and as the servant walked away he shouted ‘ Look, the arrows are beyond you’.
The servant didn’t know it was a secret message, all he knew was that when he returned with the arrows Jonathan sent him back to town alone. The servant didn’t see David come out from behind the rock, he didn’t see Jonathan crying or David crying, or where David went when he left.
Today’s hero is Jonathan because he shows us the gift of Codes
