Peter Krol | Knowable Word

Teach Your Preschoolers to Have Devotions

July 17, 2015 By Peter Krol

On a recent drive home, I had the following conversation with my 6-year-old daughter:

What did you learn at baseball practice tonight?

Lots of things!

Like what?

The same thing I learn at every practice.

And what is it that you learn at every practice?

I don’t remember…

No wonder she has to relearn it at every practice.

This is how shepherding children usually feels: seeking clarity, repeating things, practicing skills, and repeating things. Training our children to walk with God is no different. We can start early, promote good habits, and practice those habits year after year. The rare “Aha!” moments are glorious, but most of our parenting will consist of innumerable “try it again” moments.

Preschoolers are Ready for More

Let’s not wait for the children to be ready to walk with the Lord before encouraging them to start practicing. If God placed them in your family, they are ready. Of course you should address matters of belief, character, and wisdom as you have opportunity. And from the children’s earliest days you can train them to hear God’s voice and respond to it.

Let’s say you’d like to hand your children a Bible and teach them to use it. You’d love to give them a handsome devotional page and begin coaching a new season. And though you are ready for this step, your children are not. They would stare blankly at the indecipherable runes and hieroglyphs and ask you where the pictures are. Your child cannot yet read.

What do you do?

Illiteracy is No Obstacle

We’ve found four things helpful in our household. I’d love to hear your ideas as well.

1. Read to them

You can read the Bible as a family. You can read one-on-one. You can read in groups. Whatever it takes, however it works best for you, read the Bible to them.

The key, as always, is to read the Bible. Supplement their Bible intake with children’s Bibles, but don’t limit the children to the supplements. Like a good Amish cook, keep the grease right in that pan and don’t ever wash it out. Let your instruction simmer in the caloric, fatty goodness of God’s own words. Your children will get used to them and be able to understand them. These children are much smarter than we think they are.

For example, I had a child who consistently resisted instruction from us. He would get distracted and make excuses, refusing to hear counsel. We disciplined him when appropriate, but we clearly needed something more. So I had a private devotional time with this child in James 4:6-7. This child could not read, but he could understand that God would oppose him if he was proud. He knew he wouldn’t win if God fought against him, and the Scripture softened his heart toward us.

2. Read near them

Children will imitate what they see. It’s nice if they know you go into a room alone to have time with Jesus, but it’s even better if they can see you spend time with Jesus day after day. Soon enough, their play time will include “time with Jesus,” and they’ll find “Bibles” to carry around with them.

3. Have others read to them

My wife knew our kids would learn to use technology before they learned to read, so she taught them how to use a simple mp3 player. We loaded it with nothing but an audio Bible, and asked them to listen to it every morning. She would give them a track number (Bible chapter) for the day, and they would draw pictures while listening. But their drawings would take longer than a single track/chapter, so they’d hear multiple chapters in a row. The next day, she’d give them the next assigned chapter, which would involve some repetition from the day before. (In other words, on the day for Exodus 15, they’d hear Exodus 15-18. The next day would be “Exodus 16,” but they would hear Exodus 16-19.)

In these pictures, we’ve seen Noah carrying animals onto his boat, Abraham watching the stars, and Israel fleeing from “Ejip.”

Whales and drowning soldiers in the Red Sea, while long lines of Israelites pass through on dry ground (Exodus 14):

People gathering manna, baking it in the oven, and fighting Amalekites (Exodus 16):

4. Work it into their routines

Whatever you do should become routine (not mindless but regular). The more repetitive it gets, the more normal and expected it will be. And how many of us wish our time in Scripture and in prayer would feel normal and natural?

To be clear, our family life is not one of complete Bible bliss. We still eat dinner, watch Jake and the Neverland Pirates, and play baseball. We build legos, and we fight. But we try to organize life around the Scripture in basic and repetitive ways.

Here’s your chance to help the next generation. May they rise up and call you blessed.

Two-Word Summaries of Every Bible Chapter

July 15, 2015 By Peter Krol

In DiscipleMakers, we train our collegiate missionaries to both master and be mastered by the Scriptures. One exercise we use involves chapter summaries. Within their first three years, new missionaries are expected to read the entire Bible and create a list of summaries for every chapter. Though there’s a difference between a summary and a main point, we need to master the “what” of Scripture before we can be mastered by its “why.”

In 2014, Pastor Gregg Peter Farah blogged his way through every chapter of the Bible, summarizing each chapter in one or two words. You can find the results on his blog.

Along with the two-word summary, he included a one-sentence “big idea” and a brief “next step” attempting to apply the chapter. While Farah’s extreme brevity occasionally misses the mark, I think much of the time he absolutely nails it. For example:

Ephesians 2
SUMMARY
Incomparable riches

BIG IDEA
The more we grow in our faith the more we will see and understand God’s outrageous love for us.

NEXT STEP
Keep growing and going with Jesus. Have a hunger to know him more and be ready to be overwhelmed by his blessings.

Remember, he is summarizing (observing), not interpreting. So his Old Testament summaries don’t say much about Christ or the gospel. This often leads his application to be not as rich as it could be. But for brief, clear statements of what each chapter says, Farah does well.

The blog format can be difficult to follow, requiring much scrolling to find particular chapters. But if you use his search bar (upper right) to find “Bible summary [name of Bible book]”, you’ll make it easier.

Check it out!

P.S. For DiscipleMakers staff: No plagiarizing these great summaries!

HT: Jeffrey Kranz

NIrV Study Bible for Kids: Fine for What it Does

July 10, 2015 By Peter Krol

As soon as our children can read, my wife and I are committed to giving them each a Bible and teaching them how to use it. Four of our five now have full title to their own copies of the Good Book, and said property has quickly become used, bumped, beaten, carried about, dropped, and otherwise handled with great frequency and fervor. Just as we’d hoped. (Hardbacks are a must at these young ages.)

The first two children to reach this milestone won themselves the ESV Grow! Bible, which appears to be out of print now and drawing a high price on Amazon. I wouldn’t recommend capitulating, though. The Bible has a solid hipster feel to it, but there’s generally too much on the page. Kids can struggle to figure out which words are Bible words and which words are not.

Because that design was too busy, we took a different route with the third child and provided her with the ESV Children’s Bible. This Bible is nice and clean, giving full attention to the sacred text while peppering it with full-page pictures of key stories. This was great for her, but we still found our new reader struggling with the ESV translation. The words were too big, the sentences were too long, and she regularly lost her place. She often gave up and went back to board book children’s Bibles.

So we changed it up altogether for the fourth child. While our church uses the ESV, we wanted to make sure our child would develop motivation to read on her own. And since we had no problem with simplified children’s paraphrases (like those found in the board books or in The Jesus Storybook Bible), we decided to try a simplified translation keenly focused on being clear. We went with the NIrV.

Now our 3rd child (6 years old) and our 4th child (almost 5 years old) generally share the NIrV. Both love it and can read it well. Just the other day, I overheard my 6-year-old reading about designing the priest’s clothes in Exodus 28. She had a blast with it, and I’m all about encouraging such delight in even the stranger parts of the Bible.

I was delighted to receive a free copy of the NIrV Study Bible for Kids from BookLookBloggers.com in exchange for an honest review. Small price to pay to get a second NIrV in the house.

I like many things about this Bible:

My youngest readers can read it well on their own.
The “study Bible” parts of it aren’t too bossy. Full-page pictures are scattered throughout. There is generally one small box of extras every 4-5 pages (though the frequency is higher in the gospels).
The extras highlight memory verses or simple cultural facts that children can relate to.
Books have one-paragraph introductions followed by a list of “good verses [really, passages] to read” within the book.
The front has two pages to orient young children to the Bible’s layout.
The physical volume has a sturdy cover and binding.

This edition has limitations, of course.

I love it for beginning readers, but I want to graduate these children to another translation as soon as they’re ready for it.
I tried to read Ephesians in one sitting, and it drove me nuts. Because the sentences are so short, many words must be repeated, thus making the text longer than other translations. For example (I’ve italicized the repetitions that don’t show up in most translations):

God’s grace has saved you because of your faith in Christ. Your salvation doesn’t come from anything you do. It is God’s gift. It is not based on anything you have done. No one can brag about earning it. We are God’s creation. He created us to belong to Christ Jesus. Now we can do good works. Long ago God prepared these works for us to do. (Eph 2:8-10, NIRV)

For these reasons, we’ll never read the NIrV out loud as a family. The children do just fine listening to adults reading a mature translation.

But that said, I must agree with the NIrV’s preface: “People who are just starting to read will understand and enjoy the NIrV.” For it’s intended purpose, it’s great. I’m happy to recommend it as a stepping stool, but not as a cornerstone, for early childhood Bible education. 3 out of 5 stars.

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Disclaimer: The Amazon links are affiliate links. If you click them and buy stuff, you’ll enable us to continue blogging about our children’s Bible reading habits. “It is not that I want your gifts. What I really want is what is best for you” (Phil 4:17, NIRV).

Free Ebook: Taking God at his Word

July 9, 2015 By Peter Krol

Until July 14, Crossway is giving away Taking God at His Word by Kevin DeYoung as a free ebook. This book is a short, clear, and powerful explanation of what the Bible says about the Bible. If you read ebooks, you should get this one.

Download it from Crossway by completing their short questionnaire and joining their mailing list here. (You can always unsubscribe if you don’t want their emails, right?)

You can find my review of the book here.

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Using the Bible in the Homosexuality Debate

July 8, 2015 By Peter Krol

The debate on same-sex marriage rages not only in the U.S. government but also within the church. Confusion abounds regarding whether God approves or opposes same-sex unions.

Last month, The New York Times took a few of the key Bible verses used in the debate, along with explanations from a proponent for each side. This article is not the final word on the topic. It doesn’t necessarily represent the most sound articulation of either viewpoint. But it shows us, without a doubt, how critical the Scriptures are to the debate. One cannot truly claim to follow God without submitting to his word.

But how do we know if we’re interpreting it correctly?

The article touches on Romans 1:26-27, Leviticus 18:22, Matthew 19:3-6, and 1 Corinthians 6:9-10.

Are these teachers reading each passage in context? Have they observed carefully enough? Are they doing justice to the authors’ main points? Is their application sound?

Read, study, and consider. How would you respond to each? (Please note: Trollish comments, or those that don’t address the Scriptures, will be deleted.)

Check it out.

Blessed be God – In Praise of Grammar Awareness

July 3, 2015 By Peter Krol

The Apostle Paul sometimes gets a bad rap for his grammar skillz, especially when he gets excited about something. Ephesians 1 happens to be one of those places.

Many remark on the fact that Ephesians 1:3-14 is a single run-on sentence in the original Greek. And the finest English translations do little to make the passage any easier for us. Paul piles on clause after clause after clause, traipsing his way through a maze of ideas, tying history and eternity up in knots, modifying, subordinating, and prepositioning his way to glory. “My high school English teacher would never let me get away with a sentence like that,” says one preacher. And eyewitnesses of Paul’s rhetoric have long been known to suggest that his letters have “some things in them that are hard to understand” (2 Pet 3:16).

Molly Steenson (2008), Creative Commons

But please let’s be fair. Sure, Paul is excited. Of course he goes too long between one inhale and the next. But he couldn’t have been any more clear about his sentence’s main idea.

Blessed be (the) God.

If we take a deep breath and condense the run-on sentence down to its essential components—subject and verb—we’ll have no trouble seeing what we should get out of it. Blessed be God.

The main verb of the entire sentence is the verb “be.” The subject of the verb is “God.” And since “be” is a verb of being (not a verb of action), it functions like an equals sign. It does no good without the other side of the equation. God = blessed. God is blessed. Or with more artistry, “Blessed be God.”

Paul’s main idea here is not what God does but who God is. God is a blessed God. Not like Artemis of the Ephesians, whose “greatness” drove her fan boys to bellow insanely for hours on end (Acts 19:34). The truly blessed God is not just any god; he is “the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Eph 1:3). Blessed be this God.

Of course, this God is blessed because of what he does. The loping clauses that follow unravel the deep mysteries of this blessed God who lavishly blesses. Blessed be the God who has blessed us in Christ.

But please don’t lose focus. Paul’s main idea is not how blessed we are for knowing God. His driving point is not that we are so well off (though, of course, we are—if we believe). Paul’s main idea is that this God who blesses is himself blessed. He is worth knowing. He is worthy of adoration. He deserves to be spoken of highly. Blessed be God.

Paul’s syntax may be more convoluted than that found in a Supreme Court ruling, but the Apostle keeps our focus on his main idea with periodic reminders: “to the praise of his glorious grace…to the praise of his glory…to the praise of his glory.” Blessed be God.

If your Bible study starts sinking in a swamp of words, grab this rope and don’t let go: Observe the grammar. Blessed be God.

The Coming Fizzle

July 1, 2015 By Peter Krol

Erik Raymond has another insightful article this week about how to prevent a gospel-centered fizzle out. He’s concerned for the next generation of Christian pastors and Bible teachers, and he’s wondering whether we’ll be able to replicate the great teaching we’ve been hearing for a generation. Will we learn not only how to repeat what we’ve been told, but also to draw new conclusions from the same old texts on our own?

It’s one thing to have been able to say you have been to the restaurant and eaten a meal, but, if you don’t know how to get there yourself then you’ll never be able to eat that food again, much less take someone else out to enjoy the same experiences. My concern is that too many have been piling into Sproul’s theological minivan to go eat a feast but never learned how to actually find their way to the meal.

He writes of how important it is for us to learn to read, interpret, and rightly apply the Bible on our own. I couldn’t agree more.

Check it out!

Why We Don’t Read the Bible

June 24, 2015 By Peter Krol

Erik Raymond proposes 5 reasons why many of us don’t read our Bibles:

It makes us uncomfortable
It’s too hard
We are undisciplined
We think it is stale and lifeless
We have a dysfunctional relationship with God

Did you notice what’s missing from the list? “We’re too busy.” Raymond doesn’t buy that for a moment, and I think he’s right. We always have time for what we value the most.

Raymond’s conclusion:

Let’s be honest: if you don’t read your Bible it is because you don’t want to read your Bible. And to bottom line this further, this is indicative or your relationship with God. We cannot separate a love for the Word of God and the God of the Word.

Do you want to read your Bible? If not, why not?

Raymond’s article explains each of the reasons with helpful action steps of repentance. Check it out!

Main Points for all 66 Books of the Bible

June 12, 2015 By Peter Krol

Last week’s review of the NIV Proclamation Bible got me excited about its concise main points for every book of the Bible. I couldn’t resist listing them here for your reference. I don’t agree with every one. For example, the proposals for Joshua and Nahum are summaries and not main points, and the proposal for Job misses the centrality of the fear of the Lord. But they all are worth considering.

You’ll have to buy the Bible to see a 2-4 paragraph defense for each main point.

Books of Moses

Genesis: The Creator God is faithful to his covenant promises and redeems humanity through the promised line, despite their sin and rebellion.
Exodus: Trust, obey and worship the redeeming, covenant-making God who is with us.
Leviticus: The holy God makes his people holy, calls them to be holy, and provides atonement through blood when they are not.
Numbers: God has saved us and, as we travel through the wilderness of this world, we need to go on exercising faith to enter the inheritance Christ has secured for us.
Deuteronomy: God’s people are called to respond to God’s salvation with love and loyalty, worshiping the one true God in the midst of surrounding cultural idolatries and living in the midst of the nations as a community shaped at every level of life by God’s character of grace, justice, purity, compassion, and generosity.

Historical Books

Joshua: God gave the land he promised and Israel took it (Josh 11:23, 21:43-45, NIV).
Judges: The book of Judges demonstrates that if the Israelites survive the dark days of Canaanization under the judges it is entirely to the Lord’s credit.
Ruth: The Lord is committed to his people even in the darkest days, and will preserve his plan of salvation through a godly king, for both Jews and Gentiles.
1 and 2 Samuel: Even the best human leaders fail us, but God is faithful to his people and promised a king who would be powerful, wise, righteous and faithful.
1 and 2 Kings: Ruling justly and wisely depends on obeying God’s word, and disobeying has serious consequences.
1 and 2 Chronicles: Restore the people, raise up the king and renew the temple; then God will pour out his blessings.
Ezra-Nehemiah: In response to God fulfilling his promises, his people should repent, reform and “follow the Law of God,” or literally, “walk in the Law of God” (Neh 10:29, NIV).
Esther: God fulfils his redemptive promises through his divine providence.

Wisdom Books

Job: The obedient suffering of a believer brings glory to God.
Psalms: Praise the Lord: meditate on his circumstance-defying covenant love in the Messiah!
Proverbs: Proverbs recognizes the difficulties of living in God’s complex world and offers wise words to live by.
Ecclesiastes: Death and judgment are the only fixed realities in life, and everything else is uncertain and often subject to frustration and sorrow.
Song of Songs: Desire wisdom, desire your husband or wife, and above all desire Christ.

Prophets

Isaiah: God will rescue and renew a faithful, obedient people for himself, out of the ashes of Israel’s failure and exile, through the coming of his Servant King (the Messiah).
Jeremiah: “Therefore that he may raise, the Lord throws down” (John Donne).
Lamentations: “In your righteous wrath, O Lord, remember mercy!”
Ezekiel: Align yourselves with the God who has acted in judgment on Judah, and with the Israel that God is restoring.
Daniel: God always remains the true God, so stay faithful to him despite pressure to compromise.
Hosea: “Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another man and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes” (Hos 3:1, NIV).
Joel: Judgment day is approaching, so sincerely repent, call on the name of the Lord, and you will be blessed.
Amos: The sovereign Lord will not tolerate a proud and complacent people, but will judge all human evil with perfect justice so that his kingdom may come.
Obadiah: Divine sovereignty is the audacious theme of Obadiah, seen in the impending role reversal of Edom and Judah on the day of the Lord.
Jonah: “Salvation comes from the Lord” (Jonah 2:9, NIV), who is the Creator and Lord of the nations.
Micah: “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8, NIV).
Nahum: The Lord will bring inescapable and deserved judgment on mighty Assyria, and this is good news for God’s people, Judah.
Habakkuk: Be joyful and secure in an unjust world, by trusting in the God who promises to deliver his people and defeat evil.
Zephaniah: God will judge the sin and rebellion of the world, but there is hope because of the character and promises of God.
Haggai: The rebuilding of the Lord’s temple will bring about an even greater glory.
Zechariah: In a time of economic and spiritual crisis, the prophet Zechariah challenges a new generation to become participants, not spectators, in the plans the Lord Almighty has for the restoration of temple, city and society, and to welcome the Lord, the King of Jerusalem and the King of the whole earth.
Malachi: “‘I have loved you,’ says the Lord” (Mal 1:2, NIV).

New Testament Narratives

Matthew: Become disciples of Jesus, so that you may participate in the kingdom of the heavens, and make further disciples in all the nations.
Mark: Jesus, God’s Son, King, and Servant, has come, died and risen that we may know, confess and serve him.
Luke: You can be confident that Jesus, in his life, death, resurrection and ascension, heralds the fulfillment of all God’s promises in the Old Testament.
John: Believe that Jesus is the Son who came from the Father to reveal him, and has returned to the Father to open up the way to life for his people.
Acts: The ascended Lord Jesus continues to draw people from every nation to himself, growing his church through the preaching of the word and the ministry of his Spirit.

Epistles

Romans: God is glorified in a united missionary Church humbled together under grace.
1 Corinthians: All believers in Christ are God’s holy temple and should live in keeping with that holy status by becoming unified, shunning pagan vices and glorifying God under the lordship of Christ.
2 Corinthians: Be confident in the “weak” but authentic ministry of gospel proclamation.
Galatians: The grace of God in the gospel and the promised Spirit are sufficient both for salvation and the Christian life.
Ephesians: You are one in Christ now, so be united and stand firm in him.
Philippians: Live joyfully as citizens of God’s kingdom in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.
Colossians: “Just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him” (Col 2:6, NIV).
1 Thessalonians: Be reassured of the truth of the gospel and press on in living it out, despite opposition, until Jesus returns.
2 Thessalonians: While waiting expectantly for Christ’s glorious return, live lives of faithful perseverance, patient vigilance and obedient service.
1 Timothy: Local churches need gospel-driven leaders to guard their conformity to gospel truth.
2 Timothy: Guard for future generations the precious deposit of God’s glorious, life-giving gospel, despite opposition.
Titus: Change in belief by the power of the gospel leads to changed lives, so straighten out those deceived by false teachers.
Philemon: The gospel is powerful to reconcile deeply (and understandably) estranged people.
Hebrews: Because Jesus is utterly supreme, Christians should stick with him alone whatever happens.
James: Christians need to be entirely focused on God in all that they do.
1 Peter: God’s chosen people should live God-glorifying, Christlike lives amidst suffering and persecution, assured of ultimate glory themselves.
2 Peter: Those who are truly known by God, and know him in Christ, are those who resist the theological and moral laxities of godless preachers and remain robustly tied to the apostolic message.
1 John: You can know you are Christians because you believe Jesus is the Christ, you recognize your sin and you love fellow Christians.
2 John: The one who knows the truth loves God, through obeying his commandments, loving his people and not being hospitable to the false teacher.
3 John: The one who walks in the truth will be in partnership with Christians, and not reject them.
Jude: Contend for the faith in the face of godless denial and immorality.
Revelation: Willingness to suffer for faith in and worship of the sovereign God and his Christ is the path to ultimate victory and the triune God’s glory in the new creation.

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Samson and the Prostitute of Gaza

June 10, 2015 By Peter Krol

Miles Van Pelt has an intriguing article about Samson and the prostitute of Gaza in Judges 16:1-3. He observes the text carefully, drawing out allusions to Sisera with Jael and the Hebrew spies with Rahab. He shows how Samson prepares the way for David, as John the Baptist does for Jesus.

In the end, he concludes that Samson was not pursuing immorality but God-ordained conquest of the Philistines by staying with the prostitute. I can’t say I fully agree yet without further consideration, but Van Pelt magnificently piqued my curiosity and drove me further into the text. That makes his article well worth reading.

Check it out!

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