A Family’s Example

Echoes adult

Lesson 7
Fall 2025
By: RLD Editorial Team
October 19, 2025

Lesson Focus:

Be faithful to God’s ways, even more than human traditions.

Bible Basis:

Jeremiah 35:5–11

Materials Needed:

Step 1:

None

Summary & Links:

Jeremiah uses a family’s traditions as an example of faithfulness.

Any videos or web materials are for your personal use.
If you play any media files in class, be sure to have the necessary rights to do so.

Playlist: Contemporary Worship Weekly
Playlist: Echoes Worship Weekly (featuring African-American music artists)
Playlist: Traditional Worship Weekly
Devotion: Katherine Rohrs, “Be Like the Rekabites”
Podcast: Pitts Evans, “Jeremiah 35: The Example of the Rekabites”

Memory Verse:

¹⁴‘Jehonadab son of Rekab ordered his descendants not to drink wine and this command has been kept. To this day they do not drink wine, because they obey their forefather’s command. But I have spoken to you again and again, yet you have not obeyed me.
—Jeremiah 35:14b

Jeremiah uses a family’s traditions as an example of faithfulness.

Materials Needed:

None

TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS WITHOUT ALCOHOL
This month marks twenty-seven years of sobriety for actor Jason Isaacs (62), known for his portrayal of Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies. After twenty years of substance abuse that began in his mid-teens, he managed his first twenty-four hours of sobriety, which he sustained until now. His message to others struggling with alcohol and drug addiction is, “It’s possible, if you ask for help. However far gone you think you are, however irreversible you think your situation is, there’s always a way back. A way forward. A way back to the surface. Always. Just take the first baby step and surrender.”

GENERATIONS WITHOUT ALCOHOL
In Jeremiah’s day, there was a clan that had sworn off alcohol because of their ancestor’s command. Jonadab the son of Rechab (or Rekab) had instructed all his descendants to not drink, build houses, or plant vineyards or crops. The family honored Jonadab’s requests, living as nomads in tents and raising their children not to drink alcohol. When the Lord sent Jeremiah to test this family, they proved to be more faithful to a human tradition than the people of Judah were to God.

Questions

When have you fought to overcome an addiction or another kind of enormous obstacle?
What’s a tradition you honor based upon someone from your past?
What makes God’s instructions different than human instructions?

Looking for Steps 2, 3 & 4?

You can find Steps 2, 3 & 4 in your teacher’s guide. To purchase a teacher’s guide, please visit: Bible-in-Life or Echoes.

David C Cook COVID-19 Response

Echoes adult