How to Teach a Teen to Read the Bible

One of the keen tasks of being a parent is helping your children learn to listen, understand, and apply what you are trying to teach them about living well.

We are called to pass wisdom onto our children.

One of the great frustrations in this journeying is when you think you are conspicuously communicating with your child, and your children choose to non heed at all, or worse, somehow interprets what yous have to say in ways completely reverse to what you intended.

Similar when I told my son non to run onto the road (obviously considering I honey him and want him to live well) and however in his great wisdom, as a one year sometime, he immediately chose to run onto the route. 🤦‍♂️

Ane of our great tasks as youth workers is helping our youth acquire to listen, understand and utilize what God is teaching through His Word. Fifty-fifty more of import than passing our wisdom onto the next generation is the phone call to laissez passer the wisdom of God onto the side by side generation.

But this isn't easy.

Nosotros alive in a world that tells our youth they can be whoever they desire.

That life is well-nigh being happy.

That they are the ones in command.

This ethos tin make information technology hard for a generation to willingly identify themselves under God's authority and entrust themselves to His wisdom through His Word.

Non simply trying to figure out how God's Word applies to their lives, but more and so, how to surrender their lives to God through His Discussion.

And it's not just the civilization that makes this journey difficult, information technology's the fact that sometimes God'south Word is but apparently difficult.  At best it's not ever easy to understand, at worst it offends our cultural sensibilities.

So what can we do to aid our kids understand God's mode in His Word?  Allow me give yous a few starting steps nosotros can accept.

one. Commit to helping students see that God'south way is not just correct, information technology is good.

God is on a mission of redemption, restoration, and recreation.

Ane reason Jesus Christ became human was so that we could see and be empowered to live into His Kingdom style…the style of flourishing.  And He has revealed His way through His Word.

Before we can feel the flourishing way through His Give-and-take, we need to be convinced that His mode brings flourishing.  He is not but correct, He is practiced.

2. Contextualize.

Practise the work of helping our students sympathise that parts of Scripture, are part of a bigger picture show.

When we look at a poesy, recall the verse is part of a paragraph, or a chapter, or a book, or THE book.

Do the hard piece of work of helping kids see the bigger context…historical and eternal.

3. Lead your kids, don't just tell them.

Give them the tools of discovery.

Simply put, aid them acquire to observe, interpret, and apply.

Spend time reading together asking them questions like:

• • • • "What do you lot come across?"
      • "What stands out to you lot?"
      • "What questions do y'all have?"
      • "What does this say about Jesus, His grapheme and His way?"
      • "What is the chief signal the writer is trying to make?"
      • And finally, make certain yous ask, "So what?"  "So what difference could this make this calendar week?"
      • "In lite of what we read, what is one affair you will exercise this week?"

And go them to write it down.

Inquiry tells the states that if teens read the Bible, that'due south fine. But if they practise something else as they read , like write something downwards, it can exist transformative (cheque out Dave Rahn's new book Disrupting Teens With Joy for more details on this)

4. Remind them to exist apprehensive.

Understanding Scripture can exist hard work.

At times it is hard to sympathise what the author is trying to say, and even harder to know how to apply what he is saying 2000 years after the author wrote it.

And sometimes what is in the Bible seems really offensive .

We demand to work hard at understanding (information technology's worth information technology), merely even Scripture reminds us that we still run into "merely a reflection as in a mirror" (1 Corinthians 13:12).

But that doesn't mean we can't see.

We can and we must.

And the truth is, at some bespeak, what nosotros see in Scripture should offend our cultural sensibilities.  God is non of our culture. He is calling us to a completely different culture. The struggle is existent…but it is so worth it, then humbly press on!

As you intentionally take time to help your teens understand the Bible, pray that they will grow a passion to know Jesus through the Scriptures, that their hearts would be so moved that His desires, would become their desires.

In Psalm 19, David said that God's Word was "sweeter than dearest" to him. That ways it was like dessert, the best part of the meal!

We often phone call reading God'due south Word subject area…that sounds like the opposite of dessert! Allow'due south pray God moves the hearts and minds of our kids as they lean into the heart and mind of God in His Word.

What are you doing to aid your youth empathize God's Discussion? Are y'all merely teaching the truth, or are you helping your youth discover the truth? Are yous taking the time to testify them how God's way is not merely right, but how it is skillful?

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Practise you find information technology hard to help teenagers make Scripture a priority in their own lives? How tin you inspire them to make daily Bible reading a routine? And once they are reading, how should yous guide them to process what they are reading?

Admission on-need replay of the webinar to get those questions answered! You'll likewise discover a link to the ten infinitesimal video curriculum that volition teach you, your volunteer team, and your students how to practice an inductive study of any Scripture at the end of the webinar.

Interested in exploring your faith more and understanding the background and inspiration of the Bible, its history and composition, the overarching themes and message?

Rocky Mount Higher is offering a FREE university level class where you'll explore all 66 books of the Bible and sympathise the context in and the purpose for which they were written. You will also gain an understanding of how the various types of literary forms in which the Bible was written can legitimately be interpreted so yous can better understand the message of all parts of the Bible.

All of this from the condolement of your own home.

Learn more than today past clicking Hither .

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Source: https://www.youthworker.community/four-ways-to-help-teenagers-understand-the-bible-better/

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