Talking Out Of Turn

If you don’t already own it, I highly recommend purchasing What God Has Always Wanted: The Bible’s Big Idea from Genesis through Revelation by Charles Boyd and illustrated by Dennas Davis. Especially if you have kids or are a Sunday school teacher. Or if you play a similar or related role in children’s lives. It’s really a pretty neat and helpful children’s book.

What God Has Always Wanted is a little book that teaches little kids the main story of the Bible (targeting ages 4-11). It helps them to figure out how everything in the Bible ties together into a single, complete, and coherent message. It talks about God’s desire to dwell with his people in love, from when the Lord first walked with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden to when the new Heavens and the new Earth will be established, when he “will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God” (Rev. 21:3).

And, as such, it proclaims the good news of Jesus Christ in an easy-to-understand, yet not watered-down manner. It’s faithful and true to the main message of the Bible.

At the end of the book there’s an additional section entitled “What About You?” This section aids parents and teachers in presenting the gospel to their children. I’m glad that potentially misleading but regrettably common Christian expressions such as “Would you like to ask Jesus into your heart?” aren’t used at all. Rather, the focus is on what the Bible focuses on — trusting Jesus Christ and his promises.

For instance, here’s the book’s version of the sinner’s prayer:

Do you want to become a friend of Jesus? If you are ready, you can tell God you believe in Jesus right now.

Dear God, I want to be your friend now and forever. Thank you for sending Jesus to forgive me of all my selfishness. Lord Jesus, I do believe in You. I believe that You died for me and came back to life. I believe in Your promise to give me eternal life. Thank you for making it possible for me to live in friendship with God now and forever. Amen.

I also appreciate the fact that kids aren’t “talked down to” for the most part. Sure, this is a kid’s book but it’s a kid’s book that knows kids aren’t stupid. Or somehow unworthy. Or whatever. Of course, the gospel is a serious and glorious topic for all human beings — adults and children. So I like that the book treats kids with respect.

In addition, there’s a glossary at the back of the book to help kids grasp key biblical terms (e.g. the Bible, the church, God, heaven, hell, the Holy Spirit, Jesus, sin) in case they do have some difficulty. Perhaps it’s likewise to help parents and teachers themselves better grasp these concepts in order to explain them to their children.

Here are a few samples from the glossary:

Friendship with God: There are several ways that the Bible describes living in a relationship with God. God is our Creator and we are His people. God is our King and we are His servants. God is our Shepherd and we are His sheep. God is our Father and we are His children. God is like a husband and we are like His wife. Friendship with God includes all these ideas. Most of all, friendship with God means coming to know Him so well that you trust what He says. Jesus said to some people who were coming to trust Him more and more, ‘I no longer call you servants, but I call you friends.’ Jesus also said, ‘There is no greater love than for a person to lay down his life for his friends,’ and He laid down His life for us. He’s a true friend. Living in friendship with Jesus is the very best way to live.

Hell: Hell is the place where people who refuse to live in friendship with God go after they die. If we don’t want to live in friendship with God now, God will not force us to live with Him after we die. According to the Bible, people in hell are tormented forever by the fact that nothing they do from that point on can bring them to God.

Sin: Sin is choosing to live the way we want rather than how God wants. It’s the selfish ‘I want my way’ kind of attitude that is in all of us. The desire to live our way rather than God’s way separates us from Him and the life He wants for us. It keeps us from loving God and others the way God wants. This is why there is so much hurt and fighting in the world today — some of us have chosen to live our lives to make ourselves happy without caring about what God thinks.

By the way, I picked the last two, hell and sin, mainly because I think it’s easier for people of our time and place to convey the meaning of things like heaven and forgiveness than it is to convey the meaning of things like hell and sin. But because I believe the author does a good job defining and conveying these more difficult realities to children in a way that’s clear and understandable, I think it speaks well of the rest of the glossary and book.

What’s more, the illustrations and pictures in the book are well done. I could talk more about this. But the vital point we should recognize about them is that the illustrations service the words and the story, and not the other way around (which is how it should be).

What God Has Always Wanted is published by FamilyLife. I didn’t look but maybe you can purchase it via their website.

Finally, if what I’ve said doesn’t persuade you to buy the book, perhaps the author’s description of how his book came to be will:

A [business]man with no church background asked me, ‘What’s the Bible about anyway?’ As I attempted to answer, I found it was much more difficult than I expected. He didn’t understand the Christianese I had become so comfortable speaking. So he continued asking questions — ‘In the beginning, what did God want? What went wrong? Why is the world the way it is today? What is God doing to make things right again? How will it all end?’ Those questions helped me break things down into a simple explanation of our faith.

. . .

A while back, as I listened to children’s baptismal testimonies, I realized that most kids are influenced to follow Christ through the encouragement of parents and teachers. No big ‘aha’ there, but then the thought hit me, We’re not equipping parents to share the gospel with their children in a way they can understand. Just like the businessman who needed someone to explain the gospel free of Christian jargon, children need the same thing. They need to hear God’s Story told in a simple, biblically-accurate way. For that reason, I wrote What God Has Always Wanted to help parents pass their faith on to their children.

I’m happy the author has such a love for the gospel, for communicating it with simplicity, clarity, and above all truth, and for equipping others to do the same. He loves God and God’s story, and wants to bring others to Christ, especially children. That’s what most came across to me in reading how he came to write his book. And I pray his love for Jesus Christ and his gospel and sharing it with children and others would rub off on to us, too, and all the more as we see the Day drawing near.

As our Lord himself declared, “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it” (Luke 18:16-17). Indeed, the kingdom of God is both for the childlike as well as for the child. Let us therefore strive, like Pastor Boyd, to be all the more zealous to better minister to and thus love our children. Getting our hands on this book and using it with our kids would be a great way to start.

And may the Lord not only bless your children through the gospel of Jesus Christ and books like What God Has Always Wanted which endeavor to effectively communicate it to them, such that they receive him as their Lord and Savior, but may he likewise bless you as well. And by his grace I pray your children would bless their children, too. And their children would bless their children. And their children would bless their children. And on and on and on, until each single one of God’s children comes to know and love him as their Heavenly Father who first loved them. Praise the Lord for his unfailing love!