What is an Object Lesson?

An object lesson is the use of objects – insects, fruits, vegetables, animals, coins, thermometers, tools, weapons – to teach intellectual and spiritual truths. More than just a visual, an object lesson draws a truth from something you are showing or doing. Real objects, places and happenings can make learning come alive for children, youth, and adults.

The Bible Is Full of Object Lessons
The potter’s house, the fig tree and sheep were used by God to teach his people truths in ways they could understand, remember, and share with others. Lessons can be found not only the things of nature, but in the sacrificial service and observances of the Bible. The Scriptures themselves were given to reveal God. All of nature reveals the thought of God, but we often fail to see him through his creation. (Romans 1:20)

Jesus’ Use of Object Lessons
Jesus often used the objects at hand around him to teach people about God and His Kingdom. When he was by a well, He used water. After He fed 5000 people, He taught them about the bread of life. When He was on a fishing boat, He said the Kingdom was like a fishing net. He told his listeners to consider the lilies, the sparrows, and the hairs on their head. Jesus referred to a fig tree, a mustard tree, yeast, salt, a vineyard, money and other things from everyday life to reveal spiritual truth. When He spoke of a vineyard, He was probably by a vineyard. When He said, “consider the sparrows,” there were probably sparrows flying around.

In Christ’s teaching, the unknown was illustrated by the known; divine truths by earthly things, the spiritual by the natural, the difficult by the simple. He used the things with which the people were most familiar, the things of the earth to teach them the things that were unfamiliar, the things of heaven. Object lessons speak to the eyes and other senses so that they are received into the heart. In fact the more senses that are involved, the greater the learning that takes place. Christ’s teaching using object lessons was targeted at adults, not children, but everyone can learn truths from a simple lesson involving the senses.

MORE IDEAS? See “Creative Object Lessons”
200 page e-book that explains everything you need to know when planning your very own object lessons. It contains 90 fully developed object lesson ideas and another 200 object lesson starter ideas based on Biblical idioms and Names / Descriptions of God.
Learn More…

One key to effective teaching is concentration on one “big idea.”

Like a magnifying glass on a hot summer day, concentration turns ho-hum teaching into fiery hot teaching. It is the teacher’s job to select what is really important to teach and converge all of the teacher’s energy on that.

Too often the reason our students don’t get things is there was a lack of concentration on the part of the teacher. Focus down to ONE concept. Rewrite it if you need to… but focus on one truth for the lesson.

Too often teachers teach too little because they tried to teach too much.

“How often do we do this in Sunday School?” We scrape the Milky Way with all kinds of high-sounding truth about this and that and never get around to telling people how to read the Bible for themselves, how to be a good Christian, how to memorize scripture and how to know that we are forgiven for our sins.

It is fine to explore some of the intricacies of theology and biblical background and history and cultural issues. These are good to know, nice to know, interesting to know and helpful to know. But the key thing is, how do our pupils perform at game time? Are we making disciples who know how to relate to God, enjoy God, serve God, get along with others and advance the kingdom with the gifts God has given them?

I have been guilty at times of teaching too little because I try to teach too much. I am too interested at times in all kinds of detail related to the Bible that is nice to know, good to know, interesting to know, but not absolutely necessary to living the disciple’s life. I want to be a teacher whose teaching is fiery hot because of the concentration of the message around one single idea.

Select from each week’s Bible Study passage one idea that you want to drive home. Pound away on that one idea. Support it; explain it; give examples of it; discuss it. Draw illustrations of it. Mold it. Shape it. Cut it. Map it. Discuss it. Ultimately, lead your group to apply this one salient idea when they get on the playing field of life.

When one idea has been imprinted in their thoughts, its much easier for it to become ingrained in their actions and life.

MORE IDEAS? See “Creative Object Lessons”

200 page e-book that explains everything you need to know when planning your very own object lessons. It contains 90 fully developed object lesson ideas and another 200 object lesson starter ideas based on Biblical idioms and Names / Descriptions of God.

Learn More…