TIPS FOR HOLIDAY BIBLE TIMES WITH THE CHILDREN (PART 3)

As adults there are things I do well and there are other things, though profitable and expedient, that I find burdensome to do. I know I’m not alone in this – many adults share the same plight. There are things men bond with and do well – a good example is talking and watching games, especially football. Men are hardly too tired to watch, or at least check results of, favorite games as when due; and I know women also have things they do well – for example, nursing a new born comes to women naturally, but men often get lost amidst the efforts required for the new arrival.

These natural strengths are not inbuilt at birth – they were learnt from our parents and older ones. When daddies, uncles, brothers and other older men around talk or watch football, they encourage the boys to stay, listen and even contribute; but the girls are simply told to go sit with mum and the little baby she’s nursing and vice versa.

We grew to love what we love and hate the things we hate doing as men and women; because, to a large extent, our parents have consciously or otherwise taught us what boys or girls should be seen doing or not doing according to their gender. Do you know why people think the kitchen is strictly for women and manual labour is strictly for men? It’s because that’s how we were taught. Many women will complain that their husbands abandon them in the kitchen alone, while they cross legs – watching TV or reading newspapers; but they in turn will never encourage or ensure their boys are part of the happenings in the kitchen. The boys can stay and watch football with Daddy; but the girls must report to the kitchen, once Mummy is there. Inevitably, some future husbands are being raised to see kitchen work as solely a woman’s job and the cycle continues.

This is the same logic that also affects the current difficulty most adults have when it comes to studying the Bible. We are simply not wired from childhood to love and study the Bible. There are grown ups in their thirties, forties, fifties etc, who can never remember having had a single session of parent-child Bible reading time with their parents as a child, and were never encouraged to do it by themselves.

Just imagine a child who has finished reading the whole Bible by age 10 or 12. For such a child, personal Bible reading when he/she is older won’t be burdensome. How on earth will a man or woman who cannot boast of having read or finished 5 Bible books all his/her life now see Bible reading as something to cherish? That will be difficult.

If a parent failed a qualifying text for a dream profession, would that deter him from teaching and encouraging a willing child to try the same exams many years later? I don’t think so. Therefore, your having personal difficulty reading or studying the Bible is no excuse not to teach and encourage your children to do the same. A chapter of the Bible a day, book by book, will be fantastic holiday achievement for a child; but they won’t do it, unless you encourage them to.

If your parents had encouraged you to read a chapter of the Bible a day, your relationship with the Bible (and with the God of the Bible) would possibly have been better than what it is today. You don’t have to go the same way your parents went with Bible reading – you can chose to train your children to love reading from the Bible daily. A chapter daily from the book of John can be a good starting point. Remember… teach a child the way he should go, says the Bible, and when he’s old he won’t depart from it.

Our children are less likely to see Bible reading as burdensome and difficult, if we can encourage them to start early. Our parents might be guiltless because they never read anything like this; but you and I are without excuse, if we fail to put our children to this path while we can.

Happy Covenant of Words time with the children.

Olumofin, Kehinde Benjamin writes for Praying Parents Prayer Group Christian Ministry.