As I’ve indicated before, the Mashal is a Hebrew way of teaching by parable, proverb, story – an analogy, metphor – relating what you are teaching to something the disciple already knows. Here’s an illustration of a recent Mashallic teaching I did for our children.
We were (are) studying Governments. I wanted to illustrate to them that the more they are self-governed under God, the less they need to be governed by others.
I took an empty glass and an empty balloon, and put the balloon in the glass. I explained that the balloon is them, the glass is like all the government over their life, and the space between the glass and balloon is external government – people that have to control them. The air inside the balloon is internal government, when there is very little or no air in the balloon, they have very little of the Holy Spirit controlling their life and need much external government – A LOT of control, represented by a lot of air in the glass.
Then I blew the balloon up into the glass. When we are filled with the Holy Spirit (the breath of God) we walk in self-control/ self-government under God, and do not need much external control. There is very little space in the glass around the balloon.
We memorized Galatians 5:22-23. Simple but effective. Better than the little circles drawn in the curriculum.
