Before class
Ten minutes with Genesis 5:1–20 will make you a better teacher of this stretch: read it with pp. 24–27 and the spread open, pointing to each ribbon as its verse comes. Print Big-Print Stretch 2 (sheets A–D) and tape it up. If the wall allows, put Stretch 1 to its left, so the class sees the ribbons growing out of last week’s bands. You will need a length of yarn and some tape, and the table of ages on p. 26 open beside you.
Opening · 5 minutes
Say nothing yet. Let the yarn hang from your hand where everyone can see it, and then ask: “If one inch of this stood for one year, how long would a piece be for you? For your grandmother?” Let them guess. Then bring in Jared: 962 years would be 962 inches, about eighty feet, longer than this room. Turn to the wall and say: “Adams had the same problem. He wanted you to see how long these men lived, not just read a number, so he gave each one a ribbon. Today we are going to read those ribbons the way you would read a family album.”
At the chart · 15 minutes
1One ribbon, one life. Jared is the ribbon to read first: let someone find JARED on the sheets and read the number after his name (pin 4 on p. 24). Then find where his ribbon starts, “3544 B.C. 460 A.M.,” and walk a volunteer along it to the edge. Explain the pattern every ribbon follows: it begins where it branches from the father’s, with the year written twice, and the big name carries the length of the life. Read Genesis 5:18–20 aloud while the volunteer keeps a finger on Jared’s ribbon.
2Hooks without names. Point to the short colored hooks under a ribbon and ask who they could be. Read Adams’ label beside them, “And begat sons and daughters,” and then Genesis 5:4 (pin 5). Help the class see why one son gets a ribbon and the others get hooks: Genesis follows the son through whom the line runs, the line Luke will trace all the way to Jesus (Luke 3:36–38). Ask how many brothers and sisters Jared might have had. Nobody knows, and that is the point.
3Who was alive?. Now use the yarn. Hold it straight down from pillar 7 above the stream and let the class count the ribbons it crosses (p. 27). There are eight: Adam, Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch, and Methuselah, whose ribbon has only just begun. Lamech is not yet born. Name the tool they have just used, Key 6 · Same column, same moment. Then read the note along Adam’s ribbon, “and with JARED 470 yrs. and with ENOCH 308 yrs.,” and give them a moment with it.
4Two numbers on every pillar. End with the pillars (pin 8 on p. 25). Above the stream the figures 4, 5, 6 and 7 count hundreds of years from Creation; below it, 36, 35, 34 and 33 count hundreds of years before Christ. Ask a student to find the 5 and read the number standing under it on the same pillar. That is Key 1 · Dates ride the stream of time. Warn them about the trap at the right edge: CAINAN, ENOS, SETH and ADAM printed again are the same ribbons labeled twice, not new men.
Talk it over · 15 minutes
Genesis 5 closes almost every life with the words “and he died.” Why do you think Scripture repeats it, verse after verse?
Listen for: Listen for a link to Genesis 3:19 and the sentence spoken over Adam. If nobody finds it, read that verse and ask what word from the garden is being kept, one man at a time.
Adam shared 470 years with Jared. What would it mean to grow up while the first man was still alive?
Listen for: The answer you are hoping for is that God’s promise did not travel by rumor; it could be heard from Adam himself. Bring them back to the column just right of pillar 6 (p. 26).
Psalm 90 gives us “threescore years and ten.” Does living a long time make a person wise, or does something else?
Listen for: Some will say a long life gives you time to learn. Steer gently toward Psalm 90:12: wisdom comes from numbering our days before God, not from having a great many of them.
To close
“…then began men to call upon the name of the LORD.”Genesis 4:26 · KJV
Those first families called on your name and handed it down; help us, Lord, to hand it on to the children in this room.
With younger children (6–10)
Younger children love a ribbon race. Before class, cut paper strips to scale, one inch for every twenty years, so Jared’s comes out about four feet long and Mahalaleel’s a little shorter. Let the children hold their strips up to the wall sheets and find the matching ribbon. Keep the words simple: a long colored ribbon is one man’s life, and the little hooks under it are his children. Ask who lived the longest on these pages, then check it on the wall.