Knowing Where We Came From

Last week I taught first graders at my church.   It was one of my favorite topics:  creation.   As I was preparing my lesson, I heard the news about the Chinese mission of landing a spacecraft on the back side of the moon. I incorporated this news event into my lesson plan.

I brought out a globe. I showed the kids where we are. I also explained the moon’s relationship with the earth, using a small orange to represent the moon. I showed that one side of the moon , when looking at the dark areas against the white background often looks like a face.  I showed the kids how the face side of the moon is always facing earth, while we never see the back side.

Then I explained to the class about the Chinese landing on the back side of the moon and asked the kids why they thought the scientists did that. All the kids thought it was exciting and that the scientists did it for the adventure or to explore. Then I revealed that the news report said they did it to “find out where we came from!”  

Even a first-grader is smart enough to know that you can’t learn where you came from by landing a spacecraft on the moon. That can teach us a lot of things, but none of them are related to our origins. So, I asked the kids, “How CAN we know where we came from?”  There are millions of people in our world who do not know the answer.  That is why they are searching in such peculiar places as the moon. 

I popped out my Bible. I explained to them that “BIBLE” means “book”.  Our Bible is actually comprised of 66 books, but the first one is called Genesis. That means “beginnings “. If we read the first sentence in Genesis, we find that, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”  We just saved billions of dollars in space travel— it is right there in black and white, for all the world to see!