EASTER ILLUSTRATION: JELLY BEANS

Add this Jelly Bean illustration to an upcoming Easter lesson.

The big idea: They’ll know us by our flavor (Matthew 7:16)

As you know, Easter is fast approaching. I’m excited about this year because our church is doing something special. We have an early Easter morning service at the beach, followed by baptisms in the ocean. Pretty cool, right?

I assume your church is doing something special as well, and maybe so is your youth group. Whatever you have planned, my prayer is that all goes well.

Hope you enjoy the Easter illustration.

-Nick Diliberto, Ministry to Youth

Looking for youth ministry curriculum? Check out…

THE EASTER STORY – A 4-week Easter series for youth ministry. Students will discover the prophecies of Jesus’ suffering, death, resurrection, and what it means to them today.

EASTER ILLUSTRATION: JELLY BEANS

Supplies:

• Three distinct jelly bean flavors for everyone to get at least one of each.

Illustration:

• Mark a Bible to Matthew 7:16.
• Give each student the same jelly bean flavor to try.
• Give students three options of what the jelly bean flavor might be. Tell them to eat it and vote on which one they think it is.
• Have students vote by raising their hands as you read off the options.
• Do the same for the second and third flavors.
• Give them pretty obvious options so that they can guess the three flavors correctly.
• Or you can make it really difficult for them just for the fun of it (ha ha ha).

Say: You did pretty good guessing which flavors we gave you! How could you tell what flavor you were eating?”

Get responses from students.

Right, the color of the jelly-beans was the first indicator of what flavor they might be. Obviously a red jelly bean isn’t blueberry flavor and a black one isn’t lemon flavored.

And then the taste made it pretty obvious what flavor they were if the color wasn’t clear enough to tell us.

In the same way the Bible says that people will be able to tell if we are a follower of Jesus or not by how we act and talk.

Matthew 7:16 says, “You can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the way they act. Can you pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles?”

A while after Jesus died and rose again he went back up to heaven and his followers were left on earth to tell others about him. And today, that is still our call as Christians; to live lives so that others can see Jesus through how we live and what we say.

When people are around you, are they confused whether or not you are a Christian?

Can people tell by your actions that you belong to Jesus?

Does your life make others want to know Jesus, too?”

(End)

Looking for youth ministry curriculum? Check out…

THE EASTER STORY – A 4-week Easter series for youth ministry. Students will discover the prophecies of Jesus’ suffering, death, resurrection, and what it means to them today.