Mother Culture: Resources for Teaching About the Bible

While reading the Bible should be the primary learning tool for “teaching Bible” in our homes there are a lot of age appropriate suggestions and resources that can be used.  Today we will look at some of these resources as we continue our discussion on Chapter 10 of Clay and Sally Clarkson’s Educating the Whole Hearted Child, the chapter on teaching the Bible.

The first resources that we have always used in addition to our regular Bible reading are the materials supplied by our local Awana program to learn to memorize Bible verses as well as to pursue spiritual disciplines like serving, tithing, praying, and more.  It is a fun and systematic programme for all ages that is very rigorous.  (Cubbies books are for children in JK and the year before JK.  Sparks have three books: HangGlider, WingRunner and SkyStormer for kids in SK to grade 2.  T&T has four books for grades 3-6 starting with Ultimate Adventure 1 and 2 and finishing with Ultimate Challenge 1 and 2.  Trek materials are for junior high students and Journey takes students through high school studies.  You can order these materials at http://www.awanacanadastore.ca/servlet/StoreFront.) 

As well, for all ages, we have used the FREE Bible League Day Planners which include a variety of Bible reading plans which we encourage the older kids to choose from to study.  I usually carry these in August and September but now you can get them at http://www.bibleleague.ca/scp.php. 

For younger children, a good Children’s Bible is a great supplement.  The Clarkson’s mentioned a few but one in particular that some mom’s in our little gathering had experience with and which they felt was quite good was, The Jesus Story Bible, as they said that it relates every story to Jesus Christ.  (I am interested in getting my hands on it so I think I will order some in to Maple Tree.  It is quite economical at $18.99 and you can get a deluxe edition for $27.99 which includes the complete audio recordings.  Anyone interested in ordering one with me?)

For older children, we are encouraged to start to teach them to not just read but to study the word on their own so it is wise to start to teach them to use resources like concordances, commentaries and Bible dictionaries.  In our home, we have started with a concordance.  There are online concordances but they just aren’t any substitute for the information that you can get from the real thing.  I do use “You Version’s” IPhone app which has many different versions of the Bible and some limited search abilities.  In our house, while we do use several different versions of the Bible we have two chosen concordances, The NIV Exhaustive Concordance and Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance (KJV). 

Paired with this is a good Bible dictionary.  Unlike a regular dictionary a Bible dictionary is defines words as they have been translated from the Hebrew and Greek and so gives more background, and can define words within their context in the Bible by comparing different passages with the same word and giving lists of where the word appears in the scripture.  Bible dictionaries are a great help in understanding biblical ideas.  Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words has been an essential tool in our home since my university studying days.  Another good dictionary is The New Unger’s Bible Dictionary. 

I have been searching around for good resources that will complement our Charlotte Mason education and am excited about this resource as it includes both Strong’s concordance and Vine’s dictionary: The New Strong's Expanded Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible.  I think I might add this one too to Maple Tree’s shelves.  (Let me know if you’d like to order a copy.  They are, of course, cheaper for one book than my original concordance was on its own let alone buying the dictionary too.  Book prices are so great lately!)

As well, study bibles and commentaries are useful.  In our house, my hubby and I use Life Application Study Bibles and we have the classic Matthew Henry’s Commentary of the Whole Bible to refer to on our shelves. 

When students have learned to use these tools they can then move on to learning with them to do first topical studies and then inductive studies.  More on these another time.

Further to this we also looked at ways to make studying the Bible more than just an academic subject.  More on this in the next Mother Culture posting…

Blessings,

Cori