Elementary Level, Block 3—Jacob and Joseph
Week 24
Joseph—The Shepherd (Revised on 2/17/2021)
Point to Emphasize: We can be those who care and love everyone, even when we are not liked by them.
Reference Reading: Genesis 37
Memory Verse: A friend loves at all times… (Proverbs 17:17a)
Story Sample
The last three stories we heard were about Jacob. Last week we learned that God changed Jacob’s name to Israel. Today, we will hear about the sons of Israel. He had twelve sons. Can you imagine being in a family with so many siblings? I come from a family of four and I just can’t imagine a family with twelve siblings! If I ask, so how is it growing up in the ___ [storyteller, insert a child’s last name] household, I’m sure you will have many stories to tell. But let me tell you that this family of twelve brothers is like no other. The stories of these twelve brothers are SO incredible! Undoubtedly, the stories in the Bible are the best!
Just like Abel, these twelve brothers were all shepherds. They shepherded their father’s flock. Joseph was one of Israel’s sons. He was the second youngest brother. Out of all the twelve brothers, we should all want to be like Joseph and I will tell you why. Joseph was only seventeen years old and he was also a shepherd. Joseph’s brothers cared for and fed their father’s flock, but Joseph was different. He cared for the flock, but he also cared for others. Joseph cared for his brothers.
Joseph was his father’s beloved. His father loved him so much that he gave him a coat of many colors. When his brothers saw how much their father loved Joseph, they did not like him and could not speak kind to him. Nevertheless, Joseph loved and cared for his brothers. When Joseph had two dreams, he told the dreams to his father and to his brothers. In the first dream, Joseph saw his brothers as bundles of grain bowing down to him. In the other dream, he saw them as the sun, the moon and the stars all bowing down to him. Can you believe it? In both dreams his father, his mother and his brothers were all bowing down to Joseph. Oh, this made his brothers SO jealous of him. But even when his brothers were jealous of him, Joseph never looked down on them. Joseph never criticized, nor found fault in his brothers. Joseph was a shepherd to his brothers; he cared for them and even appreciated them.
Growing up there was a girl in my classroom that was different from all of us. She came from another city to study at our school. She had the best backpack and the prettiest shoes. She had the best pencils and the newest toys. Even more, she was our teacher’s daughter and I believe she was the teacher’s beloved. The teacher would treat her very differently from the rest of the classmates. I remember that my classmates were very jealous of her and never wanted to play with her. Every day I would look at her and then look at my classmates and I knew I had to be different. So, I cared for her in the same way I cared for my other classmates. [Storyteller, insert your own story.]
We all can be like Joseph! We can be those who care for and love everyone, even when we are not liked by them. Let’s show we care about all the ones around us. We can show we care to our siblings, to our parents, to our cousins, to our uncles and aunts and to our grandparents. We can even show we care to our neighbors and our classmates. Let’s be like Joseph!