This is tremendously well said:
It is my hope and prayer that my son will grow up to know the One revealed in Scripture, and not just know the Scripture itself.

I firsthand appreciate what you say in regard to the dangers of Bible-as-textbook both as a (former) Bible College student, and even as a pastor. It’s too easy to use the Bible to get things that you need to get done, whether studying for a New Testament exam, or preparing a sermon–rather than allowing Scripture to speak to you.

The purpose of reading the bible is not to know the bible. The purpose of reading the bible is to know God.

John, glad to have you here, too, my friend. I didn’t mention it in the post, but I definitely carried my Bible college experience into the pastorate with me as well.

K-Bob (can I call you “K-Bob”? hehe) That is a great thought that really goes along with this post. Thanks for contributing to it.

I know that this is not exactly the subject of your post, but I taught from 2 Timothy 2:14-19 this morning. Here is my translation of 2 Timothy 2:15 - “Eagerly make every effort so that when you stand in the presence of God, he approves of you, as an unashamed worker, by correctly teaching and living according to the gospel.” This means something different than “study to show thyself approved… rightly dividing the word of truth.”

You can teach your son Scripture all day long, every day of his life, but until he lives it, it makes little difference. How will he learn how to live it? By studying? Perhaps a little. But he will learn much more how to live it by watching you and Christy live it.

-Alan

Interestingly, I think the same application could be made to discipleship in general, not just parent/child relationships. Would you agree?

That’s exactly where my study on discipleship is taking me. Your post fell into my study perfectly.

-Alan

I like Alan’s translation … makes more sense to me

This should be the highest goal for every parent.

Good post.

For reasons you have already succinctly stated, and I won’t reiterate, we do not use the Bible in our homeschooling as a textbook at all. We don’t even read it during school!

We use it in language arts and history when appropriate and I sometimes draw math problems from biblical stories, but as far as an actual Bible course, we don’t!

Rather, I use a devotional approach loosely tied to how the Maxwell’s do their devotions. We do Bible studies in the evening, after baths, and do a round robin style of reading and sharing. Lasts about 15-30 minutes and the kids love it!

Another good post!

Tony, I’ve actually hesitated to talk about homeschooling much on this particular blog. The (ahem) “discussion” with your readers a couple of weeks ago is an example of part of the reasons why.

I usually tried to keep the homeschooling topic to my largely-neglected homeschoolblogger blog. But I just haven’t felt like posting on that blog in a long time, and am not sure if I’ll even go back to it.

So, you got a little touch of some of my philosophy here! We do our Bible reading in the morning at breakfast, and that seems to work well for us. Sometimes, there are interesting discussions. Sometimes, I’ll be quite frank, I don’t even quite know what to do with what we’ve read! More often than not, I find myself reminding our son that there’s a whole lot more to the story (since we’re in the Old Testament in our reading, and will be for a long time to come, I’m sure).

Thank you for posting your thoughts on this. Since I am a new homeschooler (1st grade this year and we did K last year) I am still in the process of figuring out my philosophies, etc. about it all. As I have begun writing out my plans for next year (I am an over-planner )I get stuck every time on “Bible”. Why? Because everything out there just seems somehow not right for us. It’s either too dull and technical or too childish with cartoons and the like. And virtually none of it has any practical application contained within. Yes, I am one who does better with lessons spelled out for me.

I think you’re right — the Bible is not a textbook, it’s God’s Word to us through which we can come to know our precious Father. This year we are reading through the Child’s Story Bible and I really like it … just reading through and I have learned a lot that I did not know. And that’s all we do. We talk about it, but that’s it — nothing formal, just reading through and treating it very much like a devotional rather than a Bible class. I think I would like to get my hands on the Maxwell’s devotional CDs. Thanks for the info and, again, for the thoughts.

~Heather

For those of you who aren’t homeschooling, does this post cause you to think of other ways in which this same concept could be applied apart from homeschooling? What about how we handle the Bible in our gatherings as believers?

I think we should teach children to have a desire for the Word of God. Given many children’s aversion to school, it may be counterproductive to make school the major platform for teaching Bible. It can produce negative feelings toward Scripture.

I think it is better as you and several commentors have stated to make the family Bible time a more relaxed, special setting.

I don’t think it is necessarily wrong to have the Bible included in the curriculum, but there are other approaches to teaching Bible that are more productive.

I used to give great value to Bible memorization in our homeschool….until Psalms 119:11 came to life for me. “Thy word have I hid in my heart” Not so that I or the children can look good….not for a reward of candy, not for the praise of men…..but “that I might not sin against thee” It changed my outlook as to the why we need His word in our hearts. We definately need and use the Bible in homeschool, but not to the exclusion of living it. My six year old daughter summed it up
for me yesterday during school. She said, “At school, they could teach me to read, but they wouldn’t teach me about Jesus.” I just say Amen!!

Steve, in case my screen name gets you tongue tied again….it’s my kids’ initials….I’m the Mom part!
Have a wonderful day!

I have the Maxwell CD’s “Feed My Sheep” from their website I referenced in the upper comment, somewhere up there.^ I picked them up at their homeschool conference last fall. It is very good; two CD’s, one of Steve (Maxwell, not Sensenig! ;-)) teaching the biblical precedent for biblical devotions in the home and a second CD of an actual recording of the Maxwell’s having their devotional time, which proved the most beneficial, though it got laborious after the first thirty minutes.

If you do not mind sharing your home address with me, I would be happy to put them in the mail to you and Brandon, my gift to you. My email is tcmlsisk(at)meckcom(dot)net.

Tony

Tony, do you have any of the Steve Sensenig CDs? If not, let me know.

Loving our young like Jesus loves us, unconditionally, is much more effective.

Ultimately, however, it must be our son’s and/or daughter’s decision to put their faith in Christ.

They have the free will to do so or not. If we have connected his or her heart to ours by our love, and they find there our love for Jesus, their heart is likely to follow.

He, and He alone is compelling.

kkmhmom, thanks for popping up again! Not sure if you saw the post a while back that I wrote called “Hidden in My Heart: More than Memorization”, but it touched on the same types of things you mentioned here.

No I don’t! Wanna work out a swap?

How nice!!!! I will email you!

Steve -

I have one of your CDs and it’s awesome :-)!!! Love it love it love it!

~Heather