The Young in the Old:
Stories of Young People
from the Old Testament
By Lisa-Marie Calderone-Stewart
Purpose
In this session, participants explore the stories of a few young people from the Old Testament, and compare their own relationship issues with the issues of these youth from so long ago. The intention of the session is to help youth to see their relationships through the eyes of faith. This session is designed for 16-24 high school-aged teens. It can also be done as a youth-and-parents session.
Session at a Glance
7:00 p.m. Welcome and Introductions
7:05 p.m. Opening Activity: Teens and their Relationships
7:20 p.m. Exploring Some Young People from the Old Testament
7:35 p.m. Old Testament Trivia Questions
7:50 p.m. Break with Snacks
8:00 p.m. Advice Column from Old Testament Times
Extend the Session: Dear Abby (add 10 minutes)
8:20 p.m. Closing Prayer
8:30 p.m. Finish
Extend the Session: Dear Abby (10 minutes)
If you have extra time, try this ‘Extend the Session’ activity before the closing prayer. Invite each group to write a modern version of a similar thing—a sincere attempt at a letter that a modern teenager might write to Dear Abby or Ask Amy.
Materials Needed
• Food and drinks (including fresh-cut vegetables if possible!)
• Handout 1, Family Relationships: Joseph and His Brothers, one for each participant in group 1
• Handout 2, Relationships with Friends: David and Jonathan, one for each participant in group 2
• Handout 3, Romantic Relationships: Tobias and Sarah, one for each participant in group 3
• Handout 4, Divine Relationships: Samuel and God, one for each participant in group 4
• Prizes for the trivia questions
• Pens or pencils
• Paper
• Newsprint
• Markers
• Masking tape
• Flowers and autumn-colored leaves, one for each participant
Prepare in Advance
1. Set up a prayer focus. Cover a small table with a cloth. On the table, place a Bible and a candle. Have matches or a lighter nearby.
Session Outline
Welcome and Introductions (5 minutes)
Welcome the young people and introduce the evening’s session by saying:
Tonight we’re going to learn about some young people from the Old Testament and see what we may have in common with their stories.
Opening Activity: Teens and their Relationships (15 minutes)
Step 1: (2 minutes) Give each participant a sheet of paper and pen. Ask them to make a list of the four most significant relationships in their life. Instruct them not to write names, as in “My relationship with Chris” but rather describe the relationship, as in “relationship with a friend” or “relationship with my brother.”
Step 2: (2 minutes) Ask the participants to sit together in groups of three or four, and tally up the types of relationships named and identify the top four types listed.
Step 3: (4 minutes) Ask each group of three or four to join another group of three or four and do the same thing—tally up the number and identify the top four types listed.
Step 4: (5 minutes) Then ask each group of 6-8 to identify their top four relationships.
It’s possible that there will be a consensus of these four:
1. Friends
2. Girlfriends/Boyfriends (romantic)
3. Parents
4. Brothers and Sisters.
Other possibilities:
Some may combine #3 and #4 and say “Family.”
Some may name “God” as a relationship.
Some may include relationships with the community or with the earth.
After you establish the top four, ask for the less common relationships that were identified.
Tonight’s session involves relationships that young people in the Old Testament had with their family, with friends, with a romantic partner, and with God.
On a sheet of newsprint, list the four types of relationships, and ask the group to try to name Old Testament youth they might expect to hear about concerning these four types of relationships:
Family: ______
Friends: ______
Romantic Partner: ______
God: ______
Give them some hints, if they have trouble, so you end up naming:
Family: Joseph and his brothers
Friends: David and Jonathan
Romantic Partner: Tobias and Sarah
God: Samuel and God
Have the participants self-select (or assign them in some clever or random way) into four small groups, so they can begin their deeper exploration of that particular young person and the particular relationship he or she had. Be sure there is an adult in each small group.
Exploring some Young People from the Old Testament (15 minutes)
Distribute Handouts 1-4; give Handout 1 to the first small group, Handout 2 to the next, Handout 3 to the next, and Handout 4 to the next. If you have more than four small groups, it’s okay to have more than one groups addressing a particular handout. Ask the participants to read their handout, discuss the questions, and come up with trivia questions to ask the other youth.
Old Testament Trivia Questions (15 minutes)
Invite each group to read their trivia questions and see who knows the answers.
Give hints to help them along, and have prizes available for those who can guess the answers correctly.
Break (10 minutes)
Take a break and have some snacks!
Advice Column from Old Testament Times (20 minutes)
After the break, gather everyone back together and say in these or similar words:
We might not have to worry about our best friend’s father trying to kill us with a sword, but we still have similar problems like the teenagers we read about from the Old Testament. We still need to figure out what God wants us to do, we still have issues with family relationships, we still struggle with our friendships, and we still seek romance in our lives.
For our next activity, we are going to take the issues from our Old Testament teenagers and use a modern format to find things we have in common.
Each group will take their particular type of relationship, and imagine an advice column written in Old Testament times. Your group will write a letter about your Old Testament teen’s situation and ask for advice.
Distribute pens and paper to the small groups. Once all four groups have completed their letters, have the groups switch letters, and then invite each group write answers to the problems posed in the letter they received.
When the answers are complete, have the groups read the original letters, and ask for some advice strategies from the other youth. After a few possible ideas, they can then read the answers they wrote.
After each set of 2 letters and responses, ask the participants how these ancient problems are different from our modern problems, and how they are similar. Also, ask what we can learn from the experiences of our Biblical Teen Role Models.
Conclude with these reflections:
By reflecting on these Scriptures, we see that God has been speaking in and through human relationships since the beginning of time.God still speaks to us in our relationships! The ups and downs and dynamics of our relationships are not new or totally unique to us. Our stories are part of the larger story of God’s plan for our lives. God calls us to holy lives and holy relationships. We can ask God to be part of relationships through prayer and ask God to guide us in learning how to have relationships that resemble God’s perfect love!
Closing Prayer (10 minutes)
Bring everyone together into a circle.
Gather
Light a candle, and begin with the Sign of the Cross.
Sing “The Lord” by Tom Franzak (Spirit Song, OCP).
Listen
Invite the reader to proclaim Jeremiah 1:4-8 (use the New American Bible translation). Allow a few moments for quiet reflection.
Respond
Distribute the flowers and autumn-colored leaves, one to each participant.
Flowers are often a symbol of youth, since they are only alive a short time. Because of that, flowers are always young. Leaves that are turning gold or orange or red are symbols of old age, since they are near to death.
Invite everyone to see and appreciate the beauty and the joy in each—the flower and the leaf.
Because the flower can speak to us as well as the leaf—of life, of struggle, of wisdom, of God’s blessings—it is not necessary to ever say, “I am too young.”
God says to us, “Say not ‘I am too young,’”—because the young have something significant to offer.
Just as the flower need not be embarrassed in the face of the autumn leaf, so you need not apologize for your youth.
Go Forth
End by extinguishing the candle and singing “Here I Am Lord” by Dan Schutte (Spirit Song, OCP).
This session was written by Lisa-Marie Calderone-Stewart, Youth Leadership Director at The House of Peace, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Fr. Roy Shelly, Ph.D., served as theological consultant on this session.
Handout 1
Family Relationships: Joseph and His Brothers
Read: Genesis, Chapter 37.
Talk about this:
1. How did Joseph’s relationship with his father affect his relationship with his brothers?
2. How did Joseph contribute to the relationship problems between him and his brothers?
The rest of the story:
Does anyone know how this story turns out?
(It’s a very long story—several chapters—up to at least chapter 45 and beyond!)
Quick recap:
Joseph gets sold to Potiphar, an officer of the Pharaoh. He gets unjustly accused of trying to seduce Potiphar’s wife, and he ends up in prison. He is good at interpreting dreams, and he interprets the troubling dreams of some prisoners. One of them gets out of prison and serves at Pharoah’s home. Eventually, Pharoah has troubling dreams, and this servant tells Pharoah of Joseph’s ability. Joseph interprets Pharoah’s dream about seven years of bountiful harvest, followed by seven years of famine. So Pharoah puts Joseph in charge of
managing the excess grain in order to save for the years of famine. Eventually, Joseph’s own brothers come to him to beg for food, but they do not recognize him. After some time, he forgives them and reveals who he is.
Read Genesis 45:1-15 for the reunion of Joseph and his brothers, when he reveals himself to them.
Come up with three trivia questions about Joseph and his brothers, to see if you can stump (and teach) the other groups.
1.
2.
3.
Handout 2
Relationships with Friends: David and Jonathan
Read: 1 Samuel 18
1 Samuel 20
Talk about this:
1. Why did Saul, Jonathan’s father, begin to hate David?
2. How did Jonathan’s relationship with his father affect his relationship with David?
3. What did David and Jonathan do to cope with the situation?
The rest of the story:
Does anyone know how this story turns out?
(It’s a very long story—several chapters—up to the end of the book of Samuel!)
Quick recap:
David had several opportunities to kill Saul, and he didn’t do it. He tried to convince Saul that this proved his sincerity, that David would cause no harm to him. But Saul just continued to hate David.
Eventually, Saul and Jonathan died in a battle.
Read 2 Samuel 1 to see how David mourned for Jonathan and Saul.
Come up with three trivia questions about David and Jonathan, to see if you can stump (and teach) the other groups.
1.
2.
3.
Handout 3
Romantic Relationships: Tobias and Sarah
Read: Tobit 6:10-18
Tobit 8:1-9
Talk about this:
1. How did Tobias begin to fall in love with Sarah, even before he met her?
2. What was surprising about the scene when they were together in the bedroom for the first time?
The rest of the story:
Does anyone know how this story turns out?
(It’s a very long story—the entire book of Tobit!)
Quick recap:
Raphael is really an angel, disguised as a distant cousin. The angel leads Tobias to Sarah, and is their matchmaker.
What happened earlier in the book: Tobit (the father of Tobias) becomes blind when a bird… well, read about it in Tobit 2:7-10.
On their way to meet Sarah, Raphael and Tobias go fishing, and Raphael tells Tobias to hold onto the liver, heart, and gall of the fish.
Later on, when Tobias and Sarah return to Tobit and his wife, Tobias rubs the gall of the fish on Tobit’s eyes, and he can see again.
Come up with three trivia questions about Tobias and Sarah, to see if you can stump (and teach) the other groups.
1.
2.
3.
Handout 4
Divine Relationships: Samuel and God
Read: 1 Samuel 1: 9-20
1 Samuel 2: 12-17
1 Samuel, Chapter 3
Talk about this:
1. Why did Samuel seem to be a special boy from the very beginning?
2. What was surprising about the scene when God was calling Samuel, and he thought it was Eli?
3. Why is it so difficult to know when God is calling us?
The rest of the story:
Does anyone know how this story turns out?
(It’s a very long story—the entire 2 books of Samuel and beyond!)
Quick recap:
Eli’s sons died in battle, and eventually Eli died. Samuel became a judge. Eventually, he anointed Saul as the first king. David was the next king, and then his son, Solomon. Jesus was a descendent of David.
Come up with three trivia questions about Samuel and his life, to see if you can stump the other groups.
1.
2.
3.
The Young in the Old: Stories of Young People in the Old Testament, p. 1
Copyright © Center for Ministry Development, 2006. All rights reserved.