Clean as a whistle

Using Hebrews 10:11-16, Step 4 of the lesson, “Show Gratitude” calls out our perfection and sanctification (see verse 14). My first thought was to illustrate this by cleaning some dirty pennies in preparation for placing them in a collection, but you may have to use some chemicals in the classroom (dip in dirty and it comes out shinny clean like the TV ad). Does “washed in the blood of Christ” work or is that going too far with this analogy?

A different take on these same verses is to focus on the meaningless repetition of the priestly sacrifice and apply the principle to our use of repetitive prayer (see Matt 6:7). You can have a discussion with members regarding repetitive prayer phrases they hear today.

You could present the origin of the term “Clean as a whistle,” an alteration of the original “Clear as a whistle” phrase. Ask, “What’s so clean about whistles?” Make the comparison that Christians are completely clean and pure because of Christ’s sacrifice even though we may appear only whistle clean here on Earth. Washed in the blood of Christ we are totally righteous before God! Wow!!!