Reflection

Respond to the following in the comments or in your journal:

1) How would you explain the purpose of Bible lessons?

2) Why is it important for us as parents and teachers to not moralize the Bible lessons or make a personal application to our children's or students' lives?

3) What are you wondering?

In Mason's Own Words

"A word about the reading of the Bible. I think we make a mistake in burying the text under our endless comments and applications. Also, I doubt if the picking out of individual verses, and grinding these into the child until they cease to have any meaning for him, is anything but a hindrance to the spiritual life. The Word is full of vital force, capable of applying itself. A seed, light as thistledown, wafted into the child's soul will take root downwards and bear fruit upwards. What is required of us is, that we should implant a love of the Word; that the most delightful moments of the child's day should be those in which his mother reads for him, with sweet sympathy and holy gladness in voice and eyes, the beautiful stories of the Bible; and now and then in the reading will occur one of those convictions, passing from the soul of the mother to the soul of the child, in which is the life of the Spirit. Let the child grow, so that,

'New thoughts of God, new hopes of heaven,'

are a joy to him, too; things to be counted first amongst the blessings of a day. Above all, do not read the Bible at the child: do not let any words of the Scriptures be occasions for gibbeting his faults. It is the office of the Holy Ghost to convince of sin; and He is able to use the Word for this purpose, without risk of that hardening of the heart in which our clumsy dealings too often result.

The matter for this teaching of divine things will come out of every mother's own convictions. I will attempt to speak of only one or two of those vital truths on which the spiritual life must sustain itself" (Home Education, p. 349).

"The knowledge of God is the principal knowledge, and no teaching of the Bible which does not further that knowledge is of religious value. Therefore the children read, or if they are too young to read for themselves the teacher reads to them, a passage of varying length covering an incident or some definite teaching. If there are remarks to be made about local geography or local custom, the teacher makes them before the passage has been read, emphasizing briefly but reverently any spiritual or moral truth; the children narrate what has been read after the reading; they do this with curious accuracy and yet with some originality, conveying the spiritual teaching which the teacher has indicated. Now this is no parrot-exercise, but is the result of such an assimilation of the passage that it has become a part of the young scholar. It is only by trying the method oneself on such an incident, for example, as the visit of Nicodemus or the talk with the woman of Samaria, that we realise the wonderful clearness with which each incident is brought out, the fullness of meaning with which every phrase is invested by such personal effort" (Philosophy of Education, p. 272-273).

Further Reading

"Bible Teaching in the Parents’ Union School" by E. Frost (1913). The Parents’ Review, 24(7), pp. 514-22.

The Bible Story Handbook: A Resource for Teaching 175 Stories From the Bible by John and Kim Walton (This is a teacher resource that offers guidance for teaching stories of the Old and New Testament in a way that is faithful to the context and the whole story arc of the Bible.)

Listening to Children on the Spiritual Journey: Guidance for Those Who Teach and Nurture by Catherine Stonehouse and Scottie May