Tabi and I are working our way through 1+2 Kings and I am getting tired of her keep saying "well they left that out in Sunday school" or "have they lied to me again?" In fact the first time I heard that was when she was about 6 and she had bought her first full Bible on a wet holiday we were having in Wales and she just read it from front to back, including Leviticus, etc, and all I kept hearing from the back seat was "they've lied to me" and "Mummy, why did they miss that bit out?"
Now as a home schooler as well as a parent who thinks we should not give our children's education over to others I have come to realise through this rendition of Bible study that I am as guilty as "they" are for missing things out. I could give all sorts of excuses to myself, about how I didn't know any better, how I only did what I could find in the various children's Bibles I came across, and actually I did come across some really good ones with wonderful questions in that sparked off discussion. And we also got some amazing stuff from our Ywam days.
What I think is that we take the verse "....teach it to your children and to their children" to mean tell them the stories from the Bible, tell them the stories of God's people, but as we read them we find that they are of fallen people and are quite immoral in places, have sex and violence in them and just things we don't quite get. In fact in reading "Reading the Bible for all its worth" they explain that most of the stories are not concepts that we are to follow but to show that God is with people no matter what and that He will use people who are willing to go for it, and then maybe teach them something maybe not. So we leave stuff out and we santize the stories and try to find a message in them that maybe wasn't there, that actually was just a "this is what happened" story.
But what we should be showing as well as teaching our children is how to trust God, how to hear from God, how to be bold enough to tell others about Him in a way that suits that child's personality and situation, to be showing them how others live, how to be with the poor and give hope as well as resources to the poor. Basically we should be discipling them in how to walk the walk as well as talk the talk. Of how to hear what God has planned for them, how to walk out their destiny when the world, even thier church world, maybe saying something different.
but I think we cheat. We hide behind stories we don't understand, make them safe because then maybe we'll get them and then wonder why often they don't see the amazing adventure of God and want to grab it with both hands and share it with others.
There is much taught on discipling at the moment, but if maybe we started with our own kids first then when they have grown they wouldn't be looking for someone to disicple them!!
Very well said! Much is taught that is inaccurate or down right wrong and our children need to know how to study the bible for themselves. I encourage mine to run to the bible and check for themselves if someone says something that makes them uncomfortable. I wish someone had shown me that earlier!
ReplyDeleteWe are reading about Hezekiah at the moment so are at a similar place to you :-)