My son and I are currently reading through The Action Bible. It is essentially a graphic novel that summarizes a good portion of the Scriptures. He digs it and the artwork is impressive but I’m not sold on the book.
The Action Bible, like most Christian children’s literature covering the Old Testament, treats Bible stories as little, individual moralisms. For example, the story of Jacob becomes one of a liar getting his just due and the young reader takes away the danger of not telling the truth.
What’s the problem with that?
According to Jesus in John 5:39, all Scripture witnesses to Him. So, if you teach any portion of the Bible without demonstrating how it points to Christ than you are not heeding Jesus’ teaching. We see Paul do this in 1 Corinthians 10:4 by stating that the rock Moses struck in the desert was Christ. The effect is that every part of the Bible witnesses to the grace of the cross of Jesus Christ.
Now, I am a preacher’s kid. Thus, I am a graduate of countless Sunday School and VBS programs. The lessons then were just as moralistic and I grew up thinking the faith was about being good. The grace of the cross was mentioned but not as often as David being brave or the danger of losing your temper like Cain.
God seemed to only show up to call someone on the carpet about the wrong they had done. He was there to kick Adam & Eve out of Eden and to scold Cain (not a lot of emphasis placed on the grace to cain in Christian children’s lit). When Jesus was mentioned, he was presented as a robotic stoic (watch an old episode of The Flying House). In the children’s program at the church in which I was raised, the Gospel was eclipsed by the demand for right behavior.
By the time I became a teenager, I felt I couldn’t keep the rules and didn’t want to know more about God. After years of frustration, I left the church not to return until God called me back through a cancer scare at age 25. I didn’t learn the grace of the Gospel until I ran across the Young, Restless & Reformed bunch in the last decade.
Now I know, and I am trying to teach it to my son despite the text of books like The Action Bible, that good behavior is a response to the grace of God not a way to earn your way into His good graces. I am trying to teach him who God is and that we learn this best from looking at Jesus. I have found the best tool to do so is the amazing The Jesus Storybook by Sally Lloyd-Jones (Zonderkidz 2011), which always draws the reader to Christ.
I now know that as a teenager I didn’t reject the God of the Bible, I rejected moralistic deism and I was right to because it is a false god. What does your children’s ministry teach?
I toatally agree that we should present the truth of the scriptures and of the Gospel of Jesus to our children. I love children’s ministry! It’s extremely important not to forget our children since most people are saved as children …..
I hate, hate, hate Children’s bibles. They do such a weird job of covering the text, especially the odd portrayal of Noah’s Ark.
I know he’s not hugely popular in the blog circle, but it looks like Mars Hill Seattle is coming out with a sweet new children’s Bible that goes through virtually every story and in every story points to Jesus.
It’s also supposed to be very gory in typical Driscoll fashion and mostly geared towards little boys.
The Lamb by John Cross is also a really good kid’s book. That’s why we like New Tribes Mission (little plug, lol) because they teach foundational, chronological lessons, which point to Christ from the beginning, the way the Bible was written!
Thanks for the recommendation! Nice story about your first encounter with a snake, by the way!