Helping Your Child Find His Way Around The Bible, Part 3

photo by Guillermo Esteves

Computer Fun
Another fun tool is a computer-based program that you can download from the internet. It is called Know Your Bible and can be found at http://www.download32.com/know-your-bible-2001-1-0a-i49159.html among other websites. Know Your Bible is a series of games, one available as freeware and the rest for a small donation of $15 for the deluxe edition. By clicking buttons you can place Bible books, Old Testament People, Old Testament Events, Life of Joseph Events, Life of David Events, New Testament Events, Life of Christ Events, Miracles of Jesus, and Passion Week Events, in correct order.

It’s been updated since my children played with it. It now includes a “talking” parrot named Peedy, who really doesn’t talk as much as he scrolls out words in a bubble over his head. Nonetheless, he’s cute.

The freeware edition contains the New Testament books. The titles are all scrambled and you must click on them in correct order, against a clock. A beep signifies you made a correct choice, a buzz that you made a mistake. Upon completion you get a nice round of applause for your effort. At the end of the game you can reset it, shuffle the books around and start all over again.

The deluxe edition has the Old Testament, along with other features to be placed in order of appearance in the Bible. My children enjoyed using the freeware edition, always trying to best their last time or score or that of a sibling.

Using music, games and the computer can lend a touch of fun to learning the books of the Bible, but probably the best way to learn them is just to use the Bible. You’re not considered a bad Christian if you have to use the Table of Contents. You’ll find as you go along that you’ll get a grasp of how the Bible is laid out and will be able to go right to where you need to be in short order.

Helping Your Child Find His Way Around The Bible, Part 2

Games
Referring to the list of Bible books in yesterday’s posting we can devise some very easy to make games that you and your child can use to learn the books of the Bible.

Start with either the Old or New Testament and write the names of the books down on 3x5 index cards, one book per card. Shuffle them around and have your child practice putting them in order. Use the Bible as a reference at first, letting your child use it less and less as he learns the correct order of books. This isn’t cheating when the whole purpose is to learn the books.

Once your child has begun to get a handle on the correct order of things, put a simple game board together using poster board, drawing several squares together in a winding path around the board. You can do the same thing if you want to help engage your child’s body using several sheets of construction paper taped together and put on the floor. About every five squares or so draw a star, placing a star on the very last square of the board.

Have your child throw a die and move the number of spaces indicated using a bean or a button for a marker (or himself, if using the giant floor model). If he lands on a star, he must recite the books of the Bible in correct order. You can choose if it’s the whole Bible or just the Old or New Testament. If he makes a mistake, he must go back three spaces.

The goal is to reach the end of the game board, by exact count, having correctly recited the books of the Bible each time he lands on a star. If your child happens to miss all the stars while moving around the board, he still has to land on the last one in order to finish the game.

Feel free to get creative with the other spaces on the game board. Perhaps write in some activity your child has to do, like run around the house three times (that’ll settle your kinesthetic learner right down!) or balance a spoon on his nose. While these don’t necessarily have any biblical connection, there’s nothing to say that learning the books of the Bible has to be boring!

You can use the game board for future memorizations, substituting the books of the Bible for the names of the twelve tribes of Israel, the names of the apostles, or listing the Ten Commandments. Have fun!

Helping Your Child Find His Way Around The Bible, Part 1

photo by DrGBB

All of this talk about holding family devotions kind of assumes that one knows his or her way around the Bible. There’s certainly nothing wrong with learning the layout of the book along with your child. Though awkward at first, finding the books of the Bible will get easier the more you use it. Practice makes perfect, just like with anything else.

There are a variety of things you can do to help your child learn his way around. Since we just talked about learning styles, you can incorporate what you know about how your child learns with how to teach the books of the Bible.
Music
Children of even very young ages can learn the order of the books of the Bible. I remember a five year old Sunday school class receiving a standing ovation for singing the order of the Bible before a group of parents. Look for Bible sing-alongs in such products as Wee Sing Bible Songs. There’s usually two songs, one broken into the Old Testament, the other the New.

Older children may appreciate a more “sophisticated” style of music, so try reading the books of the Bible out loud using rhythm, as found in the rap style of music. You can break the Bible down into its divisions to make it easier to find a rhythm that works.

Old Testament - establishing God’s sovereignty
The books of Moses (otherwise known as the Pentateuch): Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy
History of early Israel (the next twelve books): Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther
Poetry: Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs
Major Prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel
Minor Prophets: Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi

New Testament - establishing the hope in Christ
The Gospels (the Good News of Jesus): Matthew, Mark, Luke, John
History of the early church: Acts
Letters of the Apostle Paul: Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon
General letters: Hebrews, James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, Jude
Revelation, the last book of the Bible

Singing or rapping together the books of the Bible can be a lot of fun, and a good way of both memorizing Scripture and making the most out of family devotion time. We’ll look at other fun ways of helping our children learn their way around the Bible tomorrow.