Who Felt What? – A Fun Bible Game That Explores Feelings

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

Here is a fun Bible game that will help get your kids thinking about the feelings of several people in God’s wonderful Word. I call it “Who Felt What?” Just follow the directions below and you will be on your way to sharing some “emotional” fun with your kids.

Here’s what you do:

Below these directions, you will find 2 lists. One list gives 12 different emotions. The second list gives “snippet” 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 statements on a chalkboard or chart of some kind so that your whole class can easily see them. Make sure you omit the actual emotion when writing them for the class. By the way, I gave 3 more statements than emotions to help the scoring be fair at the end of the game. You are now ready to play “Who Felt What?”

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

List of Emotions:

1. sadness

2. fear

3. anger

4. surprise

5. love

6. joy

7. frustrated

8. confused

9. embarrassed

10. hopeful

11. disappointed

12. pain

List of Statements:

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

2. Noah and his family must have felt relieved knowing they had been saved from the flood.

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

4. Mary must have felt fear 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 while dying on the cross for our sins.

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

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

9. Hannah must have felt frustrated when here attempts to have a baby kept failing.

10. The prodigal son must have felt surprised when he saw his dad running up to meet him after all the wrong he had done.

11. Jesus must have felt anger as He was turning over the money tables in the temple.

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

13. Zacheus must have felt hopeful when he asked Jesus to come over for dinner.

14. Moses must have felt disappointed when Pharaoh would not let the children of Israel leave Egypt.

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

Here’s a quick suggestion for success: If you think your kids might get frustrated at a statement having more than one possible emotion, you could give the team 3 choices of statements at a time, rather than the whole list of statements, for them to have more success at making a correct match. Have fun!