Chapter 1, Part 5: Are all humans one family?
Is anyone there? · Lesson 5 of 5 · About 30 minutes · Grades 1–5
The Evidence for Jesus · A lesson for grades 1–5Is anyone there?
Big questionAre all humans one family?
By the end, kids can
- Say what the Bible claims about every person: one family, made by one God, in his image (Genesis 1:27; Acts 17:26).
- Name what DNA shows: we're 99.9 percent alike, most of our variety is inside each people, and our family trees meet.
- Tell how the family was scattered at Babel and is gathered again through Jesus, from every nation.
- Say the memory verse from memory: Genesis 1:1 (grades 3–4: Psalm 19:1; grade 5+: John 1:3).
You'll need
- This part's one-page worksheet for each child's level (grades 1–2, 3–4, or 5), handed out at the start
- Pencils
- A whiteboard or big sheet of paper for the warm-up's family tree
- A screen with sound and internet: the clips come from the video “Are We All One Family?”
Before you teach
This lesson plays one of the chapter's video lessons in clips. Its page makes the same case for teens and adults, with every source written out: watch it to prepare, or use it with older kids and youth groups. Click a part to go to its slide:
- Are all humans one family? What your DNA says · In class: One family, How alike we are, No separate kinds, One family tree, Going deeper · Grades 3–5, Good news, Good news
The lesson
- 2 min Warm-up: how big is your family tree?
- 2 min Memory verse
- 3 min One family: watch (½ minute), then real names in old records
- 3 min How alike we are: watch (½ minute), then talk
- 3 min No separate kinds: watch (½ minute), talk, and the worksheet
- 4 min One family tree: watch (1½ minutes), then talk
- 3 min Going deeper (grades 3–5): “99 percent chimp”? (1 minute)
- 1 min A quick check
- 3 min Good news: scattered and gathered: watch (1 minute), then the worksheet
- 2 min Good news: not far from any one of us: watch (½ minute), then you're family
- 4 min Memory verse from memory, talk, and pray
Worksheets
Print this lesson's one-page sheet for each child, at their level. They fill it in as you go: the ✎ Worksheet sticker on a slide says which part goes with it.
Send it home
After class, share the one-minute Short with families, to watch together and talk about this week:
Answer key
The worksheets don't print their answers. Here they all are, and on the slide before the credits.
Grades 1–2
- Come to the table! Any path that reaches the end.
- Genesis 1:1: beginning, created, heavens, earth
Grades 3–4
- Find the words: Find: FAMILY, NATIONS, EVE, DNA, BABEL, IMAGE
- Psalm 19:1: heavens, glory, skies, hands
Grade 5+
- Crack the code: FROM ONE MAN HE MADE ALL THE NATIONS
- John 1:3: Through, things, without, nothing
Presenting
Each part opens with a ▶ Watch slide that plays a clip of the 7-minute video “Are All Humans One Family? What DNA Really Shows (and the 99% Chimp Myth)” right on the slide: read the two questions, then click (or press →, or use a clicker) to play the clip. The slides wait while it plays and stops by itself; click twice to stop it early. Then click to show the answers. The clips need an internet connection.
Click the slide, or press → or Space (a clicker works too), to show the next thing; ← goes back, even while a clip plays. F presents full screen (Esc leaves it). P opens the presenter view, a second window with your notes, the next slide, and a timer, that moves with the slides: put it on your laptop and the slides on the projector. N shows the notes under the slides.
Your script
Is anyone there?
Say: This is Part 5, the last part of our chapter, “Is anyone there?” Let's remember the clues so far. A universe that had a beginning. Dials set just right for stars and life. Life that only comes from life. Machines inside every cell.
Say: Today's clue is the people sitting next to you. The Bible says every person on earth is one family. Does our DNA agree?
How big is your family tree?
Do: Draw a dot for “me” at the bottom of the board. Above it draw 2 dots for parents, then 4 grandparents, then 8 great-grandparents. Ask the kids to keep doubling: 16, 32, 64…
Ask: If every family tree gets that wide, what happens when two of them reach back far enough? (They run into each other. They share people.)
Say: Paul once told a crowd in Athens something bold about everyone on earth: “From one man he made all the nations.” Let's see what the Bible says, and what your DNA says.
Clicks: 1. the line “Keep going back, and your family tree gets wide very fast.”
Sources: Acts 17:26
Memory verse
Do: Say it together once with the motions, filling in the four missing words: “in the beginning” (point back over your shoulder), “God created” (hands up), “the heavens” (reach high), “and the earth” (touch the floor).
Say: We've said this verse in every part of this chapter. Today four words are missing, and at the end, let's see if we can say it from memory.
Answers: beginning, created, heavens, earth.
Older kids: Grades 3–4 have Psalm 19:1 and grade 5+ has John 1:3.
Clicks: 1. the missing word “beginning” · 2. the missing word “created” · 3. the missing word “heavens” · 4. the missing word “earth”
One family · Watch: What the Bible says
Do: Read the two questions out loud, then click to play the clip. It's about half a minute and stops by itself.
Ask after: What does Genesis call Eve? Where can you find the names? Click once for each answer.
Prepare: Before class, watch the video lesson this clip comes from, with every source written out: “Are all humans one family?”
Clicks: 1. play the clip (it stops by itself) · 2. the answer to 1: “The mother of all the living.” · 3. the answer to 2: In Egyptian, Assyrian, and Greek records.
Sources: Genesis 1:27 · Genesis 3:20 · Genesis 9:18–19 · Genesis 10
Real names, in real records
Say: Here's the Christian answer: every person on earth belongs to one family, made by one God, in his image. After the flood, Genesis names Noah's three sons and says, “from them came the people who were scattered over the whole earth.”
Say: Then chapter ten traces the nations back to them. And these aren't made-up names. Egypt, Assyria, the Medes, the Greeks of Ionia: here they are, carved in their own stone or in their neighbors'.
Ask: Why does it matter that we can find these names outside the Bible? (Genesis is talking about real peoples, not made-up ones.)
Clicks: 1. the card “Egypt” · 2. the card “Assyria” · 3. the card “The Medes” · 4. the card “The Greeks of Ionia” · 5. the line at the bottom
Sources: Genesis 10 · Generations of Noah (the Table of Nations) · Merneptah Stele · Lamassu · Medes · Ionians
How alike we are · Watch: One letter in a thousand
Say: Now let's ask your DNA. Your DNA is the code inside your cells, written with four letters.
Do: Read the two questions out loud, then click to play the clip. It's about half a minute.
Ask after: How alike are we? Who has more variety? Click once for each answer.
Prepare: Before class, watch the video lesson this clip comes from, with every source written out: “Are all humans one family?”
Clicks: 1. play the clip (it stops by itself) · 2. the answer to 1: 99.9 percent identical. · 3. the answer to 2: Chimpanzees, several times more than we do.
Sources: National Human Genome Research Institute, “Genetics vs. Genomics Fact Sheet” · Kaessmann, Wiebe, Weiss and Pääbo, “Great ape DNA sequences reveal a reduced diversity and an expansion in humans,” Nature Genetics 27 (2001)
Strangely alike
Say: America's National Human Genome Research Institute puts it simply: “All human beings are 99.9 percent identical in their genetic makeup.”
Do: Point to two kids sitting far apart. Say: If we lined up a thousand letters of your DNA and a thousand of your friend's, about one letter would be different. Just one.
Say: And here's the strange part. People live all over the planet, but chimpanzees carry several times more genetic variety than we do. Next to the apes, it's people who are strikingly alike.
Ask: If everyone is that alike, what does it tell you about the kid you think is really different from you? (We're much more alike than we look.)
Clicks: 1. the line “We're spread over the whole planet, and still chimpanzees carry several times more variety than we do.”
Sources: National Human Genome Research Institute, “Genetics vs. Genomics Fact Sheet” · Kaessmann, Wiebe, Weiss and Pääbo, “Great ape DNA sequences reveal a reduced diversity and an expansion in humans,” Nature Genetics 27 (2001)
No separate kinds · Watch: One family, not many
Say: We're alike. But we do have differences. Do they split us into different kinds of people?
Do: Read the two questions out loud, then click to play the clip. It's about half a minute.
Ask after: How many populations? Is there a line between peoples? Click once for each answer.
Prepare: Before class, watch the video lesson this clip comes from, with every source written out: “Are all humans one family?”
Clicks: 1. play the clip (it stops by itself) · 2. the answer to 1: Fifty-two, more than a thousand people from around the world. · 3. the answer to 2: No. Just what Paul said: one family, spread out over the earth.
Sources: Rosenberg et al., “Genetic structure of human populations,” Science 298 (2002) · Acts 17:26
No line between peoples
Do: Hold up ten fingers. Say: Imagine all the ways people differ are these ten fingers. About nine and a half of them are differences between people in the same town, the same people group. Only half a finger separates the big groups.
Say: Your DNA can still show where your ancestors lived. But there's no line in it that makes one people a different kind of human.
Say: That's just what Paul told the crowd in Athens: “From one man he made all the nations.” One family, spread out over the earth.
Worksheet: Grade 5+ cracks the code now. The message is the verse on this slide.
Worksheet answers: Grade 5+, Crack the code: FROM ONE MAN HE MADE ALL THE NATIONS
Clicks: 1. the line “Only 3 to 5 percent separates the major groups. “From one man he made all the nations.” Acts 17:26”
Sources: Rosenberg et al., “Genetic structure of human populations,” Science 298 (2002) · Acts 17:26
One family tree · Watch: Closer than you think
Say: Remember the warm-up, and how fast family trees get wide? Watch what happens when scientists follow them back.
Do: Read the two questions out loud, then click to play the clip. It's about 1½ minutes.
Ask after: Who did your mitochondrial DNA come from? When did everyone's common ancestor live, in the models? Click once for each answer.
Prepare: Before class, watch the video lesson this clip comes from, with every source written out: “Are all humans one family?”
Clicks: 1. play the clip (it stops by itself) · 2. the answer to 1: Your mother, and hers, and hers. · 3. the answer to 2: “Just a few thousand years ago.”
Sources: Genesis 3:20 · Cann, Stoneking and Wilson, “Mitochondrial DNA and human evolution,” Nature 325 (1987) · Poznik et al., Science 341 (2013) · Rohde, Olson and Chang, “Modelling the recent common ancestry of all living humans,” Nature 431 (2004)
Our family trees meet
Say: A tiny piece of your DNA came from your mother, and hers, and hers. Trace every living person's mother line back, and they all meet in one woman. Every man's father line meets in one man. Scientists nicknamed them “mitochondrial Eve” and “Y-chromosomal Adam.”
Say: The DNA alone can't tell us who they were. But it fits the picture Genesis paints: one family tree, going back to “the mother of all the living.”
Say: And when three statisticians followed whole family trees, every parent, their models put the ancestor of everyone alive just a few thousand years back. These are models, not dug-up records. But the stranger across the world from you? A little way back, your family tree and theirs are the same tree.
Ask: Genesis and Paul said we were one family long before anyone could read DNA. What does that tell you about the Bible?
Clicks: 1. the line “In the 2004 models, the ancestor of everyone alive today lived “just a few thousand years ago.””
Sources: Genesis 3:20 · Mitochondrial Eve · Y-chromosomal Adam · Rohde, Olson and Chang, “Modelling the recent common ancestry of all living humans,” Nature 431 (2004) · Most recent common ancestor
Going deeper · Grades 3–5 · Watch: “99 percent chimp”?
Say: You may have heard that people are 99 percent chimpanzee. Let's look at that number.
Do: Read the two questions out loud, then click to play the clip. It's about 1 minute.
Ask after: What does the 99 percent leave out? Why reuse code? Click once for each answer.
Say: So likeness alone can't settle where we came from. And the Bible names what sets us apart: we alone are made in the image of God.
Prepare: Before class, watch the video lesson this clip comes from, with every source written out: “Are all humans one family?”
Clicks: 1. play the clip (it stops by itself) · 2. the answer to 1: The stretches one genome has and the other lacks. Count them, and the difference is about 4 percent. · 3. the answer to 2: The libraries work. A Maker who reused building blocks would leave the same pattern.
Sources: Chimpanzee Sequencing and Analysis Consortium, “Initial sequence of the chimpanzee genome,” Nature 437 (2005) · Britten, “Divergence between samples of chimpanzee and human DNA sequences is 5%, counting indels,” PNAS 99 (2002) · Geisler and Turek, I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist (Crossway, 2004), ch. 6 · Chuong, Elde and Feschotte, “Regulatory evolution of innate immunity through co-option of endogenous retroviruses,” Science 351 (2016) · Genesis 1:27
True or false?
Do: Read each one and have kids stand up for true and sit down for false. Click to stamp each answer.
Answers: 1. True. 2. False. 3. False. 4. True.
Clicks: 1. the answer to 1: True. · 2. the answer to 2: False. There's no line in it that makes one people a different kind. · 3. the answer to 3: False. The DNA alone can't tell us who she was. · 4. the answer to 4: True.
Good news · Watch: Scattered, then gathered
Say: If we're all one family, why do we fight like strangers? Genesis tells us how the family split up, and the rest of the Bible tells how God gathers it again.
Do: Read the two questions out loud, then click to play the clip. It's about 1 minute.
Ask after: What did the people at Babel want? How did the crowd at Pentecost hear? Click once for each answer.
Prepare: Before class, watch the video lesson this clip comes from, with every source written out: “Are all humans one family?”
Clicks: 1. play the clip (it stops by itself) · 2. the answer to 1: A name for themselves. So God scattered them. · 3. the answer to 2: In their own languages: “declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!”
Sources: Genesis 11:1–9 · Acts 2:5–11 · Revelation 7:9–10
Scattered, then gathered
Say: 1. At Babel, people wanted to “make a name for ourselves,” and God scattered them and confused their language. Ever since, we've treated family like strangers. Every war between peoples, every joke about someone's race, is a fight inside the family.
Say: 2. But God didn't leave it there. At Pentecost, people from every nation heard Jesus's followers in their own languages, “declaring the wonders of God.”
Say: 3. And the Bible ends with the whole family together again, before the throne and before the Lamb. They're there because of what Jesus did. He gave his life as a ransom to bring us home to God's family. He won, and we belong to him.
Ask: Is there someone you've treated like a stranger? What would it look like to treat them like family?
Worksheet: Grades 3–4 find the words now. Every word is from today's video.
Worksheet answers: Grades 3–4, Find the words: Find: FAMILY, NATIONS, EVE, DNA, BABEL, IMAGE
Clicks: 1. step 1 · 2. step 2 · 3. step 3 · 4. the line at the bottom
Sources: Genesis 11:1–9 · Acts 2:5–11 · Revelation 7:9–10
Good news · Watch: Not far from any one of us
Say: Paul told the crowd in Athens why God made us one family, and what to do about it.
Do: Read the two questions out loud, then click to play the clip. It's about half a minute.
Ask after: What does God command? What proof did he give? Click once for each answer.
Prepare: Before class, watch the video lesson this clip comes from, with every source written out: “Are all humans one family?”
Clicks: 1. play the clip (it stops by itself) · 2. the answer to 1: Repent: turn back to him. · 3. the answer to 2: He raised Jesus from the dead.
Sources: Acts 17:27–31 · Ephesians 2:19
You're family
Say: Is anyone there? That's been our question all chapter. Here's the answer: yes, and he's not far from you. The God who made the stars, set the dials, and made every person made you, so that you would seek him and find him.
Say: Paul said God “commands all people everywhere to repent.” To repent means to turn around: to stop going your own way and come back to God. And God gave proof that Jesus is the one to follow: he raised him from the dead.
Say: Turn to him and follow Jesus, and you're “no longer foreigners and strangers.” You're in God's family. You could pray, “God, I turn to you. Jesus, I want to follow you. Bring me into your family.”
Worksheet: Grades 1–2 find the way through the maze to the family table now.
Worksheet answers: Grades 1–2, Come to the table!: Any path that reaches the end.
Clicks: 1. the line “Turn to him and follow Jesus, and you're “no longer foreigners and strangers.” You're family.”
Sources: Acts 17:27–31 · Ephesians 2:19
Say it from memory
Do: Say the verse together with the motions, filling in all the missing words. Then try it with eyes closed. Who can say it alone?
Answers: beginning, created, heavens, earth (the same words as the grades 1–2 sheet).
Worksheet: Everyone fills in the missing words of their own memory verse and colors a star each time they say it.
Worksheet answers: Grades 1–2, Genesis 1:1: beginning, created, heavens, earth
Worksheet answers: Grades 3–4, Psalm 19:1: heavens, glory, skies, hands
Worksheet answers: Grade 5+, John 1:3: Through, things, without, nothing
Clicks: 1. the missing word “beginning” · 2. the missing word “created” · 3. the missing word “heavens” · 4. the missing word “earth”
Talk and pray
Do: Talk about one or two of the questions, then pray together. Kids can repeat the prayer one line at a time.
Do: Send the worksheets home, with this part's one-minute Short for families. The link is in your guide, under “Send it home.”
Say: Next chapter: if God made us, has he ever spoken? Promises written hundreds of years before Jesus was born.
Clicks: 1. the prayer
Answer key
Do: Show this when kids check their work, or keep it on your laptop in the presenter view. The worksheets don't print their answers, so this is the key.
Pictures and Scripture
Every picture on these slides, with its credit, license, and a link to its source.