Human Relationships

Since there is a lot of content in the lesson, we can fellowship locally to see what to cover and what to leave out.
One suggested approach is to ask the children about their friends. In addition, we can ask them if they remember any stories in the Bible about people who are friends. Rather than telling the entire suggested Bible stories, we can interact with the children and ask them to tell whatever details they remember. For example: What did Daniel do with his friends?

September 27, 2026

Consider with your local serving ones how much detail to provide and what to leave out.
Ask the children the character traits of the friendship between Jonathan and David.

In order to help our children appreciate their education, it may be helpful to look up specific statistics of other countries where education opportunities are extremely limited due to war, poverty, religious bans, limited resources, few teachers and other reasons.
We updated the application about cheating to include more than just copying others’ homework. Nowadays, children may cheat by improperly using AI to do their homework.

The lesson on Samson is a warning to us. He disregarded his consecration to God and also the warning of his parents. Samson chose to befriend people from among God’s enemy, the Philistines.
We strongly encourage the serving ones to read the Scriptures upon which the lesson is based.
Since this lesson contains some graphic details, we can consider leaving out some details depending on the children we are teaching. For younger children, we can consider ending the story at the part where Samson loses his strength and at that point, losing his usefulness to God.
Samson’s friendships are a contrast to David and Jonathan’s positive friendship. Jonathan was even willing to give up his claim to the throne for David, and David even took care of Jonathan’s descendant Mephibosheth after Jonathan died.
We may have to explain to the children what is a Nazarite, and what the vow involves including not drinking alcohol and not cutting hair. We may also have to define morals or morality for the children.
We need to beware of friends who are persistently leading us the wrong way. For example, “Help me on this test, just one time.” “Let’s go to this place. Our parents won’t know.” Delilah’s negative influence and persistence led Samson to lose his God-given strength.

No new lesson due to regional conference with brother Ed Marks

In this lesson, we can help the children realize that they can be friends of God.

Ask the children what they know about government and authority.
The Bible tells us that “there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are ordained by God.” (Romans 13:1). So if we resist authority, we oppose God’s ordination and will receive judgement (Romans 13:2).
We need to teach the children to honor and respect authority.
There may be situations where the government or authority is doing something against God. In this case, we need to honor authority but not necessarily obey. We do not need to bring up this point unless the children inquire. If the children ask about whether they should follow authority that is doing something immoral or illegal, there are examples in the Bible of such situations: The midwives did not kill the Hebrew baby boys despite Pharoah’s decree (Exodus 1); Daniel and his three friends did not eat the king’s provision (Daniel 1); Daniel’s three companions did not bow down to the idols despite the king’s order (Daniel 3). However, they still honored authority while firmly standing on God’s side.
We also need to trust that God is able to remove authority that violates His laws. There are also many examples of this in the Bible.