Simulation game: Paper, Sharpener, Pencil

⏱️ 15 minutes

Person A gets a pencil sharpener. Person B gets one or more slips of paper (a number that can’t be divided evenly by the number of participants). Person C gets one or more pencils with broken tips.

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In a group of 6, for example, one person gets a sharpener, two people each get a slip of paper, and three people each get a pencil with a broken tip.

The problem

  • Some people each have a pencil with a broken tip, but no paper and no sharpener.
  • One person has a sharpener, but no pencil and no paper.
  • Some people have paper, but no pencil and no sharpener.

The participants have 1 minute to think about how they want to proceed.

Rules

  • The slips of paper may not be torn apart.
  • Only the materials handed out may be used.

Goal

After 15 minutes, the person whose name appears most often on the slips wins.

Possible outcomes

  • whoever asserts themselves (the stronger one) wins, or
  • every slip has all the names on it in equal numbers and everyone wins, or
  • something in between

Debrief questions

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What was your goal?
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What were the arguments for your approach?
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Were there also arguments against your approach?
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Who influenced your decision?
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Who contributed to X winning?
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Whose fault is it that X lost?

Devotional: Free will

⏱️ 10 minutes

💬 According to the creation account in Genesis 1, God created a perfect world in which everything was good.

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But if Adam and Eve were perfect, how could they sin? (They were free to decide against God’s will.)
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How would you define “free will”?
Free will is the ability to choose between alternatives. […] Freedom doesn’t consist in unlimited options, but in a free choice among all the options there are. As long as the individual makes the choice, and not some power outside of them, the decision is free. Free will is the ability to decide without coercion between two or more alternatives. […] By making us this way, God at the same time allowed for the possibility of evil. To be free, we had to be able not only to choose good, but also to do evil. That was the risk God knowingly took. But it didn’t make him responsible for evil. He created the reality of freedom; we carry out the acts of freedom. He made evil possible; human beings made evil actual. Imperfection came from the misuse of our moral perfection as free creatures. (Norman L. Geisler, When Skeptics Ask, paraphrased)
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If your parents set a rule and you break it, who is responsible for breaking the rule? You or your parents?
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If Mr. Putin attacks Ukraine, who is responsible for that?

💬 We have the free will to decide for or against something. But why did God create the world if he knew that people would do evil?

What alternatives would God have had?

⏱️ 30 minutes

💬 What alternatives would God have had?

  1. God could have refrained from creating anything at all.
  2. God could have created a world without free human beings.
  3. God could have created free human beings who cannot sin.
  4. God could have created free human beings who do sin, but who are all saved in the end.

We’re now going to examine whether these options are really better than the world we have.

Flipchart sketch: possible worlds

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Draw this diagram on a whiteboard or flipchart and complete it with each question. It is a tree that always splits in two: at the top, “God”; from there, “nothing” and “something”; from “something,” “without freedom” and “with freedom”; from “with freedom,” “without sin” and “with sin”; from “with sin,” “all saved” and “some saved.” Finally, draw one arrow from “without sin” and another from “all saved” back to “without freedom”: both options turn out to be worlds without freedom. Based on Norman L. Geisler, When Skeptics Ask.

Option 1: Nothing

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Would nothing be better than something?

💬 We actually can’t answer this question. Why? Because God decided to create. That’s why this question is like a cat trying to catch its own tail: it just runs in circles. And so do we with this question. It also ignores the fact that God created everything good.

Option 2: Not free

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Would a world with unfree human beings be better than a world with free human beings? Why or why not?
🎞️
After answering the question, watch the trailers for “The Adjustment Bureau” and “The Giver.”
Trailer “The Adjustment Bureau”
Trailer “The Giver”
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If there were a world with unfree human beings, what would be its purpose? What would people get out of it? And what would it give God?

💬 It would be cold. It would be a world in which emotional growth isn’t possible. A world that runs like a machine, preprogrammed, without highs and lows. No suffering, but also without everything we consider valuable today. The Bible, for example, would consist of blank pages; it wouldn’t exist at all. There would be no goal. So why create this world at all?

Option 3: No sin

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Could God have created free human beings who don’t sin?

💬 The Bible shows us that it would actually be possible to live without sinning. Before Adam and Eve ate the fruit, they lived without sinning. We don’t know how long they were in the garden before the serpent tempted Eve. Jesus, too, lived on earth without sinning, and he was fully human (Hebrews 4:15). The Bible also shows us that in the future we will have a world in which people still have free will but can no longer sin (Revelation 21:27). But we haven’t arrived there yet. And God decided to let people choose freely. If he had taken away their ability to decide against him, they would no longer be free. And when they decide for fellowship with God, they will one day live in a world where it will be impossible to sin.

Option 4: Everyone saved

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Why doesn’t God save all people, regardless of whether they sin or not?

💬 That would mean that we humans aren’t free after all. God would be forcing us to love him. When people demand that of other people, we say it’s wrong to force a person to love someone. So why do we demand it of God? God is a gentleman. He respects people’s choice, and at the same time he lets them carry the full responsibility for their decision. Every person knows what they are deciding for.

God’s way

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Is this the best world God could have made? Why or why not?

💬 If God wants to give every person the freedom to choose and at the same time wants to defeat evil, then this is the best way. During their time on earth, every person may decide for or against a relationship with God. At the end of life, all people are confirmed in their decision. Those who decide against God are separated from those who decide for God. That way evil cannot get into the new, perfect world God will create. Humans and angels can no longer mess anything up, and all the people who decided for God will be with him, of their own free will, without coercion. God deeply wishes that it would be all people, and he makes it possible for every person to be saved (John 6:37; 1 John 2:2; 2 Peter 3:9). He waits patiently.

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For the best way, draw a second diagram: a timeline with “creation,” “fall,” “time of free choice” and “choice confirmed.” At the end, the line splits in two: upward, “the best of all possible worlds”; downward, “eternal separation from evil.” Based on Norman L. Geisler, When Skeptics Ask.
Jesus grieved over Jerusalem: “How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing” (Matthew 23:37). In the end it is possible for people to decide against God of their own free will. As the atheist Jean-Paul Sartre observed in his play “No Exit”: the gates of hell are locked from the inside, by human free choice. (Norman L. Geisler, When Skeptics Ask, paraphrased)

The best way?

⏱️ 10 minutes

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How can it be okay for God if people are not saved in the end?

💬 To explore that, let’s watch a scene from the movie “The Shack” (in the movie, roughly 1:23:55 to 1:30:40).

Scene from the movie The Shack
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Why does Mack let God off the hook? Why doesn’t he accuse him anymore?
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What about the people who die in a war and no longer have the chance to decide for God? Why does God let them die without hope?

📖 Read Romans 1:18-22

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How would you summarize these verses in your own words?
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How would you answer the question about the chance to decide for God now?

The best way!

⏱️ 8 minutes

💬 God doesn’t just reveal himself. He gave himself.

📖 Read Mark 10:45, John 15:14, Hebrews 12:2 and Isaiah 53:5

💬 At the end of the clip from The Shack, Mack says, “There has to be a better way.” And Wisdom answers: “There is. But the better way involves trust.”

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What is missing for you to take the step of trusting God that he has the best way, and that he is the best way?

English version: September 2026