Telling God's Story - Chapter 4: Traditional Approaches: Drawbacks and Misunderstandings

The subtitle for chapter four is "How other approaches shortchange the Bible and can lead to misunderstanding".

In this chapter Peter Enns touches on four of the more common approaches used in teaching the Bible to children. He emphasizes that these aren't all bad in themselves but may not be the most effective approaches if we want our children to grasp well what God's purpose and intention is in giving us the Bible. The four methods are the following:

The "Bible Story" Approach
It's common to start teaching children the Bible by telling them Bible stories since these stories have vivid characters and lots of action. Enns feels that although this isn't all bad, it sells the Bible short and "may, at the end of the day, obscure some important aspects of the Bible - especially as children grow older."

One drawback is that they may view these stories simply as "children's stories" and leave them behind as they age, just like they leave other children's stories behind. They can get the idea that the Bible is full of children's stories that don't have meaning for them once they grow up, when the truth is that these stories have deep theological and symbolic meaning. The author gives examples related to the accounts of Genesis 3 (Adam, Eve, and the serpent) and of the flood. In reference to telling children the story of the flood, he says,  
"When we reduce the Flood to a children's story, we lose sight of the connection between the waters that come crashing down upon the earth and those very same waters that God had moved to a safe distance in Genesis 1. Grasping what God does in the Flood and why requires a basic working knowledge of the ancient world, not to mention a basic awareness of the interconnection between this story and various other biblical episodes. All of this is beyond what young children can do...This is why I suggest beginning instead with stories of Jesus."

The "Character Study" Approach
This is a great section in this chapter; I will simply quote a few lines from it with the hope that these quotes will make the author's point clear. Speaking of Bible main characters, Enns points out that they aren't in scripture as models of behavior; in fact, virtually all them in the OT fall far short of moral ideals...

"...the story of Noah and the Flood is hardly about Noah's righteousness, but actually God's. To read it as a story about how good Noah was is to miss the central concern of the story.

"What we really see in these stories is God's faithfulness in sticking with Abraham. This is more God's story than Abraham's...

"If we limit our reading of the Moses story to deriving life lessons from his actions, we diminish the power of the story as a whole. The story...tells us more about God than anything...Moses is ultimately a preview of Christ...If we understand the story of Moses as a part of a bigger story - a story that is about God rather than Moses - the full picture given in the New Testament will take on deeper meaning.

"...David's story is part of a larger story about God. Yes, David was a great king, even if he was imperfect. But his kingship is not the central point of the narrative...David's kingship was a true but imperfect 'first run through' of Jesus' kingship to come. When you read the David and Goliath story, resist the temptation to see yourself in David's role. Rather, see Jesus...David represents Jesus - David's heir - doing the fight for us. If you want to see yourself in the story, you are among the people on the hillside cheering him on..."

The "Book-by-Book" Approach
Enns suggests that the study of books of the Bible in detail should be done as adults. For children, the better approach is to focus on the "flow" of the big story in general. "This overview of the biblical drama will help make subsequent book studies by your children in their adult years more profitable."

The "Defensive" Approach
Because Christians have tried to apply the Bible to current events and discoveries that the Bible doesn't address, great battles have taken place over the Bible in the past century. "Expecting from the Bible things that it may not be prepared to deliver can encourage a defensive, even argumentative, approach. Sometimes defending the Bible (with humility) is important and necessary. The difficulty come when we teach the Bible in such a way that we focus on the conflicts, rather than on laying the groundwork for a lifetime of study...The Bible is not a book that was written to be defended...The Bible is a book that is meant to be on the 'offensive', aggressively presenting a God who goes to great lengths to put the world back as it should be..."

The author urges us to present the Bible in a positive way, focusing on the larger picture it is giving. This chapter concludes with a very simple, wonderful overview of what God's story is:

"The story as a whole is one of a good and wise God doing unexpected things for an undeserving yet chosen people. This culminates in a vivid description of a new world that begins with Jesus' resurrection. In this new world, death is conquered and we can begin to live as we were created to live."

Next is Chapter 5, "A Final Word", which concludes Part One of the book.