Teaching Them Scripture

"I know I need to do it, to teach my children the Bible and have them learn Bible verses but I just don't do it. I am overwhelmed with all the other responsibilities of cleaning the house, caring for my husband, making meals, changing diapers, and homeschooling that I often forget what I know is most important--teaching them to memorize God's word in their heart. Do you have any suggestions?"

I am often asked all kinds of important questions on a daily basis and this is one I feel that is quite a common struggle for moms across the board. We have good intentions, but life somehow seems to get in the way.

This is a powerful time in a child's life to intentionally sow plentiful seed in your child's heart for the kingdom. So we need to make sure that the time we get with them is used wisely.

In the past I had tried numerous ideas. We always try to teach the Bible through how we live, when we rise up and through the day. We do Bible studies in the morning and sometimes at night. We try to make it fun for them as we try to be godly examples.  The thing I was challenged most with was how to help them learn verses and to hide the word in their heart.  I had created a "Bible Sword" binder that was full of verses I had handpicked and taught them to my children over the meal table. I had also did memorization from the Bible in Proverbs and we would try to learn the verses that way with me putting them on the school board and practicing them over different meal times. I used videos (like this or this) and music CD's and even hung up Bible verses in their room and around the house.

Now I am doing something that I am really happy about and seems to be working well. With my other methods, it seemed to require more time from me (to pick out verses and teach) and all of the children were not at the same pace (some would learn it right away, some would take longer) and then things would slowly start to fizzle out as it was not as easy to stay on top of who was where. I needed something simpler!

So now I have them do this:

During school I assign them some "copy-work time", this where they work on their handwriting/cursive skills. I will ask a child to pick a verse or two from the Bible that they want to copy/enjoy/or like and they have to write it in their best handwriting. Not only do they write it out but they are also asked to memorize it. When they are done they bring it to me for checking and recite their verse(s). They can take a break or go play after they have done this as this is usually one of their last classes. I am telling you, I have never seen children learn verses so quickly on a daily basis in my life!!!  With older children you could do several verses, a paragraph, or entire chapters.

So there it is---so simple but so easy. I wish I had done this early on instead of trying to do it as a group. Perhaps it will work for you too!

Oh, and don't feel guilty about popping in a video or using CD's to help with this--sometimes they learn or retain even better that way (moms are too hard on themselves in this category and yes--we have also done AWANA, but wanted to do more at home). My attitude about it is get it in them by any means necessary! Just be careful as some movies are not biblically accurate and that is a great time to teach them about being like the Bereans and to check everything according to scripture.

Have you ever read the book, Ten P's in Pod?  This is a true story about a large family of missionaries traveled around the U.S. living in their car spreading the word of the gospel and their children memorized whole books of the Bible--VERY inspiring!

Last night we had some fun as my sons practiced preaching for the family, the smallest ones who are the twins and only five, were able to practice "preaching" too by sharing stories they had learned from some movies they've watched in the past since they cannot read yet. It was so cute, and they were all rewarded with jelly beans afterwards! Even if my boys do not become preachers one day, they will be the spiritual leaders of their homes and this helps them to get used to sharing God's Word with others.

How do you teach your children to memorize scripture?

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