Is It Still the Bible?

This is a question that you may not have ever thought to ask, but if we believe the Bible to be God's Word, and we also want to help our young children or grandchildren to know the Bible, how can we be faithful to the very words of Scripture and teach our children in a way they can understand? Westminster Bookstore helps with an answer to this evangelical parental conundrum:

If I retell a Bible story in my own words, is it still the Bible?

This is the question that often comes to my mind when I consider the issue of children’s Bibles. Most children’s Bibles and “Story Bibles” for children involve some level of paraphrasing of the original text. Usually, this paraphrasing is loose enough to be called more appropriately, “retelling.” What are we to think of this? Is it good? Is it dangerous? The answer to both of those questions is, “Yes.” The “retelling” of a Bible story is, at best, a sincere attempt to communicate the Bible’s message to minds less-developed in language. Not to bring the Bible to children in language they can understand is, arguably, not to bring the Bible to them at all. But this means that children’s Bibles that retell the stories do more than just bring the text to children – they teach the story. They interpret; they theologize (whether self-consciously or not); they apply.

The best retelling of a Biblical story is not unlike a good sermon. It correctly understands the part of Scripture it is teaching. It correctly places the message of that story in the whole message and theology of the Bible. It leads children to Him to whom all the Scriptures testify – it points to Jesus. Unfortunately, many children’s Bibles have tended to show little effort to hear what a given text is actually teaching, little attention to how that text contributes to the Bible’s great redemption story, little attention to how it shows us Christ. It is much easier, and much more common, to simply draw moral lessons from good and bad examples in the behavior of Bible
characters.

As with sermons, there are other factors that contribute to quality; for a sermon, factors such as style of delivery, communication techniques, etc.; for children’s Bible stories, out-loud readability, quality of illustrations, etc. But we encourage you to consider first how faithful a children’s Bible story is to the message of the Bible. The way young children are taught the Bible will train them, correctly or incorrectly, how to read and understand the Bible when they are older.

- Jim Weidenaar, Westminster Bookstore