[The teacher should begin the lesson with a Bible in hand. Flip through the Bible and show a few title pages.]

The Bible is a big book made up of many books—like Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Each of those books has lots of little stories that are all telling the Biggest Story. We also learn the Biggest Story from the songs, laws, letters, and lists we find in the Bible. The lists are called genealogies (family trees). Have you ever seen your family tree? It has lots and lots of names. Like your mom, your cousin, and your grandpa.

Well, Genesis 10 records a list of seventy names. [Open to Genesis 10 and show the names.] Do you see them? This list is sometimes called the Table of Nations. The word table is just another name for list. This table starts with the sons of Noah—Shem, Ham, and Japheth. How would you like to be called Ham? “Hey, Ham, can you make me a ham sandwich?” Ham (the person, not the sandwich) had lots of children. So did his brothers. From them came all the nations—tribes that spread across the earth after the flood.

All of these different nations, who all spoke the same language, came up with a brilliant idea. (Or they thought it was.) “Let’s stay in one place and build a great city and a tall tower!” There is nothing wrong with building something great and tall. Noah built something really big. The problem is that God told them to fill the earth—not stay in one place. Plus, they wanted to show off. “Look how amazing we are! We can create like God!” Well, God hates pride and disobedience. Do you know what pride is? These people showed us. They thought and acted like they were number one and God and everyone else was number two. But God destroyed their prideful plan by confusing their language. The place where it happened was called Babel, which means “confusion.” And God scattered them from that place so they filled the earth.