Adventurers with Jesus: July- September 2021

By R.H. Boyd Publishing Corporation

Adventurers with Jesus (Ages 9-11) is an age-appropriate Christian quarterly lesson guide. Lesson presentations are easily taught and understood and show students how to find salvation through Jesus Christ.

• Language: English
• Publisher: R.H. Boyd Publishing Corporation
• Release date: Jun 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781681678375

Book preview

Lesson #1

July 4, 2021

I’m Grateful

Lesson Passage:

Leviticus 13:45–46; Luke 17:11–19

NRSV

The person who has the leprous disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head be disheveled; and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, Unclean, unclean.

46 He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease; he is unclean. He shall live alone; his dwelling shall be outside the camp.

• • • • • •

11 On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee.

12 As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance,

13 they called out, saying, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!

14 When he saw them, he said to them, Go and show yourselves to the priests. And as they went, they were made clean.

15 Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice.

16 He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan.

17 Then Jesus asked, "Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they?

18 Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?"

19 Then he said to him, Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.

Today’s Lesson Story

For some people, saying Thank you is hard. Do you show genuine appreciation when someone does something for you? In today’s lesson, Jesus healed ten sick people who had leprosy, but only one of the ten came back to thank Him.

In biblical times, someone with certain kinds of skin problems would be sent immediately to the priest for a thorough examination. If the sores met certain criteria, the priest would call the sickness a defiling skin disease, one of which might be leprosy. Leprosy is a highly contagious disease (one that is easily transmitted from person to person) that causes discolored marks and lumps on the skin. If leprosy gets really bad, disfiguration or deformity can occur, which could cause a person’s face to become totally unrecognizable because of the bumps and scars on the nose, cheeks, and forehead.

In biblical times, leprosy was common and very devastating for the person who contracted it. Those with leprosy suffered physically from the painful sores on their bodies, but they also suffered socially. If the priest determined that a person had leprosy, he would label that person unclean and send them off to a faraway region to live apart from the rest of society. A person with leprosy was called a leper and was ordered by the government to wear torn clothes, leave his hair uncombed, and cover the lower part of his face with a mask. If the leper saw a ‘clean’ person from afar, he was ordered to shout, from a distance, Unclean! so that the passerby would not catch the disease by getting too close. A leper could not live with their family; they could eat and sleep only with other lepers and as a result, would become an exile or outcast from the rest of the world. It is hard to imagine this kind of existence, but such it was for the lepers in today’s story.

One day, Jesus was traveling to Jerusalem, and while walking into a village, He saw ten lepers, standing in the distance. When the lepers saw Jesus, they recognized Him; but instead of shouting, Unclean, they cried out, Jesus, Master, have pity on us! When Jesus saw the lepers, He told them, Go, show yourselves to the priests, and sent them on their way. We might wonder what the lepers may have been thinking. They had already been to the priests and been determined unclean, so why would Jesus send them again to hear the same horrible diagnosis spoken over them? Maybe Jesus was testing the lepers’ faith. The Scripture says that as they went on their way, they were cleansed of their disease.

The Bible does not tell us how happy the lepers must have felt as they walked and all their lumps and sores disappeared. Jesus had healed them! Now, all they had to do was let the priests see that they were no longer sick, and they could go back to their families and live a normal life.

Today’s lesson is not about how horrible it was to be a leper. It is about how wonderful it had to have been to be healed. Yet, how many were grateful enough to thank Jesus for what He had done? Only one of the ten came back to praise Jesus for healing! This one leper threw himself at Jesus’ feet in an act of worship and thanked Him. We don’t know what happened to the other nine, but we know that their actions saddened Jesus. It was significant that the one that offered thanks was a Samaritan, whom the Jews hated. Jesus told the Samaritan, Rise and go; your faith has made you well.

Think About It!

How did Jesus feel when only one leper came back to thank Him? What is the significance of the one leper being a non-Jewish Samaritan? The one thankful leper acknowledged how miraculous and loving Jesus’ act of healing had been, while the others seemed not to care. The attitude of the nine lepers is representative of many Jews of the day. They were more than willing to receive blessings from Jesus, but they were not so willing to acknowledge Him as the Son of God or Messiah. While many Samaritans believed and responded to Jesus’ message, many Jews did not, and that made Jesus