Helping Kids Enjoy Bible Reading

Helping Kids Enjoy Bible Reading - Parenting Like HannahMy favorite Bible verse of the moment is 2 Timothy 4:3 “For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.” Our children are being fed a constant diet of teachings designed to interest those itching ears. Some may be from non-Christians, but even some famous Christians preach what is misguided at best and false doctrine at worst.

It’s almost impossible to predict every bit of false doctrine your children may be exposed to during their lives. The burden to accurately predict and teach against every misrepresentation of God’s Word is almost impossible to bear. Yet, there is one thing you can and must do to protect your children. Immerse them in God’s Words.

Often, we as parents struggle with our own Bible reading and study. How can we convince our kids something is enjoyable and worthwhile if we don’t really see or feel the value of it ourselves? I was intrigued when I was offered an opportunity to review the book How to Enjoy Reading Your Bible, by Keith Ferrin. This book may revolutionize the way you read the Bible and how you teach your kids to enjoy reading it.

Ferrin breaks down how to enjoy reading the Bible into ten tips. Underlying all of the tips is something I discovered myself by accident years ago – reading the Bible the way we would read a “regular” book changes everything. Ferrin believes the way we normally study the Bible is one of the reasons we find it so hard to read. We break it down in small segments and talk it to death before moving on to another tiny bit.

He relates it to the idea of watching a great new movie, but stopping it at the end of every scene and discussing it for fifteen or thirty minutes before watching the next scene. Not only would it take forever to finish the movie, but you would lose the entire flow of the story. Personally, I found reading the entire Bible as a book – read over the course of a few weeks instead of a year or more gave me a much broader, richer view of God’s overall plan.

Ferrin’s book is great because he walks you through how to do this well. He starts you out with a few suggested books of the Bible and how to put his tips into practice. He even offers several detailed plans for reading the same book every day for thirty days. Ferrin claims (since I just read the book yesterday, I can’t attest to it personally yet) that while using his plan you can also unintentionally memorize large amounts of scripture.

This book is ideal for parents and kids to work through together. One of his tips is to do this plan with others to encourage one another in our Bible study. What better study group than your family? His book is easy to read and the Bible books he suggests to start the plan are ones easy for kids and teens to understand. It’s important to note while Ferrin wants us to start with his method, he doesn’t want to entirely do away with traditional methods of Bible study. In fact, he incorporates them in slightly different ways.

I would highly suggest reading through this book and trying the plan as a family. Talk about how it works compared to other times your family has tried to read the Bible. Discuss what you read. How can your family put the principles in the scriptures you read into practice today and tomorrow? Does reading your Bible more regularly, help you feel more connected to God? I would love to hear your feedback when you have tried the plan as a family for a few weeks. Use the contact me tab or comment on the Parenting Like Hannah Facebook page and let me know what happened.

 

This book was given to me for free in exchange for my honest review. An affiliate link is contained in the post for your convenience. 

 

 

Published by

Thereasa Winnett

Thereasa Winnett is the founder of Teach One Reach One and blogger at Parenting Like Hannah. She holds a BA in education from the College of William and Mary. She has served in all areas of ministry to children and teens for more than thirty years and regularly leads workshops for ministries and churches. She has conducted numerous workshops, including sessions at Points of Light’s National Conference on Volunteering and Service, the National Urban Ministry Conference, Pepperdine Bible Lectures, and Lipscomb’s Summer Celebration. Thereasa lives in Atlanta, GA with her husband Greg, where she enjoys reading, knitting, traveling and cooking.

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.