Idols, Plagues, and God's Word

I had a stack of self-made posters in my hand, ten to be exact, each depicting the name and picture of an Egyptian god or goddess. The 6th grade class had been reading about some of the Mythology of Ancient Egypt, and the names were overwhelming, so I told them we'd highlight just ten of them. As I held up each poster and had the class repeat the names after me, they also filled in a pyramid chart that was very carefully labeled 1 - 10. It was after the fourth one that MS at the back threw down his pencil, crossed his arms, and asked "Why do we have to learn this? They're not real anyway; they're just idols." I had to bite back a smile as I promised him it would be okay, and we had to finish.

When their notes were complete, I hung the posters on the board and pulled out my Bible. JO's eyebrows shot up, but being the model student that he is, he pulled his Bible out, too. Turning to Exodus, I asked if the class knew how many plagues God sent on Egypt via Moses. A couple hands went up with the correct answer: "Ten." I asked if anyone knew the first plague. A couple more volunteered the answer: "Turning the Nile into blood."

Excited, I nodded and then, pointing at the gods on the board, asked which god or goddess that particular plague may have been targeting. Confused at first, they looked at my quizzically. "Who is the god of the Nile?" "Hapi," one student offered. "Right!" I shouted so loudly, I probably scared a couple of them. "Hapi. So let's turn Hapi around because I think God owned him with that plague." Next I read the second plague to them, the frog infestation. DW smiled broadly. "Frogs? That one god you showed us - Geb - has a frog face." "Indeed he does," I said and proceeded to turn Geb around.

In one instance, 15 students caught on to what I was doing, and 15 hands (including skeptical MS') shot up, and voices were climbing over each other. "Do the 10 plagues go with the 10 gods?" "Is the darkness plague against Ra?" "How did God do that?!" "Is this true?" It was that moment teachers dream of, and we had so much fun going through the rest of the plagues until all the Egyptian gods had been defeated and were no longer staring out at the class.

But my absolute favorite second of the whole morning was seeing IB, the normally quiet and seemingly non-interested student, pull out his Bible partway through the process and ask, "What book of the Bible is this in?" My heart sang. If one student learns to love his Bible just a fraction more than he did before, God's name be praised!

 Gotta love enthusiastic 6th graders

 Turning Geb around.

That's IB's hand up right there with his Bible open! :-)