This year is our year to read through the Bible as a family. We were challenged: it only takes 80 hours, reading at a normal pace, to get through the entire Bible. We have daily family worship, often following a devotional or choosing a book in the New Testament to read daily. But as Henrietta Mears points out in her excellent book, What the Bible is All About, we would never approach another book in this way, reading a chapter here or a portion there. The best way for our children to get a sense of the whole is to read the entire thing straight through.
While it isn’t the first time my husband and I have read the entire Bible, it is the first time we’ve done it with the kids. And we are noticing a lot of things that didn’t stand out to us when we read it silently to ourselves.
Today’s story was about Jacob and Esau. As we read through several chapters, I began to wonder if perhaps the story should be censored for young ears. The sordid details rivaled the most outrageous daytime television for shock value. When Rachel couldn’t get pregnant, and gave her servant to her husband in order to conceive a child through a surrogate, our 6 year old shouted out, “That’s the same thing that Sarah did when she gave Hagar to Abraham!”
Oh, yeah. That’s right. They are paying attention.
When we read further down that Rachel sold her conjugal rights to Leah for the night, in exchange for some fruit, the boys were all shocked, and one of them pointed out sagely that Jacob brought all this on himself by being a polygamist.
I have often resisted the use of children’s Bibles, feeling that they somehow cheat our children out of hearing the true Word of God. Many people worry that our children cannot understand our Bible, but today I found myself worried about the opposite concern: they understood it all too well.
Would it be better to stick to the children’s Bible and shield them from the shocking details? Perhaps. But perhaps not.
This is, after all, God’s holy Word. If the children’s Bible is the only Bible our children are ever exposed to, they miss out on the testimony of how God worked through deeply flawed individuals to bring about His redemptive purposes in human history.
Our children are probably ready to leave the milk of the children’s Bible behind and move on to the meat of the inspired living Word much sooner than we think. Children’s Bibles have their place. But our children should not be kept on a meager diet of paraphrases when the Word alone is God-breathed.
“…from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,” 2 Timothy 3:15-16
We read through the Bible with our kids too, and like you sometimes I’ve worried about too much information. But a mentor of ours said once, what better place and it what better way can we hope to teach our children? I agree as awkward as it is sometimes 🙂
But I was so pleased this morning because my 10yob took it upon himself to narrate (tell back with good detail) Genesis to my 5yog from Creation all the way to Joseph. He spent an hour just telling her, and then she wanted to go and get her Bible (Children’s version) so she could look at the pictures while he told her the story. I was so impressed. This is the benefit of having read through… they really get a sense of the big picture. Reading the OT helps them to understand the larger picture of why Jesus came and had to die.
Come on over and visit my blog anytime!
Amy
Trujillo, Peru
homeschoolblogger.com/amada
I have been enjoying your podcast, and have shared with a friend who also enjoyed them, and would like to know how you record the podcast.
ReBecca
(TOG Mom)
Great post Molly! We read to our children right from the King James and they “get it”. I don’t censor but sometimes hope they don’t ask me any questions! 🙂 We have just finished reading through the Great Bible Stories (which is most of the Bible) using the reading program from our Master Clubs. You can find it here http://masterclubs.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=73&Itemid=214 I think we will do the whole Bible next but I’m trying to decide if I want to buy something like Balancing the Sword or the Bible program from DailyBibleLessons.com.
(I also bought Do Hard Things this week. I had it on my want to buy list but decided to get it after reading your post this week.)
ReBecca: You or your friend can contact me via email and I’d be glad to let her know how I have done the podcasts!
Karen,
We’ve been using Balancing the Sword for the past few months. I got it half price through Vision Forum awhile back. We’ve all really enjoyed it. The questions are designed to check whether you understood what the text says. There are no application questions or questions that could be answered differently by different people. Each question has a specific answer which is in the answer key at the back. All this to say, it has been good for our kids, motivating them to carefully listen, as they know the questions are coming at the end of the reading.
We prefer this style of book for our devotions time,as it allows my husband and I to ask specific application questions and talk over what the text means with our children from our own perspective, rather than having the author of the book make that application. I’m not familiar with Daily Bible Lessons, but I’ll check it out!
By the way, Balancing the Sword has questions for every single chapter in the Bible in each of the two volumes…so we use both volumes every day, and each child has 2 or 3 questions to answer at the end of the reading.
Molly,
I’ve downloaded the samples from Balancing the Sword and from DailyBibleLessons.com. I found Daily Bible Lessons from UHSE and just re-listened to the MP3 that went with it. I would encourage you to listen to it when you have a chance. Go to the speaker hall and find Kevin Shaw and listen to The Textbook Bible recording. I think you’ll like it.
I still have not decided which to order but I’m leaning toward the Daily Bible Lessons….
I’ve enjoyed reading your insight into appropriateness of the Bible for young children. I have a two year old and we read a children’s version at the time until he is older.
When I taught in a private school a few years ago, it was 4th grade, we had to go through the Ten Commandments each week. When we got to “Thou shou not commit adultery” the text book helped to teach adultery but it left it so vague that when I finished the week of that Commandment, my students really didn’t know what adultery was. They weren’t sure. I kind of liked it that way because I think they are too young to understand this, but maybe not.
It sounds like your sons are very intuitive and I think that your reading the entire Bible as a family is just wonderful!