Especially for Younger Students: Justice in the News

(5–10 minutes, easy set-up)
Provide a bunch of local newspapers.

Learning Goal: Students will apply Godly principles of justice in their daily lives.

Divide students into groups of three. Give groups a few minutes to look through the stack of newspapers. Then direct them to locate stories that illustrate some form of justice or injustice taking place. Ask the following questions of all groups.

• How was justice or injustice displayed?
• When people don’t get what they want through a court decision, they sometimes cry about injustice. Was that the case here?
• What makes this example one of justice or injustice? Was it right and fair or wrong and unfair?
• How do you think that God would handle this situation?
• If you were in charge of that situation, how would you show God’s justice?

Help students realize that God’s justice is based upon His righteousness and His fairness. Note that He acts on someone’s behalf because He is love and wants to display that love through mercy and fairness.