The Story for Little Ones: Discover the Bible in Pictures

The Story for Little Ones: Discover the Bible in Pictures

(Zonderkidz, 2011), hb.

Ages 3-5

Recently I received a review copy of this book along with some other materials related to Zondervan’s The Story project, an effort to help people see the overarching story of Scripture. I was pleased to see another effort aimed at helping people move beyond disconnected Bible stories to seeing how the Bible fits together as one major story of God’s work of creating a people for himself. And this initiative has books for little children, children, teens and adults. This is a good idea.

However, The Story for Little Ones is a disappointment, and I cannot recommend it. I decided to just jump in and begin reading it to my four and five year old children one evening. What immediately jumped out to me was that the story of the Fall was completely skipped. Of course in a summary of the Bible you have to pick which stories to include and which to leave out, but how can you leave out the Fall! This is one of the major movements of the entire story- Creation, Fall, Redemption, New Creation. After a happy creation, the story moves simply to God calling Abraham, “a good man who trusted God.” The burden of that story is Abraham trusting God to being him to a new place. There is no hint of sin, covenant, etc. In fact most of the Old Testament ends up as moralisms about being good without the dimension of our need of rescue from sin. Here is a sample of the bolded conclusions of each story which state the main lessons:

“Abraham trusted God. You can trust God too.”

“God gave these rules to help his people live good lives and be closer to him. God’s rules will help you too.”

“God had Rahab help his people. You can be a helper too.”

“Samson asked God to help him. You can ask God for help too.”

“Ruth was kind to Naomi, and Boaz was kind to Ruth. God smiles when you are kind”

“Nehemiah knew God was on his side. God is on your side too.”

In the New Testament there is improvement with it being clearly stated that Jesus came to save people “from their sins.” However, the lesson from Jesus’ baptism is “God’s power shows through Jesus. God’s power works in your life too.”

If you are looking, as I am, for resources to help your children grasp the overall story of God’s work of salvation, to grasp the heart of the Bible’s message, to point them to their need for Christ, this is not a great resource.

The next step up book, The Story for Children, a Storybook Bible looks to be much better- I noticed the fall is clearly dealt with. I have not had the opportunity to read more of it yet, though. I will plan to post more on it in the future.

GGG Blog Tour

I am pleased today to be hosting the Gum, Geckos & God blog tour here and at Oversight of Souls. I previously listed all the stops Jim Spiegel, the author, would be making on his blog tour.

This is an excellent book that I commend to all my readers, particularly those with children or grandchildren. It is essentially a collection of conversations the author and his wife have had with their children about the faith. Typically then Jim reflects a bit on the topic that was discussed for the reader. I was particularly encouraged by the model of living out Deuteronomy 6, particularly verses 6 & 7:

These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.

This book shows good examples of parents simply paying attention to their children and making the most of opportunities to talk about God. You don’t have to have a theology degree to do this. You simply have to be intentional and engage your kids.

Another key thing I noticed in the book is how often the children themselves raise questions about the faith. When your children ask questions you have the greatest opportunity to teach them because their interest is already piqued. So I asked Jim:

What have you and your wife done to create a setting in your home such that your kids naturally ask about and speak of things concerning God? Of course kids ask questions, but what leads to them so naturally asking about God? God seems to be a natural part of life, and while any Christian parent would hope for this I find many who wonder how this can be accomplished.

Jim answered:

Our kids' readiness to ask questions about God traces back to a number of factors. Some of these are not extraordinary, such as our consistent involvement with our church and our teaching them the Bible. But we are also intentional about pointing out biblical lessons which play out in our daily lives as a family. We constantly come back to the Golden Rule, particularly when the kids are fighting or behaving selfishly with one another. I can't count how many times we've said to them, "Now how would you feel if s/he did that to you?" This is such a powerful question because it forces them to apply the Golden Rule. Although sometimes it feels like this doesn't get through to them, over time the impact is evident.

Also, as is clear in Gum, Geckos, and God, my wife and I constantly draw biblical lessons from nature, whether its observations about insects, gardening, or family pets. We also weave theology into our conversations about popular culture, from Star Wars to baseball. The more we do this, the more naturally kids will do this themselves. Our hope and prayer is that this will develop in them a fully integrated faith, where they consciously apply their Christian worldview to literally everything they experience.

These are all positive things that we do to theologically fertilize our kids' minds. But one significant choice we have made is a particular kind of abstinence: the elimination of TV programs from our home. We do have a television, but it doesn't pick up any channels. So our kids can only watch DVDs and videos which we have screened beforehand, and their time doing this is quite limited. TV is not a default entertainment in our home, nor does it function as an electronic babysitter. Consequently, our children spend more time than most kids reading, doing crafts, and playing outside, so they become more active thinkers. This has the added benefit of preventing them from being exposed to thousands of commercials which are so powerful in conditioning young minds to have a consumer mentality. So for our family, the elimination of TV has been the ultimate case of addition by subtraction. I highly recommend that parents give it a try. Yes, it's difficult (at first), but the benefits are amazing. And not just for the children. Your marriage will benefit as well!

Gum, Geckos, and God

I am happy to be participating in a blog tour by Jim Spiegel promoting his new book Gum, Geckos, and God. Jim teaches philosophy at Taylor University and is the father of four children. This book is a record of various conversations that have come up between him and his children as they have talked about God and the Christian life in informal settings. You can see more about the tour at Zondervan’s site.
This is the tour schedule:

July 21- Spunky Homeschool
July 22- Beauty from the Heart
July 23- At a Hen’s Pace
July 24- A Holy Experience
July 25- Family Voice
July 28- Ted Wins
July 29- In a Mirror Dimly
July 30- Oversight of Souls & The Children’s Hour
July 31- Christians in Context
August 1- The A-Team Blog
August 4- Embarking
August 5- Challies.com

On its day, each blog will post a question about the book and Jim’s answer. Readers can then ask further questions in the comments section. As you can see I will host the tour on my pastoral ministry blog as well.

I am excited about this book and have really enjoyed reading it. I hope you will stop by for the tour and check out the stops at the other blogs as well.