Published 9/27/19
By Greg Johnson
What If...
It’s Sunday morning and you’re getting ready for church and Sunday school. Though you haven’t always absolutely loved going to both, it’s what our family does.
Getting out of the car, you know exactly where to go. It’s been quite a while since Mom or Dad has had to take you to class.
Once inside, you see a few of your friends sitting next to each other, so you sit with them. Everyone starts talking about what they did the day before. One went to a water park, another saw a movie, another went to visit relatives. The teacher starts class right on time.
You’ve had this teacher for quite a while. He’s stuck with your age group because he has a daughter in the class. Most of the time he makes class interesting, but then there are some Sundays...
This week, he’s talking about Joshua and the battle of Jericho. You’ve heard the story a million times, but he’s making it pretty interesting. You can tell he’s done some homework on all of the particulars of the battle.
“Can you imagine what the people inside the city must have thought?” he says. “There were likely over 300,000 men marching around the city for six straight days. They didn’t attack, they just marched. How would you have felt if you had been inside the city watching this happen?”
Everyone just sits there until one guy speaks up. “I’d feel pretty safe, actually. Weren’t the walls real thick?”
“Very thick,” the teacher says. “How would you have felt if you were one of the soldiers? You had to mark around this huge city for six, then seven straight days. You weren’t sure how you were going to win; all you had was the order of one guy, Joshua.”
Again, not much response.
“Who knows,” he continues, “if an earthquake hadn’t brought down the walls, they might still be marching around.”
That statement perks a few people up. You raise your hand. “Didn’t God supernaturally bring down the walls after the big yell?”
“No, not really,” he says. “You see, scientists have created an instrument that can identify where and when earthquakes occur. They can even measure an earthquake’s magnitude. They have pinpointed that, during this time in the region of Jericho, there was an earthquake measuring 6.7 on the Richter scale. This would have been more than strong enough to bring down those walls.”
You look around the room to see if the other kids really heard what you heard.
“In fact,” he says, “though not all of the so-called miracles of the Old Testament can yet be explained, most have been found to be simply the results of nature.”
Questions to Think On
• If your teacher was saying things like this—that miracles weren’t really acts of God, but simply coincidences of nature—what would you think?
• How do you normally respond when you disagree with an adult?
• What could you have said to disagree with this teacher without being disrespectful or making him look bad?
• Mom and Dad: When your children disagree with an adult, how would you want them to respond?
What Does God Have to Say?
Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every authority instituted among men: whether to the king, as the supreme authority, or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right.
When the queen of Sheba heard of Solomon’s fame, she came to Jerusalem to test him with hard questions. Arriving with a very great caravan—with camels carrying spices, large quantities of gold, and precious stones—she came to Solomon and talked with him about all she had on her mind. Solomon answered all her questions; nothing was too hard for him to explain to her.
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