God Calls Elisha

Teacher notes for Will and Rayssa

Calvary Kids, fourth grade | Lesson 94 | Your last Sunday with this class

God called Elisha off a farm to follow Elijah. Elisha burned the yokes so he could not go back, refused to leave Elijah on the last day, and asked to be his heir. When Elijah was taken, Elisha struck the Jordan and asked, "Where is the LORD, the God of Elijah?" The water parted. God then worked through Elisha to save a widow's sons and raise a dead boy at Shunem. By the end, every child should be able to say that Elisha's power came from God, and that Jesus is the greater prophet who raised the dead by his own word and is still with his people.

Use the suggested wording freely and sound like yourselves. Hear two or three answers to each question, then keep moving.

Before class

Open the lesson and click Full screen. Keep these notes on paper or a second device and share only the lesson tab. Have a Bible open to 2 Kings 2, with 1 Kings 19, 2 Kings 4, Luke 7, and Philippians 3 marked.

Bring a spoon or any small object for the slide 9 passing game, and the take-home sheets if you want to send them home at pickup.

This week leans on discussion. Every story slide asks the children to reason before you reveal the answer, and slide 11 holds ten more questions you can open at any point. When a conversation is going well, let it run and cut elsewhere.

Use the arrow keys or the navigation buttons to change slides, and the slide menu to jump to a numbered slide. Click Reset lesson twice to clear every reveal, game and score and return to slide 1. The named buttons inside a slide run its activity. Changing slides and revealing an answer are separate clicks.

One workable division: Will leads the story slides (3 to 6 and 8) and the close, and Rayssa leads the welcome, the widow's jar, the verse game and the scores. Swap wherever you like.

Timing

If you run behind, cut in this order: flip all three cards on slide 4 at once, skip step 3 of slide 5, and play two passing moves instead of four. Jump to slide 10 by 12:10 no matter what. It holds the goodbye, and you want every child there for it. The Closing prayer link under the navigation bar jumps there.

1. Welcome

4 minutes | 11:35–11:39

Say: "Tell us your name. Then answer this: if you could spend a year learning from anyone alive, who would you pick?"

Answer first yourselves, then go around once. A child may give a name and pass. Keep each answer to about ten seconds. Do not explain the question. On slide 3 you will tell them God picked a teacher for Elisha.

2. Prayer

3 minutes | 11:39–11:42

Ask: "What would you like us to pray about today?" One of you remembers the requests while the other listens. Pray in your own words, name the requests, and ask God to help everyone understand his Word.

3. The cloak on the plowman

5 minutes | 11:42–11:47 | 1 Kings 19:19–21

Say: "After Mount Carmel, Elijah ran for his life all the way to Mount Horeb. There God told him to anoint Elisha as the prophet who would take his place. Here is how Elijah found him."

Read the slide. Twelve pairs of oxen means a wealthy farm, and Elisha was driving the last pair behind eleven others. Throwing a prophet's cloak over someone meant "you're coming with me."

Ask: "He asked to kiss his parents goodbye. Then he did something with his oxen and their wooden yokes. What, and why?" Give partners thirty seconds, then take guesses. Click Read what he did.

He killed the oxen, cooked the meat over a fire made from the yokes, and fed the town. Then ask the slide question: "If he changed his mind next month, what would he go back to?" Nothing. No oxen, no plow gear. He was all in. Hold onto that for the memory verse.

If someone asks about Elijah's reply, "Go back again, for what have I done to you?" (19:20): Elijah lets him go say goodbye but reminds him the call is serious. Elisha's feast shows he understood.

4. "Please stay here"

2 minutes | 11:47–11:49 | 2 Kings 2:1–6

Say: "Years later. God is about to take Elijah to heaven, and everybody knows it. Even the student prophets in Bethel and Jericho tell Elisha, 'Today the LORD will take your master.' He says, 'Yes, I know it; keep quiet.'"

Read stop 1 and ask, "What would you say?" Click the card to show Elisha's answer. Do stops 2 and 3 faster. The answer is the same each time.

Ask: "Why would Elijah keep telling him to stay?" Good answers: to test him, to spare him the hard goodbye, or because Elijah wanted to be alone. The Bible does not say. Elisha's answer is the point: he would not leave.

5. Ask what I shall do

4 minutes | 11:49–11:53 | 2 Kings 2:9–10; Deuteronomy 21:17

Step 1. Read Elijah's offer. Ask: "Elijah is leaving forever. What would you ask for?" Take a few answers. Then the yellow line: God made Solomon a similar offer (1 Kings 3:5), and Solomon asked for wisdom. Some of them heard that in October.

Step 2. Click Hear Elisha's answer. Ask: "Why would Elijah call that a hard thing?" Because Elijah cannot give God's Spirit. Only God can. Elijah gives a sign instead: if you see me taken, you will know God said yes.

Step 3. Click What does "double portion" mean? In Israel the firstborn son got a double share of his father's property, and he became head of the family. Elisha asked to be Elijah's heir in God's work. Some children may have heard that it means twice as many miracles. Tell them the phrase comes from the firstborn law, and the miracle count depends on how you count.

6. The cloak at the Jordan

3 minutes | 11:53–11:56 | 2 Kings 2:11–14

Read the slide text. Elisha cried, "My father, my father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!" and tore his clothes. He saw Elijah go, so he had his answer to the double-portion request.

Ask: "He picks up the cloak and walks back to the river alone. What does he need to find out?" Whether God will be with him now that Elijah is gone. Click Read what he did and read 2:14 aloud.

Say: "The cloak was not magic, and Elijah was never the source. The God of Elijah was still there." That sentence comes back at the end of class.

7. The widow's jar

6 minutes | 11:56–12:02 | 2 Kings 4:1–7

Step 1. Read 4:1. Under the law a person who owed money could be made to work it off as a servant, and this creditor came to take her sons. Ask: "Elisha answers with a question: what do you have in the house? Why ask that first?" God was going to use what she already had, one jar of oil.

Step 2. Click What Elisha told her and read 4:3–4. Ask: "If you were her, how many jars would you have borrowed? What would your neighbors think?" Let this one run. She had to knock on doors, admit she was in trouble, and act on a promise before she saw anything happen. Then the smaller question: "Why shut the door?" The miracle happened in private, for her family. Nobody could say Elisha did a trick, and nobody but God could get the credit.

Step 3. Click When did the oil stop? and read 4:6. Ask: "Elisha said, 'empty vessels and not too few.' Who decided how much oil she ended up with?" God provided every drop. The number of jars she gathered set where it stopped. She trusted Elisha's word enough to knock on every door. Then she sold the oil, paid the debt, and lived on the rest.

8. The boy at Shunem

4 minutes | 12:02–12:06 | 2 Kings 4:8–37

Read the slide. The boy was God's gift after Elisha's promise, and now he is dead on the prophet's own bed. Ask: "What does Elisha do first?" Click Read what Elisha did.

He shut the door and prayed. He stretched himself on the boy, walked the room, and did it again. The boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes. Ask: "Who gave the boy his life back?" God did. Elisha prayed and waited.

If a child asks whether people can do miracles like this today: God still hears prayer and still heals when he chooses. He gave prophets like Elijah and Elisha these signs to show their message came from him. Now God has spoken through his Son (Hebrews 1:1–2), and we have his whole Word. You set this up for slide 10.

9. Memory verse

4 minutes | 12:06–12:10 | Philippians 3:13–14 ESV

Say: "Elisha burned the yokes. He was not going back. Paul says the same thing about following Jesus."

Read it twice together with all words showing. Click Hide 5 random and say it again, then New random round. For the passing game, line the class up, click Passing move, and have them pass the spoon down the line that way, one word per child. The child holding the spoon at the end says the next word. Click New passing move for another round. Click any word to hide or show it.

The curriculum's song "I Press On" (Seeds Family Worship) sets this verse. Play it during pickup if you have a speaker.

10. A greater prophet, goodbye, and closing prayer

5 minutes | 12:10–12:15 | Luke 7:11–16; Matthew 28:20

Say: "Nain is a town a few miles from Shunem, on the other side of the same hill. Hundreds of years after Elisha, a widow there was walking behind her only son's body as the men carried it out of town. Jesus stopped the funeral. He did not shut a door or stretch out on the body. He said, 'Young man, I say to you, arise,' and the dead man sat up and started talking. The crowd said, 'A great prophet has arisen among us!'"

Say: "Elisha died and was buried. Jesus died, rose again, and is alive today. Elisha asked, 'Where is the LORD, the God of Elijah?' Here is the answer." Read the closing line: "I am with you always, to the end of the age."

The goodbye. This is the place to tell them it is your last Sunday as their teachers. Say it plainly in your own words. A version: "This is our last week teaching your class. We will still be around, and you might see us as substitutes. Elisha watched his teacher leave, and he found out God had not left. Your teachers change. Jesus stays." Keep it short and warm. Fourth graders take their cue from you.

Close by praying for the class and for whoever teaches them next. If there is time, pray for the children by name.

11. Talk it over

Use any time | pickup or extra minutes

Ten discussion questions, one at a time. Next question and Previous step through them, and Random question picks one. Jump here from the slide menu whenever a story slide finishes early. The last question is the curriculum's family discussion point: what to say to a friend who thinks the Bible's miracles never happened. The take-home sheet answers it from creation. If God made everything out of nothing, raising a boy or filling jars is no harder for him.

12. Elijah, Elisha, or both?

Pickup game

Split the room into two teams. Read the card. Teams answer Elijah, Elisha, or both, then click Reveal answer. One point for the right prophet, one bonus point for the passage or place. Three cards are "both," which shows God doing the same works through the second prophet. The last card describes Jesus. Ask, "Which person did every one of these?"

13. Bonus trivia

Pickup game

Teams take turns picking a number. Read the question, let the team answer, then click Reveal answer and Back to board. Used numbers show a check. Shuffle a new board resets the questions and keeps the scores. All twelve questions come from today's passages.

Curriculum pieces left out

The widow's oil skit, the class notes, both coloring sheets, the Justin and Jessie story, the oil and water jars craft, the review game board, the attributes-of-God question cards and the timeline are written for grades 2–3 or need more time and supplies than a 40-minute class has. The review questions became the trivia board. The take-home sheets can go home at pickup.

Source references

1 Kings 17:4–22; 1 Kings 18:38; 1 Kings 19:19–21; 2 Kings 2:1–22; 2 Kings 4:1–44; 2 Kings 6:5–7; 2 Kings 13:20; Deuteronomy 21:17; Luke 7:11–16; Luke 9:16–17; Mark 4:39; Matthew 28:20; Hebrews 1:1–2; Philippians 3:13–14.

Scripture quotations are from the ESV Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.