The first graders received their own bibles
today. It will follow them through
the grades. When they reach high school, they will receive another one. To make this moment memorable, considerable
care was taken to prepare the gift.
The bible was wrapped four times, each wrapping denoting a special significance. With children seated in a circle, each one was handed a
brown-wrapped present. Through
interactive dialog, the children understood the significance of the brown paper
wrapping. Brown stands for being
old or ancient. The bible is very
old. The words in it have guided
mankind for a very long time so that it is often called the ancient wisdom. The
group was then instructed to unwrap the first layer, the brown wrapping to
reveal a golden wrapping.
Children were asked what things are made of
gold? Jewelry was the first
guess. Gold stands for something
valuable. We value our very own
bible. The words in the bible are
valuable like gold. We treasure
our bible for a lifetime. The
class then unwrapped the gold wrapping to reveal the next layer, the comic page
from the newspaper.
The comic page entertains us with its stories. The bible has a lot of stories. There are stories about the beginning
of the earth, how ordinary people lived, suffered and met their
challenges. They were led out of
slavery in Egypt to the promised land with the parting of the Red Sea. This and
other stories can be found in the bible. There are stories about kings and
prophets and brave men and women who listened to God’s voice speaking to them
to do the right thing. The comic
page wrapping was unwrapped to reveal the white tissue wrapping.
White stands for God or Light or Purity. The bible wrapped in white means that the bible is a gift from
God. Reading the bible is our way
of finding out what God has in store for people. From time to time messengers from God come to be born among
us to remind us of God’s laws on how we should conduct our lives. We get to know more about what the
bible says as we study the special lesson for the week and work with the
materials prepared for the lesson.
The bible is really made up of several books, sixty
six books organized into the Old Testament and the New Testament. We can look at the chart of the books
of the bible. We can match each model
of each book to the chart every time we read from that particular book. We can also look at the timeline that
shows pictures of important events of the bible along with the names of the
books.
We have had lessons with the very first book, Genesis.
A child wanted to know what is the last book. The teacher allowed the child to pick
the last book from the scaled model of books and asked him to read its
name. With the help of classmates,
he came up with the Book of Revolution.
Correction here, it is the Book of Revelation. What does revelation mean? When you reveal something, what have you done? A child offered “discover.”
With the four layers of wrapping unwrapped, we
reveal the heart, the substance of what was wrapped, the bible. We also will learn that the same stories
and scriptural readings will reveal more and more meaning to us as we revisit
them every year.
Take care of your very own bible and treasure it
like gold, enjoy the stories and learn the word of God to guide you for the
bible is God’s gift to you.
