Solomon’s Wives
1 Kings 11:1-14
Teaching Videos
Teaching Ideas
Idea 1
Play a guessing game with the kids and give a prize to the person who guesses the closest answer.
guess how many wives King Solomon had.
guess how many horse stalls King Solomon had.
Ask them if they think it was a good idea for King Solomon to have so many wives and horse stalls? Why or why not?
Read Deuteronomy 17:17 (The king must not take many wives for himself, because they will turn his heart away from the LORD, And he must not accumulate large amounts of wealth in silver and gold for himself).
Ask them why Solomon would know that he wasn’t supposed to have lots of wives or wealth but did it anyways?
Idea 2
Read “Solomon’s Downfall” on page 258 in The Action Bible by Sergio Cariello
Questions:
What mistakes did Solomon make as he grew older?
How did Solomon’s choices affect the people of Israel?
Why did God want Solomon to worship only Him?
How can we make wise choices to stay close to God?
Idea 3
Make a chart like this for the kids. Talk about the three kings of Israel. How did each of them sin and what did they do about their sin? Which King would they want to be like?
Idea 4
Have a contest.
Bring a number of donuts and see who can eat the most donuts in 1 minute.
have a talk with the kids, ask them how they felt eating so many donuts as fast as they could.
Tell them a story about something that you want all the time, like over eating a favourite food, or sleeping etc.
Let the kids relate and see if there is something they like all the time like playing video games which might not be the best for them.
Relate this to Solomon who wanted a whole lot of wives.
Idea 5
Read pages 177-179 in The Children’s Bible in 365 Stories by Mary Batchelor
Questions:
Why did Solomon’s heart start to turn away from God as he grew older?
What did God ask of Solomon, and why was it important?
How did Solomon’s choices affect his relationship with God?
What can we learn from Solomon about keeping our hearts focused on God?
Idea 6
True or False
King Solomon had many wives from all different countries. (true)
Solomon’s wives were good people and followed God with all their heart. (false)
Solomon made places to worship strange gods. (True)
Solomon’s heart turned away from God, and God became angry with him. (True)
God decided to give Solomon a time out and wait for Solomon to apologize. (False)
Idea 7
Play a big game of Simon Says
Start out the game by having one person be Simon and doing easy things like “Simon says touch your head” etc.
Then introduce another person to be Simon (so now there are two people telling the kids what to do)
Then introduce a third and a fourth Simon to the game and get all the Simon’s to give commands at the same time so it should get confusing.
Once the game is over, have a conversation with the kids. Relate the game to Solomon trying to put God first in his life, but also having other things like 700 wives and lots of wealth that could take his attention away from God.
Relate it to your own life so the kids can understand how it can sometimes be hard to put God first with so many other things around us to grab our attention.
Idea 8
Play a game of what should Solomon do. Present a few ideas to the kids and ask them what they think Solomon should do.
God tells Solomon not to marry people from other countries - what should Solomon do?
God tells Solomon not to worship other Gods - what should Solomon do?
God tells Solomon to only have as many horses as he needs - what should Solomon do?
Have a conversation with the kids and write down your ideas on some mural paper, what are some things that God asks us to do? - What should we do?
Idea 9
Read through this story with the kids.
Idea 10
Play an opposite game with the kids.
review with the kids what opposite means.
If you ask them to put their hands in the air, then the opposite would be putting them on the floor.
give the kids a number of instructions and ask them to do the opposite (jump up and down, run as fast as you can, run to different walls in the room, say “hi” to someone, lay down on the floor, yell as loud as they can etc.
Have a conversation with the kids. Tell them that Solomon was doing the opposite of what God asked him to do. If God said, don’t marry people from other countries, Solomon would go and marry people from other countries. If God said don’t worship other gods, Solomon would go and worship other gods.
Have we ever played the opposite game with God?