As Christian parents, there is NOTHING more important than seeing our kids grow more and more in knowledge and love for God. But how do we begin teaching them this?
Here are 5 simple ways you can focus on turning your kids hearts toward God and how to get them to love the Bible!
Turning Your Kids Hearts Toward God: How to Get Them To Love The Bible
It’s so important to teach our kids godly things and instill those from a young age in them! But we don’t ever want learning about the Bible to become a “chore” for them.
How do we find that balance?
There are actually some super simple things you can do on a daily basis to make sure that your child is learning more about God, and relating it to them in a way that doesn’t seem like it’s forced.
When you do these things and truly have a heart for teaching your child things of God, HE will bless that (Isaiah 55:11; Proverbs 22:6). So take comfort in that, step one, that you have the desire to do that! God sees it and He will help. You just have to show up!
Now, parenting is hard, and there will be days and times where your child may want nothing to do with what you are teaching. Even in those moments, you can still show them love and grace, which ultimately is showing them Jesus.
When you do these things that we are getting ready to get into, it becomes such a normal, natural part of your child’s life and ultimately will help them learn to love God’s Word!
Without further ado, here are 5 ways you can teach your child to love learning about the Bible…
1. Live out the Bible in your own life
First and foremost, you can’t really teach something WELL, that you don’t know yourself. So make sure YOU are in the Word every day, studying it, breathing it, reading it. And also, applying it to your daily life.
The best example you can give your kids is by how you live it out yourself.
Have you ever heard the expression, “You may be the only Jesus someone ever sees”? Not that we are God (we’re not) but that He lives inside of us and His testimony should be outward as well.
This definitely applies to others, and making sure we are always showing Jesus’ love to people, but it’s the same for your kids! They will learn the most about God by how you respond to situations and how you treat others.
So it is definitely important that YOU are living out what you are teaching your kids to do as well!
2. Read the Bible to them
What better way to start teaching your kids about the Bible than to…you got it! Start reading it to them!
There are so many different ways you can read the Bible to them. It doesn’t have to be a super fancy, official sit-down and formal type thing. Actually, I think it is MORE impactful to incorporate it throughout the day.
Some examples of when you can read the Bible to your kids each day:
- Read a few passages over breakfast
- Before quiet time
- After dinner as a family
- When your child is struggling or needs help with a problem
- Read Bible verses from your own personal devotion out loud to your kids
Now, we do have family Bible time every day, where we either watch a family devotional, read a few passages from our family devotional books, or do something related to whatever holiday it may be.
This is definitely important, not only for teaching your child to love the Bible but teaching them that as a FAMILY, you can learn about the Bible together. 😊
3. Teach them important Scriptures
Once you start reading them the Bible, and they are getting more and more familiar with it, you can teach them to memorize scripture!
His Word IS life, and we want our kids to run to Him, search His Word, and grow in love and godliness. One practical way this happens is by them memorizing Bible verses.
I mean, what good is it to know the Word if you don’t apply it or use it?
Here are 10 important Bible verses kids should learn, that that would be a great starting point for them today!
4. Relate the Bible to their daily lives
Now that you are reading them God’s Word every day and helping them memorize it, it’s time to start relating what you are reading to their daily lives.
Why do they need to know this? Didn’t it happen thousands of years ago? Why is this still relevant today?
All great questions, and questions your kids may very well ask. You want to show them that God is the same and true, yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8). This is what will make the connection from point A to point B!
For example, say they are struggling with feeling afraid. Read to them Isaiah 41:10…
“So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”
God knows that we struggle with fear and tells us not to be afraid. This is something very relatable and tangible for your kids to grab onto! Anything they are thinking or facing, they can find direction in the Bible.
5. Use Fun activities to further encourage loving God’s Word
There are some very practical ways you can teach your kids to love the Bible – and that’s by bringing it to their level!
There are so many activities that help teach godly values to our kids such as:
- Printables (we have a whole faith section for printables on the blog and faith and Bible activities printables in the shop here.
- Movies and Shows – Sarah says: my son really loves to watch Ray Vander Laan with me and both my kids love the Left Behind series with Kirk Cameron. The Left Behind movies are not for little toddlers or super teeny tiny kids, it deals with some adult themes, but I started letting my kids watch them when they were around 8-10 years old so they can understand and know. Here’s Left Behind I, Left Behind II, and Left Behind III. For littler kids, we like to watch Hermie. There are a LOT of Hermie videos, but I’ll link to MY personal favorite episode here.
- Games – lots of games in the faith section in the shop.
- Toys – there are tons of great Bible toys for kids! We love the Little Tyke’s Noah’s Ark set!
…you can pretty much take anything that kids normally play with and participate in, but find godly ones! There are tons out there to use and is a very hands-on way to teach kids, which they love. 😊
So if you are going to have screen time and free play time, why not make it count with things like this?!
I pray that these 5 simple ways help encourage you to start teaching your kids about the Bible. Not only so that they will know God’s Word, but that they will learn to love it, live it, and prayerfully, ultimately come to know Him!
