Resources for Teaching Your Kids God's Word

I love teaching and reading to my kids and my favorite topic to teach them about is the Bible. God's word was such an anchor for me during my childhood and my dad's consistent, faithful teaching of scripture helped to ground me through many difficult seasons.

I want God’s word filling the hearts and minds of Marcel, Mya, and Judah. I know that scripture contains pages and pages of guidance on wise living. I know that they will find deep joy as they learn who God is through understanding what scripture has to say about him. Most importantly, I know that they can travel through 6000 (+ or -) years of human history as they discover God’s great plan to save a people to himself through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

In the last year and a half of having the wonderful privilege of being a mom…we’ve collected some great books and CD’s that our kids beg us to read or listen to (and we find them quite enjoyable too!) Some of them we have read so many times, Mya can finish the sentences or say them verbatim. Often, Marcel is able to tell us what scripture has to say about a particular issue. I feel so blessed to have the money to spend on books and to live in a country and time in history where they are so readily available!

So if I could give every parent a selection from our children’s library…here are my favorite picks:

#1) The Jesus Storybook Bible

Age level: all ages

This is the best children’s Bible out there. Unfortunately, so much of children’s bible stories moralize Christianity and make the hero and point of the story someone other then God (but that is another blog post for another time). Every story in the Jesus Storybook Bible points toward the overall theme of scripture that Jesus is coming to rescue us from ourselves and it is all a part of God’s great plan. The art is wonderful and creative too.

#2) The Jesus Storybook Bible: Audio CD

The man who reads the Jesus Storybook Bible does such a great job and the kids eat it up. They love to draw pictures of Bible stories while listening to him read the stories. It

#2) Big Truths for Little Kids: Teaching Your Children to Live For God

Age level: preschool-5th grade

We do this with our devotions every morning while eating breakfast. It often leads to great conversations as we drive to school. The book rewords a traditional catechism into kid-language and each story teaches the children about 5 or 6 of the 104 questions. The kids are motivated to memorize all the questions and answers because we don’t read the next story until they have memorized the other questions.

#3) Genesis: A Commentary for Children

Age level: 3rd grade-adult

Marcel and I are currently studying Genesis together and this commentary is a wonderful resource! The author knows how to write for children. Her words are beautiful, descriptive, and biblically accurate. It has been a fun way to introduce tools (like commentaries) for Bible study to Marcel. There are also commentaries for Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy—but we have not gotten to those yet.

#4) Seeds Family Worship Audio CDs

Age level: preschool-3rd grade

These songs get stuck in my head and the tunes aren’t the hippest, but the words are strait up scripture and what better repetitive children’s music to have stuck in your head then scripture? Our children really enjoy them and it has been fun to talk with them about the scripture they are memorizing means.

#5) The ESV Illustrated Family Bible

Age level: 3rd grade reading level

When Marcel first began to excel in reading this Bible was a great way to get him in the habit of having daily quiet times with the Lord. It picks 270 important passages of scripture and adds some great illustrations. Marcel read through it about 3 times and spent just as much time reading the passages of scripture as he did staring at the details of the drawings. We felt it was important to introduce him to an adult version of the Bible and get him used to the vocabulary that he would not see in a children’s Bible. He often had to stop to ask me to explain different words he was reading, but never had a hard time understanding the basic storyline. He has recently decided to “move on” to a full adult Bible for his quiet times, but I think this was an important transition to understand that what we are reading in children’s Bibles are versions of the Bible stories…but not the actual words of the Bible themselves.