Article 7 Volume 12 September 30, 2022
What is so special about the birth of Moses?
When I first saw the lesson for October 2, 2022, I wondered why are we spending a whole lesson on the birth of Moses. (Exodus 2:1-10). My initial reaction was to see if I could see anything special about this birth that would merit a whole lesson dedicated to the topic. Well, before I started talking, l needed to do some research. I found out that there can be some justified reasons. But my reasons will differ from what is in the printed lesson. Four of my reasons follow:
1. The mother wanted to save her child. She knew that the king wanted to kill all Jewish babies. She hid the baby for 3 months. Then she decided to put him in a basket and sent the basket floating in the river. This act was nothing but faith. What if that basket would have sunk? Also, consider the Nile river was dangerous in many ways, It was a home for at least 10 types of venomous snakes; then there were the crocodiles that were subject to attack anything that moved. Yet. despite all of these dangers, the basket sailed untouched down the Nile river. I am going to assume these dangers did not exist in the part of the river where the basket sailed because Pharah's daughter bathed in the river on a regular basis.
God was in control.
The ironic thing is the basket floated where it could be recovered by Pharoh's daughter. When the basket was pulled from the river, and the daughter saw the baby's eyes and smile there was no way she was going to let anything happen to that baby. Despite the hate that existed by the Egyptians toward the Jews. This lady was going to protect this baby.
2. It was recorded that Moses's sister Marian was present when the basket was removed from the river. She recommended that Moses' mother be used to nurse the baby. The princess agreed and paid Moses's mother to nurse him. The princess however adopted him.
Despite the king's order to kill all Hebrew babies, this child came into his household and he could not order this baby to be killed. His daughter was very adamant that this baby was going to live in the household.
3. What we can take away from this lesson, is that attitudes changes when people really get together in an eyeball-to-eyeball meeting.
We can see how attitudes, based on race changed when the baby's welfare was a factor.
4. Moses grew up in the King's household with all the privileges of a king's son, he still had to remember that he was a Hebrew and there were some things that even the king could not or would not protect him from.
Summary: It is not always good to just read the Sunday School lesson and call it a day. I believe that you must read and study beyond what is in the Sunday School book. This lesson is not just about the birth of Moses but about the impact his welfare had on the 5 people featured in this story as well as the Hebrews in the forthcoming generations. God was in the midst. It was Pharaoh's intent to use the Nile river to drown the future of the Hebrew people, but God used the river as a means to save and protect the deliverer of the Hebrew people and lead them to prosperity.
Also, as you study and teach this lesson, there are many opportunities to inject some Black History into the presentation.
I say that black folks were real slaves who spent more than 400 years in slavery in the United States, yet most of our study in the church is about the Hebrews in slavery. Generally, we only talk about Blacks in slavery during Black History Month.
Copyright 2022. Grady E. Bryant, Sr. All rights reserved.
