I want Elizabeth to be excited about reading the Bible. I want her to look forward to that time. I want her to apply its truths to her life. I want her to go deeper than looking at it as simply "Bible stories." But I struggle with knowing what she can handle.
I highly recommend the Jesus Storybook Bible as a children's Bible. If you haven't already checked it out, you really should. It does the best job I have ever seen of making God the hero of every story and connecting each story to the next in context of God's plan to rescue us from sin. We've read it cover to cover multiple times, and Elizabeth loves it.
But like any children's Bible, it leaves out a lot. The Bible is deep. Scholars can study it all day every day for all their lives and they'll keep discovering new things about God and His love for His people. But God says that "all Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness" (II Timothy 3:16) and that His Word is living and active (Hebrews 4:12). God's Words are powerful and I want Elizabeth to get to know the real thing!
So in that sense, we've occasionally read "Mommy and Daddy's Bible" to Elizabeth. We've read the four Gospels and Acts, but now I'm starting Genesis with her. There is some really complicated, messed-up stuff in the Bible! There's some amazing stuff that I'm glad we're able to talk about: "If you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to hae you, but you must master it" (Genesis 4:6). That's good stuff! We can easily apply that to our lives! But there's also Noah getting drunk and naked, and Sarai having Abram sleep with Hagar, and Sodom and Gomorrah, and all kinds of things that we don't want to talk about yet!
As adults, we have a lot we can learn from these things. But kindergartners? At what age or maturity level are kids ready for that stuff?
So far, I've been able to get by with using some euphemisms and skipping some parts. Any thoughts?
3 comments:
I think you are doing exactly the right things. Just like anything else, the Bible as food must be fed to us as we can handle it. You wouldn't feed Amelie choking food because her little body is not yet developed to handle it.
Let the Holy Spirit guide you in all you do and Elizabeth and Ami will grow into the kind of woman of God that you are.
I look at what's important and needed for that age to know and really understand. For example, my 2 and 3 year olds that i teach in church, I try to ingrain deeply in their heads that Jesus LOVES them. All stories get back to that point. I don't think Paul getting beaten by chains in jail is pertinent to what that age needs to know (our curriculum has the most bazaar stories that they really can't apply to their lives yet).
Blessings as you follow the Holy Spirit and make decisions for the girls growth. Remember that God sees your heart.
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