Bigger Barns

Acts 2:45; Luke 12:16-21

Our true story comes from a part of the Bible called Acts, which is short for “The Acts of the Apostles.” An apostle is someone who is sent to teach people about Jesus. Our true story comes from a part of the Bible called the Gospel of Luke. Luke loved Jesus and wanted others to know and love Jesus, too. And the word gospel means “good news!”

Jesus sometimes taught people using special teaching stories called parables. 


Jesus told one story about a farmer. The farmer grew a lot of food for his family. Like a lot a lot.


Then, he had to put the food in his barn, and his barn filled up very fast! That barn was full. Uh-oh. The barn was full, but there was still food left to store. What should the farmer do with all the extra food? 


Hmmm. Then the farmer had an idea! He would build a BIGGER barn. Then he could fill it up and keep ALL the food for himself. It would be WAY more food than he needed, but he wanted to keep it all. 


Hmm, tell me, is there anything ELSE the farmer could do with all his extra food? He could . . . SHARE! Yes, he could share with others. We can share with others, too! What could you share? 


Could you share a snack with others? 


Or maybe share a toy? 


How about sharing a turn on the swing? Yes! We can share all those things.


That’s the very important thing that Jesus teaches us with this story. God wants us to share. I’m so glad we have a friend like Jesus to teach us important things. Jesus told this story to teach us that we can share our stuff.



Bible Paraphrase: The crowds were amazed at his teaching. —Matthew 7:28, NIV

Text Truth: Jesus teaches us that we can share our stuff.



Family Devotional

And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’

“Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’
—Luke 12:16-19

Our Bible story was about a man and a barn. But the man didn’t want to put animals in his barn. What did he want to put in his barn? Food! Jesus told a story about a man who had A LOT of food. He had way more food than he could eat. He had a choice. He could share his food with people who didn’t have any OR he could build a bigger barn and save all of the food for himself. What did the man in the story decide to do? The man said he would build a bigger barn and keep all the food.

Jesus told this story so we can know that it’s important to share our stuff. Where can we read the stories that Jesus told? The Bible! Jesus teaches us lots of important things in the Bible.

The crowds were amazed at his teaching. —Matthew 7:28, NIV

Jesus teaches us that it’s important to share. So, with your family, make a list of things you can share. The man in our story could have shared his food. So, what can you share?

Pray with your family. Allow any family members to pray if they wish. In your own words, say, “Dear God, we don’t want to be like the man in Jesus’ story who didn’t share his food. We want to be kind and share with others. Help us share things like (read the list your family made). And God, thank You for sending Jesus to be our friend forever and teach us important things about You. You are the best, and we love You. In Jesus’ name, amen.”

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Some story illustrations are the copyright of Sweet Publishing and licensed by FreeBibleimages (http://freebibleimages.org) for free download under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Share-alike 3.0 unported license.

Some story images are in the Public Domain.

All images are the property of their respective owners.
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