Sunday School Lesson on Deborah the Judge Activity

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Sunday School Lesson on Deborah the Judge Activity

Into the Lesson

Display an outline of a person (on roll paper orposter board) as your class assembles. Have thefollowing heading over the drawing: "The IdealLeader." As students arrive, hand them a markerand say, "Go up to the drawing and write in acharacteristic you think is important in the idealleader." (Make sure the marker won't bleedthrough the paper and damage the wall.)

As class begins, point to the list and ask, "Arethere other qualities you want to add, now thatyou have had more time to think?" Then intro-duce Deborah as a judge of Old Testament Israel.

Into the Word

Before class recruit a volunteer to be inter-viewed as the Israelite judge Deborah. Encourageyour volunteer to be well studied on the time pe-riod of the judges generally and on the life and.work of Deborah specifically. Provide your vol-unteer a copy of the lesson writer's commentaryand the questions that you (or a class member)are going to ask. Be sure to allow some spontane-ity from your class aud from your interviewee.Interview questions are provided Isere, but youmay choose to write your own questions tomatch your class's level of biblical maturity. Ofcourse some answers may be speculative; be sureyour students understand that. You should dis-cuss the reasonableness of answers that are notdirectly revealed in Scripture. Related versenumbers from today's text its Judges 4 are givenafter each question.

(1) "Deborah, what did your husband thinkabout your work on behalf of God's people?" (v.4); (2) "What was the nature of your prophesy-ing? How did you receive the Spirit's Word?" (v.4); (3) "Why was your work done under a tree bythe side of the road?" (v. 5); (4) "What sort of cases did you handle?" (v. 5); (5) "How did youknow of Barak, who lived so far away?" (v. 6); (6)"What would Barak have known of the Canaaniteoppressors?" (v. 8); (7) "How could Barak raise anarmy of 10,000 men from only two tribalgroups?" (v. 7); (8) "Where exactly is this KishonRiver, and why would God want the battle tolake place there?" (v. 7); (9) "Why do you thinkBarak refused to go to war without you?" (vv. 8-10); (10) "Why did you caution Barak that thehonor of victory would come to a woman andnot to him?" (vv. 8-10); (11) What is significantabout the fact that your army was to face 900iron chariots? Didn't your 10,000 men seem to bethe stronger army?" (vv. 12, 13); (12) When youassumed command of Barak's army and gave thecommand to charge, how did Barak respond?" (v.14); (13) "From Mount Tabor you had a goodview of the battle. Exactly what happened?" (vv.15, 16 and Judges 5:18-22); (14) "Your poem ofvictory that we have recorded in Judges 5 is abeautiful expression. How do you account forsuch a response to the defeat of God's enemies?"As your "Deborah" responds, stop to discusskey elements of the text. Allow students to inter-act with her assumptions and conclusions.

Into Life

Give each student an index card. Display a listof the primary leaders of your congregation: min-isters, elders, deacons, and others. Pair up eachstudent with a leader's name. If your class is notlarge enough to cover pairing up all the names,ask for volunteers to take two or more names. Ifthere are more class members than leaders, havemore than one student responsible for eachleader.

Have students make the following commitment: on one side of their cards, write out a planfor how they will offer prayer support for theirchosen leader. On the other side of their cards,write a commitment to visiting with their chosenleader. This visitation may be at the leader'shome, by going out for coffee, etc. By participat-ing in this activity, students will have an oppor-tunity to express appreciation for their leadersand enjoy being in their presence. This will re-flect Barak's appreciation and reliance on Debo-rah's leadership.

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