Goal: To engage our children in the sermon. We want to encourage an open dialogue with our children about the Sunday sermon.
What does it mean to love God “with all of your strength”? Today, we explore the Hebrew word, Me’od, underneath this phrase. And spoiler alert: “strength” is only one of many ways this rich word could be translated!
“Me’od.” Interestingly, this is the only place in the Bible “Me’od” is translated as strength. Everywhere else, it means “very” or “much.” It’s an adverb that intensifies the meanings of other words. While it may sound funny, to love God with all your strength “Me’od” is to love him with all your “Muchness.” It means to love God with everything you have, devoting every possibility, opportunity, and capacity to honor God and to love your neighbor as yourself.
Materials for today’s lesson: (Don’t give these to your children until the very end of the lesson.)
Watch
Read & Discuss
Deuteronomy 6: 4-9 Read here
We want to focus on loving God with all your strength. As we learn more about the Hebrew text, we find out that God means more than just our strength. The word used for strength is Me’od and it means Very.
This word Me’od, which means Very is used to intensify other words. It modifies them by increasing their meaning. God chooses this word to describe how he wants us to love him, that is, with ever increasing intensity.
- If God want us to love him with all our very, then how do we do that?
- If very means things like Strength, Wealth, Mind and Power, then how can God expect kids to do this. You guys don’t really have these qualities as much as adults do. Are you guys really expected to do this?
- What do you think God values most from us? Our strength, our wealth, our mind or our power?
Douglas makes a good point.
- If Jesus is going to live inside us, then we have to grow, we need to give our time to him so that he can help us grow. We need to listen to him. How do we listen to him?
- The Hebrew children had the Shema memorized because they talked about it with their parents a lot. We’ve been studying this scripture for over a month. Can you remember all the ways God wants us to love him? There’s three ways.