How Do You Teach Your Children to Value the Bible?
Are you feeling the emphasized importance right now to be consistently reading the Bible? A lot of times we commit to year-long reading plans that incorporate both the Old and New Testament each day. However, in this season, it’s a great time to ask God, “What stories should I be reading and focusing on?”
For example, I don’t necessarily need to read about Adam and Eve right now if my season is being in Egypt or coming out of Egypt. It wouldn’t be bad to read about them, but we have the opportunity to press into our relationship with the Lord and ask Him what He has specifically for us in this season. Doing this helps the Bible come alive for where we are at right now.
After you get the story He is giving you for this season, dive in and dissect it. Listen to His heart for you in this season. Sometimes God will show me things that I never noticed before, or He will show me how something I already knew is so relevant to my current situation.
We can’t effectively teach our children to value the Bible if we don’t have a value for it ourselves. I personally take the story the Lord has shown me, read it, and then talk to my kids about it. We don’t necessarily sit down every day and read something in the Bible together, but we are talking about God and what’s in the Bible. I’m sharing scriptures with them and we’re having really good heart conversations.
Just the other day my kids were fighting. My daughter said something mean to my son, and he replied to her in the same way. A little later when I had a moment alone with him, I asked him, “Do you want her to talk to you like that?” “No,” he replied. “Did you like it when she did?” I asked. Again he replied, “No.”
I asked him if he remembered the golden rule, and of course he replied with, ”Do unto others what you would have them do to you.” I then explained that he was actually talking to his sister the way she talked to him, rather than the way he wanted to be talked to. “You’re not doing to her what you want done to you,” I said, “ you’re doing to her what she did to you.”
I went a layer deeper and said, “You know, you’re allowing your sister’s voice to control your voice. You’ve given up control of yourself. You don’t want her to use that tone with you, but because she did, now you’re using her tone of voice instead of the one you want to use.”
This is one of my favorite ways to teach my children to love the Bible. I give them the verse they need in the moment they need it. I teach them what it practically means for their situation right now. This helps them develop not only a love for reading the Word and knowing what it says, but it gives them a desire to understand what it means and apply it to their lives.