Children’s Sermon on Luke 4:16-21 – Jesus Reading in the Synagogue

Use this children’s sermon on Jesus reading in the synagogue to show kids why they should focus on learning now.

 

Scripture: Luke 4:16-21

 

Needed: a Bible, a smartphone, a picture of a scroll (included below)

 

Children’s Sermon: Say, In our Bible passage today, it says Jesus went to his hometown of Nazareth and went into the synagogue. What’s a synagogue?

 

The synagogue was the local church. The Israelites had the Temple in Jerusalem, where they were supposed to make sacrifices to God, but they also had the local synagogue where they could gather together to read Scripture and pray.

 

Do you remember what Jesus did when He went into the synagogue?

 

He went up to the front of the synagogue and read their Bible passage for the day. That was His job in the church that day. Today, we have book Bibles (show your Bible), or we can read the Bible on a phone (hold up your phone), but in those days, they wrote on rolled up paper or animal skins called scrolls (show the picture of a scroll.)

 

 

 

The interesting part is that not everyone who went to synagogue was allowed to do the job of reading the Scriptures for the church. You had to be at least 12 years old.

 

Why do you think they had to be so old to be able to do the job of reading the Bible passage for the church?

 

First, you had to be old enough to read. But more importantly, you had to be old enough to understand what you were reading. You had to learn about God and the Bible when you were a young kid so that by the time you were 12, you would understand enough about the Bible to be able to read it for the rest of the people.

 

It's the same way in the church today. When we’re young or when we’re new Christians, our job is to learn about God and Jesus and the Bible. Then, when we’ve learned enough, the church gives us jobs to do to help other people learn.

 

So, remember, your job is to learn about God and the Bible so that soon, you can help teach other people about God and the Bible.

 

Closing Prayer: Father God, we thank You for teaching us about Yourself. We pray You would help us to learn about You so that one day, we can help teach others about You. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.