Hey fellow Biblearc-ers! I would love to teach things here in Biblearc to our kids. Anyone have any advice for that or for teaching kids bible study in general? I have no idea how to do it before they can read, but as soon as they can read is what I have in mind.
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How to teach kids to study scripture? 📖🧒🏽👧🏻👧🏼👦🏿
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I love this question, and I’m thankful that you brought it up. Our kids are all still young. For now, we focus on teaching them to study Scripture in three ways:
- Jesus is the point of Scripture: It wasn’t until seminary that I started taking the NT seriously when it talks about the OT. For years I read the OT without understanding because I did not read it as God intended me to read it. So, we try to teach our kids that all of Scripture is about Jesus. There are some great resources that help with this like the Tales that Tell the Truth series (https://www.thegoodbook.com/children/tales-that-tell-the-truth/book/), the Big Picture Story Bible (https://www.amazon.com/Big-Picture-Story-Bible-Redesign/dp/1433543117), and the Bible Project (https://thebibleproject.com/). Eventually, I’d like to help my kids memorize some of these verses too:
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John 5:46: “If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me.”
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Luke 24:25-27: "He said to them, ‘How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?’ And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.
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Acts 2:29-31: “Fellow Israelites, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day. But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne. Seeing what was to come, he spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, that he was not abandoned to the realm of the dead, nor did his body see decay.”
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1 Tim 3:14-15: “But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.”
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1 Pet 1:10-12: “Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things.”
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We have our kids listen to an audio Bible at night. This helps them listen to whole books, teaches them to pay attention to context and arguments, and teaches them to look for natural markers and divisions in the text rather than chapters and verses. Again, it’s amazing how listening to whole books teaches them a lot of the interpretive principles that I had to learn in the classroom: literary context, discourse analysis, tracing an argument, etc. Our favorite audio Bible is The Bible Experience (https://christianaudio.com/the-old-testament-audiobook-download). Even listening to other books on audio helps them learn and refine these skills when it comes to Bible reading.
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Finally, I really like Mike’s idea of starting with Phrasing. My oldest son is learning to read now. I think this would be a great skill to teach him now because he’s naturally trying to break sentences down into clauses and phrases. I think before we ever get to technical tools though, it really helps kids to model these skills by asking questions when we read the Bible together (like why did Paul right “therefore” here and maybe even Phrasing out a text to read together. From there, you could work together on a small portion of Scripture, working together to divide out the text and indent subordinate phrases and clauses.
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I think this is a great question Jonathan. I’m posting this comment in order to bring it back up the pile for others to see. I’d love to hear ideas on this.
My own thought is that the Phrasing module might be a good place to start. It can help show children how words come together to make phrases (which is how we speak) and that phrases are the building blocks for communicating ideas. This module doesn’t require getting technical about grammar and so it can be adapted to whatever level a child is at.
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@Michael-Lane said in How to teach kids to study scripture?
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:My own thought is that the Phrasing module might be a good place to start. It can help show children how words come together to make phrases (which is how we speak) and that phrases are the building blocks for communicating ideas.
That’s a great idea, Michael! It would be much simpler to teach Phrasing (but without using much grammatical language), than to try to teaching Arcing to young children. Just exposing them to the concepts of main phrases, for example, can help them to read the Bible better. And even small children can understand why we start some sentence with “because”!
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Thanks for the bump and the idea about Phrasing, Michael!
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@Nate-Davidson said in How to teach kids to study scripture?
🧒:I really like Mike’s idea of starting with Phrasing. My oldest son is learning to read now. I think this would be a great skill to teach him now because he’s naturally trying to break sentences down into clauses and phrases. I think before we ever get to technical tools though, it really helps kids to model these skills by asking questions when we read the Bible together (like why did Paul right “therefore” here and maybe even Phrasing out a text to read together. From there, you could work together on a small portion of Scripture, working together to divide out the text and indent subordinate phrases and clauses.
I thought I’d share this new article from Joe Carter on TGC, which gives some tips on how to teach your children how to study the Bible (not just read it).
Specifically about words and phrases, he writes, “Show them how to ask about what the author meant by using specific words and phrases. Don’t assume the dictionary definition or our common understanding of terms is the same as the author’s. Have them look for words that are repeated or given special emphasis, and to pay special attention to connecting words (“but,” “if,” “and,” “therefore,” “in order that,” “because”).”
