Finding a children’s story Bible that suits the understanding level of your children can be hard and the options are plentiful and varied. When you are trying to cater for children of different ages it becomes even harder. As you go out hunting for a Bible, I encourage you to consider these following options concerns.
1. Is the Bible about God? This sounds like a dumb statement, however this is the number one concern when selecting a children’s story Bible. The Bible, being God’s Word, is a means by which God reveals himself to us. Through Scripture, we learn of the story of creation, sin, God’s saving plan in Jesus and the redemption and restoration of creation in and through Jesus Christ, His Son.
So when looking for a story Bible ask yourself this; is the revelation of God there? Does it capture the longing of creation for salvation? Is it pointing constantly to the coming of the Christ and the second coming of Christ? If not, it really is little more than a storybook.
By this I mean, the story of Jonah is not the story of Jonah, it is one of the many stories of God that make up the great revelation of God and His work. The central character of the story of Jonah is God, on a mission to set His creation free! Jonah is a story about God and how he wants his Word to go out to some of the hardest of places; it is a story of how he calls ordinary people to do extraordinary things, about how he triumphs over human weakness and fear and how he softens hard people’s hearts to His good news. The story of God in Jonah is also a part of the greater story of God’s saving plan, God wants to set his creation free from sin and death and there is one to come later who would also know storms at sea and risk death because of his message. He will also know three days in a dark place only to re-enter the world and complete the work of seeing people set free
It is hard to find a children’s story Bible that is intent on focussing on God as the central character, and point us constantly to the hope we have in God in Christ. It is easy to write the stories, to make up cute little moral connections to help our children be ‘good little boys and girls’, but to centralise it on God in Christ is an often missed, yet fundamental ingredient. There are good children’s story Bibles out there so research well and pray for guidance.
2. Illustrations. Good story and good pictures seem to be the rule for what makes a good children’s story Bible. Often when you look over one, both the author and the illustrator are credited on the front cover. Illustrations do capture the interest and the imagination, helping the children enter into the story and understand it.
As you look over the illustrations, consider if they are helpful or unhelpful to the story. Much of the Bible is set in a different time and place to ours; it both reveals mystery and invites us into mystery. The imagery that the Bible carried with it in our imaginations can be loaded, and for children just as much so. Therefore, illustrations can help us all to understand the setting and maintain a visual interest in the story, but over-dramatic attempts to illustrate the story carries with it the potential to limit imagination or explain that which is not revealed.
Think for a moment: let’s say we were to illustrate God as a big white-haired, white-bearded, old, friendly looking man sitting on a cloud throughout our literature. Is this actually helpful or unhelpful? In Scripture, God chooses to reveal Himself as in a cloud by day and in fire by night, as a voice in a burning bush, as a burning pot and on Sinai amid massive stormy, smoky drama. Is illustrating Him as the white-haired man, limiting our children’s ability to enter into the wonder of what and who is God? Are we restricting Him to one place, one race, one size, human, and having the attributes of only one gender? Is this helpful? Is that the way God is revealing himself in scripture? I remember one time on a road trip my son asked me “Dad, how big is God?”. While the theological and rational answers flooded to mind, I am glad that I stopped thinking answers and replied “How big do you think he is?” Scripture invites us to wonder and be amazed, to ponder the mystery. At what point do our attempts to illustrate, just like our rational adult needs to explain and understand, actually hinder the revelation God has intended in Scripture?
The children’s story Bible we are using at the time of writing has great colourful and engaging illustrations, however when I look at them discerningly, they are very ordinary and somewhat disproportionate. For example, the other night Jesus, when sleeping through the storm, was lying on his back on the deck of the ship and took up half the boat, meanwhile the boat was a tiny thing on the biggest monster of a wave. To make it even stranger was the face that a disciple hanging off the mast was being blown horizontal. All that being said, I remember thinking (as we were laughing about it as a family) “I like this”. It helped the children engage with the story and you could visualise that Jesus was asleep, but it did not really add anything, nor distract from the essence of the Bible story.
3. Is it all there? The art of writing anything is deciding what to include and what to leave out. It is no different when a writer decides to paraphrase the Bible for the children. We have already discussed the importance of checking that the children’s story Bible includes the foundational themes of the revelation of God and salvation in Christ. As you search for a Bible, take time to explore what is there and what is missing. Make sure that you are comfortable with what is not there. Being a story Bible book for children it makes sense that the author would choose to leave out some material. However, some do not cover the death of Jesus, some do not cover the expectant return of Jesus and there might be other aspects important to you that are not covered, like the covenants, Mount Sinai and the giving of the law. Be sure you know what you hold as important to be included and take the time to be sure that it is there.
© Jonathan Vandenberg
As to suggestions, you may choose to look at some of these,
The Big Picture Story Bible, by D. Helm (Crossway, 2004).
The Jesus storybook Bible, by S Lloyd-Jones (Zonderkids, 2007).
The Beginner’s Bible, mentioned by The Goodbook Company.
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