Mary and Martha

God’s Word for His Children

Luke 10:38-42

Scripture:

38 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. 40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

41 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but few things are needed—or indeed only one.[f] Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

Lesson:  When you have friends come to your house, do you make sure your house is nice and clean before the come?  Do you get nice food to share with them?  That all takes a lot of work.  We do it to show that they are important to us.

In our Bible story today, we’re going to meet two sisters who had a very important visitor come to their house one day.  One of the sisters worked very hard to make sure everything was nice.  The other one didn’t help out.  Oh, no – that caused a problem!

In this account, we’re going to meet two sisters who had a very important visitor come to their house one day.  One of the sisters worked very hard to make sure everything was nice.  The other one didn’t help out.  Oh, no – that caused a problem!

One day, Jesus came to visit Mary and Martha. Martha was very busy cooking and making sure everything was nice. But she could see that Mary wasn’t helping at all. Mary was sitting on the floor near Jesus and was listening to Him teach about God.

Martha wanted Mary to help her. She didn’t like being the only one working.  She wanted Jesus to tell Mary to get up and help her. Jesus loved Martha, but He didn’t do what she asked.  Instead, He told her that Mary was doing the most important thing. Learning about God was more important than cooking or cleaning.

How about you? Do you like to learn about God, like Mary did.?  There are lots of things we can do, like play with our toys, read books, go outside, watch a movie. Those things are fun. But they aren’t the most important thing. The most important thing we can do is learn about how much Jesus loves us.  How do we do that?  We go to church, we pray, and we read our Bibles.  Those things teach us about how good God is and how we can trust Him.  Learning those things is the most important thing we can do!