That's What I Get

Earlier this year when I read through the Bible in 90 Days along with Mom's Toolbox, I rediscovered many stories that I doubted my son, then four, had heard. I figured the best way to tell them to him was to read them aloud as I went along. He listened to many, many chapters of Scripture that way. In April when hubby & I attended the MidWest Homeschool Convention, one of my favorite speakers stressed his belief that the best curriculum to teach your children the Bible is the Bible. This encouragement, combined with the fact that I have a difficult time waking up before my children, lead to my frequently reading aloud from my Bible in the mornings while I do my devotions. This has hleped keep the kids engaged & out of trouble while freeing me to be able to actually read my Bible while they are awake. It has been a real win-win situation. The only problem - the Bible is not exactly a G-rated book. There are some passages I have read praying that the kids don't ask questions. When they do ask questions on a tricky passage, I try to answer them honestly, but as age-approriately as possible. We also teach our children that anytime they question something soemone says about the Bible, the best thing to do is to go to teh BIble directly and see what it says.

During dinner my husband reads from a children's Bible storybook. Twice lately Bug has challeneged it. The first time was during the story of Jesus' baptism. The storybook said that after his baptism, God's voice said, "This is my Son. Listen to Him." "No, no!" Bug said. "That's not right. God said, 'This is my beloved son. I'm pleased with him.'" I was sure that God said "Listen to Him," but we had to follow the rules we taught our children and check. I was surprised to discover that it was actually at the transfiguration, not the baptism, when God said this.

The next time Bug corrected the storybook was when it said Jesus turned water to grape juice.
"No, no. That's not right. It wasn't grape juice. I was . . . what was it, Mommy?"
[Gulp] "Um, you're right. It was wine."
"Yes. Yes, that's right. It was wine. [Pause] Mommy, is grape juice & wine the same thing?"
"Well, wine if grape juice that has sat around a long time until it has alcohol in it."
"Oh, what's alcohol again?" [Again - oh yeah, we did have this conversation briefly once before.]
"It's a drink that if people drink just a little of it can help them relax, but if you drink a lot of it, it makes it hard for you to make good decisions & you tend to do foolish things."
"Oh, that's right. That's what Noah drank after teh flood when he fell asleep nakey-buns."
"Um, yes. That's right." [Wow! How did he remember that?]

As I said, the Bible isn't exactly G rated, so reading aloud has caused some conversations that I wouldn't have yet chosen, but at the same time, I can't think of anything I would rather have bring up these topics than Scripture!