Before class
Nobody expects you to learn the table of kings on p. 68. Spend a few extra minutes with it anyway when you read pp. 64–69 the evening before, so you know where it is when a question comes. Big-Print Stretch 9 from the Companion is four Letter sheets: tape them into one strip on a wall at a height the children can reach. Keep a Bible open at 1 Kings 12, and bring a sheet of paper you can tear and a length of string.
Opening · 5 minutes
Without a word, tear a sheet of paper slowly in half in front of everyone. Then show the two pieces and ask, “Is this still one page, or is it two?” Let a few people answer. Then say something like this: “For eighty years God’s people had one king at a time, David and then his son Solomon. And then, one day, the kingdom tore like this paper, and it never went back together. Adams drew the exact place where it tore. Let’s go and find it.” Walk to the wall strip and put your finger on Goliath.
At the chart · 15 minutes
1Two blocks of forty years. Begin at Goliath and slide right along David’s pale block, then Solomon’s. Ask someone to count the thin red lines that cross each block: every red line is ten years (Key 1 · Dates ride the stream of time), so forty years spans four of them. Read Adams’ line aloud, David, 40. At Hebron 7½ Yrs. At Jerusalem 32½ Yrs., and let the class find the harpist in blue and the two pillars by the king. Tell them the names on the pillars, Boaz and Jachin, and what they mean (p. 66).
2The tear at 975. Now ask the class to find the place where a branch leaves Solomon’s block and climbs to the top of the page. When someone finds it, read the words along it: 10 Tribes revolt. 1 Kings 12. Then read 1 Kings 12:13–16 aloud from your Bible, ending with the people’s cry, “to your tents, O Israel.” Hold up your torn paper next to the branch. Give the rule its name, Key 4 · A stream that splits is a revolt, and point out that Adams numbers Rehoboam IV because he counts Judah’s kings from Saul (pp. 66, 68).
3Two rows, one at a time. From 975 on, read only one row at a time. Run your finger along the upper row and say “Israel”; then along the lower row and say “Judah.” Warn the class about the trap Adams’ readers fall into: both rows have an Ahaziah and a Jehoram in the same years, so always check which row a name sits in (p. 67). Ask them to find Athaliah’s block in Judah’s row, marked “Qu.” for queen, and the two shaded stretches in Israel’s row that Adams calls Interregnum and Anarchy, years with no king at all (pp. 68–69).
4Where the upper row goes. Follow Israel’s row to its last king, Hoshea, and let the class trace the brown line that turns at 721 and runs straight down the chart into the stream of Assyria. Read Adams’ words, Carried away by Shalmaneser into Assyria, never to return, and name Key 5 · A stream that ends in another is a conquest. Then lay your string along the thin line of David’s house just under the stream of time, from Solomon toward the right edge. It does not break. Read 2 Samuel 7:16 over it (p. 69).
Talk it over · 15 minutes
David and Solomon both reigned forty years. Why did the kingdom tear right after Solomon, and not during his reign?
Listen for: Listen for the reason in 1 Kings 11:11–13: God would rend the kingdom because Solomon had not kept his covenant, but not in his days, “for David thy father’s sake,” and he left one tribe to David’s line. If the class drifts toward Rehoboam’s rudeness alone, bring them back to these verses.
Israel’s throne passed from family to family, while Judah’s mostly passed from father to son. What does seeing the two rows side by side show you that a list of names would not?
Listen for: Good answers notice the words on the blocks, slain, Interregnum, Anarchy, against Judah’s line of sons and its reformers. Help them connect it to the promise of 2 Samuel 7:16, which the thin line under the stream of time keeps.
Count the prophets’ scrolls near the end of Israel’s row. If God sent so many, what does the fall in 721 tell us about him?
Listen for: Listen for both halves: God was patient and kept warning (2 Kings 17:13), and his warnings were real. If someone says God simply gave up on Israel, point back to how many scrolls Adams crowds in before 721.
To close
“And thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever.”2 Samuel 7:16 · KJV
Your promise to David held while every kingdom around it broke; thank you, Lord, and help us to trust your word longer than we trust our own plans.
With younger children (6–10)
The giant and the harp will catch their eye first, so begin there. Ask them to find Goliath, then the figure in blue with the big harp, then to count the two tall pillars beside the king. Tear your paper again and ask them to find where the stream tears on the chart; a sticky note at 975 helps. Finish with two paper strips, one for Israel and one for Judah, and let them bend the Israel strip down at 721 the way Adams drew it.