=Aim.= The primary aim in teaching this lesson to the child should be to inspire him with the thought that he is one of God's chosen people, a descendant of Abram, and should prove himself worthy of his descent by emulating Abram's obedience to God through his obedience to Jewish law. The whole point of this narrative is lost if the teacher fails to emphasize the fact that Abram is the father of the Jewish people.
The secondary aim may well be to stimulate interest in Palestine as the chosen land.
A third lesson that can be taught in this connection is the lesson of the desirability of peace.
The last two aims however must be brought in incidentally, the former as an indication of God's love for Abram and his descendants, the latter as showing wherein Abram was worthy of being chosen.
=Suggestions to the teacher.= As the whole point of the narrative is lost if the child is not made to feel the connection of the Jewish people with Abram, take pains to explain what is meant by descent and how a whole people can be descended from one man, by showing how a man's grandchildren are usually more numerous than his children, etc. It might be of advantage to use the blackboard for a graphic illustration of this idea. Then, after having explained how God expected to make a great nation of Abram's descendants, ask, "Do any of you know what people today are the descendants of Abram? Well, I will tell you. You and I and all who call themselves Jews are descended from Abram. That is why we always speak of him as our father Abram. Now don't you want me to tell you more about our father Abram and about the great people that came from him and to which we belong?"
Hereafter always call Abram "our father Abram", as he is almost invariably called in Jewish literature +Avraham aviynu+. This will keep the child conscious of his descent from Abram, increase his interest in him and make him feel that Biblical history is the history of his own people.
As the motives for God's choice of Abram are but vaguely suggested in the Bible, the teacher must make them more explicit. Call attention to the fact that the world had again become corrupt, that idolatry prevailed--and here it becomes necessary to explain what idolatry means--in the House of Terah as elsewhere (see Joshua 24. 2), but that there was one man, Abram, who always obeyed God and who, God knew, would instruct his children to do so. And therefore God told him to leave his family and his people because he wanted to make of him a great people that would always do as he told them and not a foolish and wicked people like those among whom he lived.