As a kid growing up, I learned the usual Bible stories; Noah and the Arc, David and Goliath, Adam and Eve, Moses and the Ten Commandments, etc. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I figured out how all of these pieces fit together in the bigger God story.
Now as a parent, my challenge is how do I give my children a better understanding of the Bible than I had? How do I make it relevant to them at an early age? For nearly two years, I prayed, planned and discussed methods; then one day it hit me. The inspiration for my lesson plan came from one simple word: “context”.
Context was the missing element from my youth. “Great, David killed a giant thousands of years ago…so what? Did that happen before or after the flood? Was Moses around to see the battle? Why were there giants around anyway? “
My thought is that context comes from understanding God’s relationship with His people over time (i.e on a timeline). When Adam and Eve were living happily in the Garden, the relationship between God and man was “perfect”. When they rebelled, man’s relationship with God was “cursed.” As Moses brought the ten commandments, man’s relationship took a step up to “the law.” Then Jesus came to redeem us from the curse and move us beyond the law into a relationship of “grace.”
Knowing the “hot points” on the timeline (Adam and Eve, Moses, Jesus) and our relationship with God (perfect, curse, the law, grace), we are then going to fill in the blanks of the story. Moses freed the Israelites from Egypt…why were the Israelites slaves in the first place? So we will spend a couple days studying Joseph to answer that question. But we will also note that the story of Joseph happened while we were still under the curse…before the law.
Being a visual learner (and teacher), I have put together the mother of all Biblical foam board timelines on my office wall. As we learn a story or a part of a story the girls help me put pictures and key words on the timeline to help us remember the significant points of the story (tactile learning).
For instance, today we studied the young Moses. We made a special note of Miriam (as we are going to highlight women of the Bible) and the burning bush. Under a picture of the burning bush we put “you are chosen.”
I hope to blog updates of our progress as we muddle through this process, hopefully getting better and having more fun learning about the Bible.
As my girls and I work on this big God story together, I pray that over time, the understanding of God’s love for us, which began at the beginning of time and has never stopped, will be tattooed on their hearts. And that time we spend together talking about God, in the presence of God, will deepen their knowledge of their daddy’s love for them as well.