Parenting Like Hannah

Teaching Kids About the Bible and Context

Teaching Kids About the Bible and Context - Parenting Like Hannah One of the easiest ways for a false teaching to gain traction is to quote a scripture out of context or make up an entire context that isn’t even there. Yet, we rarely teach kids and teens how to use context to help them understand the scriptures better.

Teaching kids about context is something a parent can easily do at home with even upper elementary aged kids. Train your children to never accept one Bible verse as “proof” of anything. Often a verse is only a piece of a much larger puzzle God puts together over numerous verses, chapters and even books of the Bible.

Encourage your children to look at least at the few verses before and after a verse they are given. Some Bibles have an almost paragraph format to the chapters now. Encourage older kids and teens to read the entire “paragraph” or even the entire chapter. Really difficult passages to understand may require reading the chapter before and after the chapter in which the original verse is contained.

Practice with your child thinking about what information those extra verses add to the original verse. Does it tell us more about what was happening when the verse was said? Does knowing what was happening add additional meaning or change their understanding of the original verse a little? What was the purpose of the entire chapter and not just that one verse? Does what your child was told that verse “proved” fit in with the meaning of the entire chapter?

The other danger with context is something that has cropped up in the last few decades. it is an attempt to totally discount entire, very clearly written scriptures under the guise of some made up context not included in the verse, chapter or even book. You may have even heard someone say, “Of God didn’t mean that for us. It was because thus and so weird thing was happening in that city.” Where they get their information from is never quite clear as it definitely is never in those scriptures or any nearby scripture. Teach your children to not let things quite possibly entirely made up by someone, trick them into disobeying a very clear scripture. Remind them Satan is the father of lies, so be wary of anything not backed up by the Bible.

Taking a little extra time to teach your kids about the Bible and context can protect them from being tricked by false teachings – whether the motives of the teacher or pure or not. It’s just another tool you can give your kids to help make it easier for them to stay on God’s path.

Don’t Give Up, Mom

Don't Give Up Mom - Parenting Like Hannah Being a mom is the best job in the world. Most days. Then there are those days when everything seems to go wrong. Things break down, your kids have forgotten everything you have ever taught them about rules and manners and who knows what else has happened. It’s tempting to go hide under the covers and give up.

Moms often need that extra bit of encouragement. It helps to know other moms have felt like giving up, too (FYI, I think we all have at one time or another.). They need to know it is worth it to keep working on your marriage or training your kids. They want to know that even though it doesn’t seem like your efforts are making a difference, they really are.

Holly Wagner’s new book, Warrior Chicks: Rising Strong When Life Wants to Take You Down may just give you the encouragement you need to take those covers off your head, get out of bed and face the day. I love her concept of the idea of a mom being a warrior. Not in a militant feminist sense, but as in a warrior for God.

She analyzes the idea of the biblical and historical warrior and the traits that make the best warriors. She covers everything from standing your ground, to being prepared to focusing on the goal and more. Each chapter gives examples from the Bible as well as from secular history and current events to illustrate the concept.

Ultimately, this is a book of encouragement. The author is either currently or just recently finished battling breast cancer (It wasn’t totally clear). Cancer is not the focus of the book. In fact, at times she goes so long without mentioning it, I almost had forgotten it was a part of her personal story.

Instead, she focuses on a lot of issues that can make women want to give up fighting. She includes topics like abuse, financial problems, marital issues, illness, job loss, parenting issues and more. In her mind anything and everything that can keep you from doing what God wants you to do – and mind you she doesn’t mean sitting in a church pew, but very active Christianity – she wants to help arm you to conquer and get back to battling for God.

She gives a lot of good advice, but perhaps my favorite is her advice about handing on the baton. She discusses relay races and how in Christian life we should always be accepting batons from women older than us and handing them off to women younger than us. She says the minute there is a woman on earth younger than you, you become the older women in the Bible called to start training the younger ones. I also appreciated how she reinforced we all should be humble enough to learn from those who have already walked down a path and to teach those who are currently on the one we have completed.

There were a couple of things I wish I could change about this book. She quotes scripture, but you have to fumble around in the back to find what scripture she is quoting. Frankly, I’m often too lazy to go to that much trouble. Also she uses the Message version, which alters scriptures so much from the original wording I often had trouble figuring out if she were quoting scripture or some random person. (There was little identifying information with any quote.)

My biggest irritation was how the book was formatted or typeset or whatever you want to call it. There were not proper paragraphs on a page. Sentences were scattered everywhere. Sometimes two or three were together and sometimes each would get a separate line with several blank lines until the next sentence. Tons and tons of white space. Frankly it gave me a headache as I tend to speed read and it is almost impossible when set that way. My brain rebelled and wanted to put down the book even though I really thought it was a great book.

If you are a Christian mom ( or any Christian woman) who is struggling in life, this book can give you the encouragement you need. It can give you new ways of thinking about things. Hopefully, if it’s reprinted at some point, they will format it like most books and it won’t also give you a headache!

This book was given to me for free in exchange for my honest review.

Teaching Kids About Sin, Sinners and Judging

Teaching Kids About Sin, Sinners and Judging - Parenting Like Hannah If your kids are exposed to any kind of media- social or otherwise – eventually they will read about a “famous” Christian who has sinned. They will read articles or tweets implying Christians should never sin, or when they do, they become hypocrites and have no right to try and share their faith. They will be exposed to people who accuse any Christian who shares God’s Words about any topic of being judgmental, while also reminding readers the Bible says not to “judge”. No wonder our kids are becoming so supportive of the “You can do whatever you want as long as you don’t hurt anybody, because who am I to judge” mentality so popular today.

The problem is that all of the above are misunderstandings and frankly false representations of God and what is in the Bible. So what are the godly principles you need to reinforce with your kids when the next “famous” Christian is vilified in the press?

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Helping Kids Understand When God Says “No”

Helping Kids Understand When God Says "no" - Parenting Like Hannah As children begin to have independent prayer lives and study the bible, they begin to realize God is not the genie in the sky who must say yes to our every wish. Instead, God sometimes says “no” to us and our kids. Teaching your children how to understand and accept any and every “no” from God may mean the difference in whether or not they ultimately choose to follow Him.

To help your child understand why God is not “granting” a specific wish or desire from your child, there are a few basic principles you will need to repeat many times:

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