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Honesty

To consider how important honesty is in our dealings with people.

by Ronni Lamont

Suitable for Key Stage 2

Aims

To consider how important honesty is in our dealings with people.

Preparation and materials

  • Read the story of the temptation of Adam and Eve from Genesis 2.15—3.14.
  • You need an attractive apple – a Pink Lady type works well.

Assembly

  1. Ask the children if they know the names of the very first people in the Bible: Adam and Eve (or Chap One if you feel like adding a joke!). Point out that in Hebrew (the language the story was written in) names tell you about who the person is, what they’re like. The names Adam and Eve mean ‘the first people ever’.
  2. Tell the children that in the story God made a special garden for Adam and Eve to live in, and we know from the Bible that it was set in modern day Iran, next to Iraq in the Middle East.

    Explain that Adam and Eve had been told that they could eat anything they wanted, except the tree that grew in the middle of the garden, which was called ‘the tree of the knowledge of good and evil’. What do the children think that name means?

    Tell the story:

    One day, when Adam and Eve were walking separately in the garden, a serpent – or a snake – wriggled up to Eve, and asked her, was she really allowed to eat the fruit of any tree in the garden? Eve replied yes, but not the one in the middle, as God had told them that if they did eat from that tree, they would die.

    ‘Oh no, you won’t,’ said the serpent. ‘God just doesn’t want you to eat from that tree, because if you did, you would know as much as God, and God doesn’t want you to know as much as God does. Why don’t you try it? You won’t die, you’ll just know as much as God.’

    So Eve looked at the tree, and saw that the fruit (hold up your apple) looked very tasty. So she picked a fruit and ate some. When she did, the serpent was right, she didn’t die. And the fruit was delicious. So she found Adam, told him what had happened and gave him some fruit to eat.

    Adam ate the fruit, and then the story tells us that now they realized that they didn’t have any clothes on! So they made clothes like swimming costumes from leaves, and then hid from God. Why do you think they hid? (Because they knew they’d done something bad.)

    So when God arrived in the garden that evening for his walk with Adam and Eve, he couldn’t find them. God called out to them, and when they came out, he asked them ‘What have you done?’

    Adam said, ‘It wasn’t my fault. She told me to do it.’ And Eve said, ‘It wasn’t my fault, the serpent told me to do it.’ And the serpent just looked smug.
  3. What do you do when you know you’ve done something wrong? What is the best thing to do when you’ve done something wrong? (Own up and apologize.)

    In the story God sent Adam and Eve away, out of the lovely garden, and they learned to be farmers, to grow their own food, and to work on the land.

    But what might have happened if they’d been honest and owned up (’fessed up!); if they’d taken responsibility for their actions instead of blaming someone else? We don’t know. Perhaps we’d still all live in that garden, not having to work …

    But this story is still told as an example of how, when we aren’t honest, it affects many more people than just us. We don’t know what might have happened in the story if Adam and Eve had been honest. But we can be honest about ourselves, and then we know that whatever we’ve done, it’s easier to make it right again if we take the blame, apologize and acknowledge our part.

Time for reflection

Reflection

Allow the children time to think for a few moments about the story of Adam and Eve:

how they did what they knew was wrong;

how they blamed someone else for what they’d done;

and how often we do that too.

 

Prayer

Dear God,

Help us to be honest when we do something wrong.

Help us not to blame other people, but acknowledge our mistakes,

and apologize and so learn and move on.

Amen.

Song/music

‘Morning has broken’ (Come and Praise, 1)

Publication date: July 2007   (Vol.9 No.7)    Published by SPCK, London, UK.
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