King David lesson for kids

After a couple weeks learning about David (David and Goliath, David and King Saul, we finally get to the King David lesson.  But, it’s not all fun and games for King David in this Sunday School lesson for kids. (Side note, it’s really hilarious what you come up with you search King David lesson for kids, all sorts of odd stuff pops up).

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Hi Future Ticia 2024 here, I’m updating the post, and adding in a few things here and there, a few new crafts, some new ideas, and generally changing things around.

King David lesson for kids: cost of disobedience

One of the first things David did as king was bring back the Ark of the Covenant.  But in his excitement to bring it back he did not find out HOW he was supposed to do that, and he put it on a cart, and things did not go well from there.

The cart started to slip and poor Uzzah tried to stop it falling, and he died because he touched the ark.  God clearly said no one is to touch the ark.  So we played a game with a balloon to get this point across.  They had to keep the balloon in the air, but they couldn’t touch it.  It was very very hard, and if they touched the balloon they died.  They quickly figured out this was a fool’s errand because it’s just not possible.

But once King David learned how to transport the ark, he saw great blessings.  Because of David’s great heart for God, he was given a promise, his future great-great-great grandson would be THE Messiah, and through HIM the world would be saved.  That’s a pretty impressive promise.

For my kids once they were given the “correct” way to play, with bandannas to hit the balloon up and keep them from touching the “ark,” the game became much more fun.  They didn’t really die, the balloon still hit the ground occasionally, but it was rare.  Suddenly the game was all smiles and fun.

There was one last part to our King David lesson that was a bit of a surprise.  As we read through the beginning portion of the story with the end of King Saul’s life, Princess was scared by this part of the story.

In the passage King Saul goes to a witch or a spiritualist and asks her to raise the spirit of Samuel.  Princess was very disturbed by it, and wanted to know if witches were for real.  I gave her a very simplified answer, because that made her wonder about Harry Potter and things like that, are they ok.  Here’s a vague retelling of my answer.

The Bible says it is not OK to be a witch, that being a witch is a sin.  In this time there are two different types of witches.  There are people like in the Wizard of Oz who pretend to have powers so they can get money from people.  That is a sin because you are lying and taking advantage of other people.  God does not want you to do that.

There are other people who may have real powers, but they did not get them from God.  In the Bible it says they got them from false gods or from demons.  In the Bible story today, we don’t know what type of witch she is.  She was very surprised Samuel actually came, so I think she might have been the pretend kind, and God used her to teach Saul a lesson.

Today there are only pretend witches (this part I explained to calm her down, I know there are people who truly believe in witchcraft, but that’s an explanation she’s not ready for yet) who are making money off of people.

Now as to Harry Potter and things like that, is Harry Potter real? [No….]  Exactly, he’s pretend, and we’re just pretending we can cast spells and do things like that.  If you started to believe you really could do those things, I’d be worried, but until then, it’s a fun game to play.

So, that was my very long explanation.  It’s very over-simplified and doesn’t really get into aspects like spiritualism, or Wicca, or things like that, but I’m waiting to introduce too much about other religions until they’re a bit older and better able to understand differing viewpoints.  Right now when that subject comes up they just look at me in confusion, and say “Well why don’t they believe like we do?”

That about sums up our King David lesson for kids.  Next week we get to the really hard lesson about David….  David and Bathsheba, and all the problems that caused.  Watch as David lets his life spiral out of control because he can’t discipline his kids.

Get your King David lesson for kids by clicking the picture up above.

Read the end of David’s story: David and Bathsheba for kids.

More King David ideas for kids

1 and 2 Samuel pinterest board

okay, yeah there’s just not a lot out there……  Sorry, it’s sadly true