I’ve purchased six children’s Bibles in the last few weeks to look through them and see what’s inside. Such a fantastic variety. I wrote a couple weeks ago about the Jesus Bible, Finding Jesus in Every Book. Well, here’s one for the younger crowd that I’m absolutely in love with! It’s The “Jesus Storybook Bible: Every Story Whispers His Name”! Author Sally Lloyd-Jones has done a stellar job of paraphrasing the key stories and ending them all with a hint that the story is a symbol of Jesus who was to come in the future.
Why is this soooo important? Even many adult Christians have no clue that the grand story of salvation-the plan of God for all mankind–wasn’t isolated to the life of Jesus. It was one continuous saga of God’s love for mankind from Genesis to Revelation.
I was about 12 yrs old when I read a book by Henrietta Mears “What the Bible Is All About.” For the first time in my life, someone connected the dots for me, and I finally understood the connection of the Old Testament stories to the New. The Bible heroes of old were more than just the ancestors of Jesus–they each held a symbolic piece of the Messiah who was to come. I finally “got it!”
Kids today are being fed a continuous buffet of cute but disconnected Bible stories that seem to have no relationship to Jesus at all. The Bible is irrelevant to most of them. But having someone connect the dots makes the Bible meaningful. It shows the truth and the mystery. It’s much harder for someone to try to tell you the Bible is just made up by a bunch of men on an equal playing field with all other so-called holy books. It becomes one miraculous saga weaving a story that could only come from God.
Our kids need to have confidence in God’s miraculous word planted in them at the earliest of ages. If you have a child ages 4 to ten, I highly recommend this book.
