Feelings are universal. Love, joy, frustration, and surprise are just a few of the many feelings that God allows us to experience. The people of the Bible also felt all of these emotions and it is important for our children to relate to the people of the Bible on an emotional level.

Here is a fun Bible game that will help your children think about the feelings of various people in the wonderful Word of God. I call it “Who felt what?” Just follow the instructions below and you’ll be on your way to sharing some “emotional” fun with your kids.

This is what you do:

Below these instructions, you will find 2 lists. A list gives 12 different emotions. The second list gives “fragment” statements of 12 different characters in the Bible. Take the list of emotions and write each feeling on a 3 x 5 card. Place these cards face down on a table or pocket chart. Now write the list of affirmations on a board or some kind of chart so that the whole class can easily see them. Make sure you leave out the actual emotion when you write them for the class. By the way, I gave 3 more statements than emotions to help make the score fair at the end of the match. You are now ready to play “Who Felt What?”

Divide your class into 2 teams. Choose a child from the first team to point to one of the emotion cards. You, the teacher, must carefully reveal the word written on the card so that only the child can see it. Now you must represent the feeling. Both teams can try to guess. The first team to guess the emotion correctly now has a chance to match the emotion to the correct statement. If the team gets it right, they earn 100 points for their team. The second team is next, even if they were the ones who won the last round. Play like before. The team with the most points at the end of the game wins!

List of emotions:

1. sadness

2. fear

3. angel

4. surprise

5 love

6. joy

7. frustrated

8. Confused

9. embarrassed

10. hopeful

11. disappointed

12. bread

Statement List:

1. Adam and Eve must have felt sad when they left the garden.

2. Noah and his family must have been relieved to learn that they had been saved from the flood.

3. Zechariah and Elizabeth must have felt joy when they learned that they would have a baby in their old age.

4. Mary must have been afraid when the angel appeared to her announcing that she would give birth to the Son of God.

5. Ruth must have felt love when she realized that Boaz was in love with her.

6. Jesus must have felt pain as He died on the cross for our sins.

7. Peter must have felt ashamed after realizing that he had denied the Lord 3 times.

8. Gideon must have been confused when God reduced the number of his army to fight the Midianites.

9. Hannah must have been frustrated when her attempts to have a baby kept failing.

10. The prodigal son must have been surprised when he saw his father running to meet him after all the evil he had done.

11. Jesus must have felt anger while turning over the money tables in the temple.

12. David must have felt brave when he faced the giant Goliath and killed him.

13. Zacchaeus must have felt hopeful when he asked Jesus to come to dinner.

14. Moses must have been disappointed when Pharaoh did not allow the children of Israel to leave Egypt.

15. Joseph must have felt nervous when he was taken to a new land that was strange and new to him.

Here’s a quick tip for success: If you think your kids might be frustrated by a statement that has more than one possible emotion, you could give the team 3 statement choices at a time, instead of the full list of statements, to let them have them more success in making a correct combination. Have fun!