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Introduction:
“How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed
according to Your word” (Psalm
119:9). No matter how old they are, we want our children to
know the Bible. As parents, we recognize that God’s word
contains the words of eternal life. However, at times, we look at
the Book and then we look at our kids—we wonder, how do we get
all this information into their little heads? What steps can we
take? What activities should we do? When should we start? How hard
should we push? These are important questions. These questions
ought to be and can be answered. In this lesson, we will look at
how to teach our children the Bible. We will discuss two Biblical
principles of learning that we must follow. In so doing, we will
also explore some practical suggestions to help teach our
children. These suggestions are just that, suggestions. This
lesson is designed to help those who are trying to figure out what
to do. From my practical suggestions, feel free to pick and choose
to your heart’s content. If something will not work in your
home, fine. If some suggestion sparks your own creative teaching
juices and helps you come up with better ideas, great. Whatever
the case, I hope you take this one point—we parents must do
something to teach our children the Bible. Discussion: I.
A few quick
observations from Deuteronomy
6:1-9. A.
This passage
was what God expected out of His Old Covenant people. How much
more does He expect this from us under a better covenant based on
better promises (Hebrews 8:6)? B.
Before we
can teach our children, we must be personally devoted to God and
place value upon knowing God’s word (vss.
5-6). If we do not love the Lord with all our heart, soul and
strength and value knowing what He says, we will never be able to
teach our children to love the Lord and value what He says. C.
We can teach
our children (vs. 7).
God did not establish the government to be the main teaching
institution to children. He did not even establish the church to
be the main teaching institution of children. He established
families to teach children. He has given parents authority in our
homes. He has given us the scriptures. He has empowered us with
size and influence over little babies to raise them up to
adulthood. D.
Teaching our
children will take time (vss.
7-9). There are numerous activities in our world vying for our
time. We must take the time to teach our children. We must be
diligent about it. When our children turn six years old, we devote
8 to 10 hours of every weekday to “reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmetic.”
How much time do we devote to teaching them God’s word? Do not
get me wrong, reading, writing, math, history, science, art, etc.
are all good subjects. But they will not help our children through
eternity. “Time is money,” they say. Maybe we will have to
sacrifice some money to teach our children. We must consider it an
investment in our children’s eternities. II.
Bible
Principle #1: Use the Bible—II
Timothy 3:14-17. A.
II Timothy 3:14-17
says scripture is profitable for teaching, reproof, correction and
instruction in righteousness. It accomplishes all these things for
adults and for kids. B.
What do I
mean when I say, “Use the Bible”? 1.
When I say,
“Use the Bible,” I mean when telling your children Bible
stories, use the Bible. “VeggieTales” and “Pop-up books”
are fun to read. But, if that is the extent of your Bible
teaching, your children will not know the scriptures as Timothy
did. Read from the Bible. Let them know as children that we can
learn from other books and other books are fun to read. But only
the Bible is our standard for teaching and there is no substitute.
You can make Bible reading exciting for your children. It depends
on how you do it. Next time you are reading a Bible story to your
children, do not read in a boring monotone. Do not read it quickly
as if you are trying to race to get it over with. Read
dramatically. Do voices for the different characters. Let the kids
see that you are excited about it and they will be too. As your
children get older, do not allow them to simply fare on devotional
books targeted at teens. Make them spend time with the Word of
God. 2.
When I say,
“Use the Bible,” I mean instruct your children in how to
behave by reading the Bible passages to them. If your children
lie, correct them by reading Revelation
21:8 and Ephesians 4:25.
When they show respect to you and obey you, praise and encourage
them by reading Ephesians 6:1-3. When they ask you a question, take them to the
verse that answers it and read it to them. For instance, when they
ask you where “granddaddy” is, do not say, “He’s in
heaven.” Take them to Luke
16:19-31 and read to them about Lazarus and the rich man. Take
them to I Thessalonians
4:13-18 and read to them about the resurrection. Based on
these passages, tell them about Hades, Paradise, Torment, the
Great Chasm and the Judgment Day resurrection. I know that some of
you are looking at your four, five or six year old children and
saying, “That is the dumbest thing I have ever heard Edwin. My
child is too young to understand those passages.” If they are
old enough to ask a Bible question, they are old enough to hear
the Bible answer. Many of them are too young to understand. But
they still need to hear the real answer, not some easy answer that
we will have to unteach them when they are old enough to
understand. Further, they need to see you go to the Bible for the
answers. That will teach them to do the same. 3.
When I say,
“Use the Bible,” I mean have your children memorize scripture.
Timothy knew the scriptures from childhood (II
Timothy 3:15). If your children are old enough to speak, they
are old enough to memorize. This should not become a test of wills
and it must not become an issue of “Memorize this verse or I
will spank you.” This is not to be a competition. Nor should it
be a status symbol for parents. Remember this, the point is not
whether they will recite verses to visiting preachers to impress
them. The point is getting them to hide the word in their hearts (Psalm
119:11). If you have to work on one verse for a whole year
until they can say it on their own, fine. That is one more verse
than they would know if you did not do anything. But allow me to
assure you, your children can probably memorize faster than you
can. Simply read verses to them and have them repeat them back to
you. As they get older, they will be able to work on it on their
own. You can make this exciting and fun for them. Set up charts
with stickers to demonstrate what they have memorized. Have a
notebook in which you write on a page what they have memorized for
easier review later. When they get it right, give them hugs and
kisses. When they get it wrong, give them positive encouragement
and more hugs and kisses. If it is a long passage, have a special
reward for them when they have learned it. If they do not
understand the verse, so what. They know it. As they get older,
understanding will come. If some of the words are hard to
pronounce, so what. This is not a test of verbal acuity. It is
simply getting the verse in that little heart. As their speech
gets better the pronunciation will come. III.
Bible
Principle #2: Start with the milk and move to solid food—II
Peter 2:2; Hebrews 5:12-14. A.
When your
children are first born, you do not feed them steak. They need
milk. However, as they are given milk they grow, develop and
mature and they become able to handle meat. The growth rate is
different for different children. The same is true with teaching
your children the Bible. They start with the milk. You do not
expect your four-year-old or your fourteen-year-old to understand
all the weighty matters of God’s Word. However, you do expect
your fourteen-year-old to understand more than the four-year-old. B.
Most people
have a general concept of this. That is why they rely so heavily
on simplified Bible stories and do not start them on hearing the
actual Bible until they are much older. However, that is not the
answer. While there are some passages that are just difficult (II
Peter 3:16). The issue of milk and meat is not so much
learning easy passages and then learning hard ones. Rather, it is
reading all the passages and learning the surface issues and then
reading them again and again and again and getting deeper and
deeper and deeper. Remember, your children are developing. You
cannot expect them to be adults in understanding. However, do not
allow them to remain children in mentality (I
Corinthians 14:20). C.
For sake of
having a framework, let’s divide child education into five
stages. This is a somewhat simplified and surface approach, but it
is a place to start. Consider these stages and suggestions for
teaching throughout each stage. 1.
The
Infant Stage: a.
By infant, I
am referring to the period from birth to the time when they start
talking. Everyone knows that infants cannot learn anything. So
there is no need to even try teaching them the Bible during this
stage. Right? Wrong. I am amazed at how many parents say this when
you talk about teaching the Bible. And yet, the first thing every
parent ever does with a child is start teaching him stuff. b.
Do you
remember when you first held that little bundle of joy? What did
you say? You probably did what I did. See if this sounds familiar,
“Hi Tessa, do you know who I am? I’m your daddy.” “Hi
Ethan, you know what? I love you. Do you love me?” Now, did my
five-minute-old children have any understanding of what it meant
to have a daddy or to love someone? Of course not. Yet there I was
trying to teach that stuff to them. c.
In this
stage, you will not be able to have conversations about the Bible
with your kids. You will not get any feedback from them. But you
can still read them Bible stories. You can talk to them about
God’s love and your love for God. You can sing songs. Will they
understand? Absolutely not. But they will hear it and that is what
you want. 2.
The
Parrot Stage: a.
Sometime
between ages one and two, your children learn to talk. What do
they say? They say what they hear from you. They will become
parrots. They repeat everything you say. I will never forget the
time Marita and I were in the car and from the back seat we heard
a little girl’s voice say, “Come on people, get outta the
way.” It lasts from about age two through age five. b.
This is the
perfect time to start getting your kids to memorize scripture.
Just have them repeat what they hear you say. This is the perfect
time to get your children to start learning lists. Have them learn
the books of the Bible, the judges, the kings, the fruit of the
spirit, the apostles, the plagues and much more. We know they can
learn them. Through working with kids in Bible drills, I have
learned that they have a phenomenal ability to learn. Can they
pronounce all the words accurately? No, but so what. Most adults
cannot pronounce all the words properly. Do they understand what
those lists represent? No, but so what. They know the lists. When
they get older and are trying to understand the Bible history,
they will not also have to learn all the facts. The facts will
already be in their minds. c.
Read the
Bible stories to them and read them from the Bible. Start with
shorter readings and train your children to sit down and listen
for longer and longer periods of time. Then ask them simple fact
questions. For example, “Who was Jesus’ mother?” or “Who
killed Goliath?” When they do not know, do not get mad, give
them the answers. Then ask again in a few minutes. d.
Allow me to
explain what you are doing here. You should not really be worried
with whether or not they understand all of this—they won’t and
they can’t at this stage. They do not have the mental capacity
to understand it. What you are doing is setting up a filing
system. You are labeling file drawers in their mind. As they grow,
they will naturally gain the ability to understand and piece
information together to form a sound knowledge and understanding
of the Bible. But you have now given them a leg up. For instance,
when your children are older and trying to understand what the
plagues were all about, they will already know what the plagues
were. They will already have a file drawer marked “10 plagues”
in their mind, now they can easily fill that drawer with
understanding and further information. 3.
The
Grammar Stage: a.
Classically,
when children began their formal education, they were taken
through three stages. I have adopted these stages of “Classical
Education” to describe the rest of our children’s training.
The first stage is the “Grammar stage”. Today, we typically
think of grammar in the context of English and sentence structure.
However, in its most basic meaning, “Grammar” refers to the
basics of any field of study. This stage of your child’s
biblical training will last roughly from age six through age nine,
about four years. This is the building block stage. In the parrot
years you filled them with lists and facts. Now you can start
putting them together somewhat into a framework. b.
The
beginning of these years are a little different than the later
years. At age six, they are probably just learning to read and
write. If they do not know how to read and write yet, continue
reading to them. But then, instead of just having them answer a
few fact questions, start having them tell you, in their own
words, what happened in the story. As they learn to read, you will
start having them do more and more of the reading on their own,
with their own Bibles. A good Bible to use for them is a New King
James Bible. As they learn to write, have them read the stories
and then write them down in their own words. Keep their writings
in a notebook to refer back to. c.
As they get
into these years, start working on timelines. Have them make their
own timeline of Bible events, placing pictures of the stories in
the proper location on their own timeline. Have them start working
with Bible maps. At first have them find where different stories
occurred on a map. Then have them work on memorizing Bible
geography and filling out outlined maps. You will be amazed at
what they can learn. d.
One thing
you must not overlook in this stage is teaching them how to find
passages in the Bible. As they learn how to read, work with them
on learning how to navigate through God’s book. Take them past
just knowing the songs. Teach them how to find a passage quickly.
Do drills with them. Call out a passage and time them. If you have
two in this age, have them compete to see who can get their first.
4.
The
Logic Stage: a.
As your
children get into their preteens, they begin to develop more
reasoning skills. They can begin to think through things and make
connections between different facts and how they go together to
produce a sound logical argumentation. They can begin to examine
what people say and whether or not it makes sense or if it is
contradictory. At this point, they go into what is called the
Logic stage. This stage will also last about four years, from age
10 through age 13. b.
Now that
they have the major building blocks down, knowing who, what, when
and where, they can start putting the big picture together. They
can start connecting ideas. This is when they start reading a
passage that says what will happen when the people ask for a king
(Deuteronomy
17:14ff)
and they will make the connection with the kings they have learned
and the stories they have read about those kings. For instance,
reading vs. 17 will
automatically call to mind David’s actions with Bathsheba and
Solomon with his many wives. In addition, they will see the
significance of God saying what would happen before it happened. c.
This is when
they will read passages and make connections with what happens in
their own lives saying things like, “This is just like what
happened at school today. I should have done what this verse
says.” They can begin to answer questions like the following,
“What does Ephesians 4:25
say about cheating on a test at school?” A four-year-old could
never answer that question, because a four-year-old would never
recognize cheating as a form of lying. But a thirteen-year-old
should be able to, unless he has not been challenged to think past
a four-year-old level. d.
In this
stage, they can answer why questions. They no longer address just,
“Who was Jesus’ mother?” but also, “Why was Mary surprised
when the angel told her she would have a son?” They can answer
questions like, “How would you have felt if you were Mary?”
“How would you have felt if you had been Joseph?” “Why do
you think God chose a poor carpenter’s family to bring up His
Son?” e.
So, as they
continue reading their Bible through, instead of having them write
down what the passage says in their own words, have them write
down what the passage says about how they should live. Does the
passage address any issues that came up today or might come up
tomorrow? What would they have done if they were the Bible
character? f.
During this
time, start teaching your children how to use reference materials.
Teach them how to use a concordance to look things up in the Bible
and study topics. Teach them how to use commentaries and
distinguish between good reasoning and bad reasoning found within
them. Teach them to judge every other thing they read by the
Bible. Teach them how to use lexicons to discover the meanings of
Bible words and how they affect what is said in different
contexts. When they ask you a question, direct them to look up the
answer in their Bible first and see what it says. g.
Since this
is when children really begin to connect ideas and begin to
connect what they read and hear with what they are doing, we are
not surprised to find that this is the age when children typically
become Christians. When they become Christians, you need to step
up their biblical education. If they are old enough to become
Christians, they are old enough to work harder at serving God.
When you go to group Bible studies, prayer meetings or singings,
do not allow them to go play with the little kids. They are
Christians now, they need to be involved in this group worship
too. 5.
The
Rhetoric Stage: a.
Now that
your children have the building blocks down and have focused on
why things have happened in the Bible, they can start presenting
their own ideas in writing and in speaking. This stage is the
rhetoric stage. Rhetoric is the ability to use language
effectively. We know we have taught our children well, when they
can teach others. Before they get out of your homes, start working
with them on teaching others. This stage begins at about 14 and
continues until they leave your home. b.
No doubt,
the Bible is the greatest book of all times. As such, its message
is ever deepening. I do not want to suggest that by the time your
child is 14 she will know all the facts found in the Bible, will
have made all the connections to be made and know why all things
happened. She will ever study those things. But at this age, your
children can take what they have learned and learn to express it
to others, in private and in public settings. c.
In the logic
stage, they figured out how verses connected to one another to
make sound arguments about the teaching of Christ. Now you should
take time to work with them on expressing those ideas in writing
and verbally. Give them assignments to determine what the Bible
says about money, work, dress or some other topic. Then have them
make a written or oral presentation to you. Have them give a
written assignment to an elder, evangelist or Bible class teacher
to review for soundness and clarity. d.
Have them
outline some of Paul’s letters, determining what the theme of
the book was and expressing why they believe that is the theme. I
know what many of you are thinking. You are thinking that this has
only come to my mind because I am a preacher and want to turn all
of our kids into preachers. But, that is not true, and yet, it is.
I do not want all of our children to be full-time evangelists. I
do want all of them to become evangelists at school and at work. I
want all of them to be able to give an answer to those who ask
them of the hope that lies within them (I
Peter 3:15). Having said that, let me encourage you to have
your teenage boys learn how to preach a sermon. Do not wait for
the church to have a training class. Have them write a sermon and,
if nothing else, present it to you at home. e.
Have them
work through some already written personal evangelism materials,
practicing teaching you to become a Christian. Have them practice
with their friends in Bible class. Encourage them to study with
friends from school. Get them involved in teaching younger
siblings and younger Bible classes. Have them write their own
materials to use in personal Bible studies or in classes. Conclusion: “How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to Your word” (Psalm 119:9). Teaching our children the Bible is imperative, especially in this time when the messages they are getting all around us are so unbiblical. I hope some of my practical suggestions and framework have also been helpful. Whatever you think about any of the particular suggestions, I hope you will take this with you—do something to teach your children the Bible. Use the scriptures and help them grow from milk to meat. Do not let them leave your home without knowing God’s word.
Glory
to God in the church by Christ Jesus
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