Is the Bible really God's Word? and teaching our children!

                                         
              Here is my Bible on the shore of the Sea of Galilee where Jesus ate with his disciples.

I love to warm up my Sunday School class with a Sword Drill.  Do you know what that is?  The children place the Bible in front of them, closed, with their hand on top.  They sit eagerly on the edge of their chairs in anticipation for the Scripture Chapter and Verse I'm about to announce.  The moment I announce it, pages fly, sometimes Bibles too, while the children race to find the Scripture.  The first one who finds it, jumps up and reads it.  Even the littler ones get involved when I pair them up with an older child who likes to help.  I have to admit, that I think us adults enjoy Sword Drills just as much! I've torn many a pages in Bibles with when my competetive spirit gets out of hand.  (Shame on me.)

It is thrilling to see children and adults excited about using their Bible!  The Bible is God's Word.  It is absolute truth.    I'm not trying to get anyone's defenses up or anything, but here are some of the questions I have asked myself in discerning the Bible to be God's Word.  
*name me one other book in the whole world that is a compilation of 66 books,  has been written by 40 authors, covering a period of 4000 years, yet has the same common thread of redemption for mankind? 
*Pick any book in the Bible and you will see a clear and consistent display of God's character and man's character.  You may not know God, but I'm sure you know yourself.  Look to the word and you will see yourself.  Yikes!
*In all the excavating and studying of history, the Bible has never been proven wrong. The Bible gives an accurate account of all kinds of historical events. Even "atheists" (silly gooses!) look to it for historical value.  If it can be trusted in it's physical context, then how could it not be trusted in it's spiritual context?
*When it is read, it resonates with the human soul, no matter what time period or culture one may be in.  How can it always relate?  Because God and people are the same no matter what the timeline or language.
*It is the best selling book of all time.  Millions of people have and continue to embrace it.  Could that many people really be duped? 
Seriously, how could I not believe??  Only God could inspire a book like that.

When I was working on my CBS Lesson the other day, Ann asked me why I kept flipping around in my Bible.  I told her I was studying and answering questions from my notebook.  She looked at me and said "isn't that cheating?"  "No way, Ann!" I said, "we're supposed to look in our Bible for the answers." 

                  Reading Scripture over the house of Caiaphas where Jesus was beaten and imprisoned          
                     overnight. Next to me was the cistern that prisoners were traditionally thrown down. 


and a quote, about children, and the blessing and exhortation of giving them direction from God's Word      
       “Think of the possibility of raising a multitude of men and women
       whose bodies have never been poisoned by vicious indulgences,
       whose minds have been enlightened and filled with the principles of Divine truth from their infancy,
       and whose hearts, from their earliest days, have been inspired with the love of Christ
       and possessed with the one supreme ambition to glorify the Father,
       dethrone the devil, destroy sin and save the world!”
                                William Booth, Founder of The Salvation Army, 1884

Don't ever be ashamed or afraid to teach your children the Word. I have heard christian mothers say "well, I don't want to turn them off from God"  or "it's their choice" or "I wouldn't want to shove it down their throat".   That is all worldly thinking of  fear and defeat!  My children LOOOOOVE God's Word!  They love the real heros and the wild stories and how it always seems to have just the right answer for them.  My babies have ruined Bibles from mimicking those around them that are reading.  Help your children get  in the habit of listening to the voice of God that reveals itself in Scripture.  Train them to go to it for answers.  Help them be in the habit of reading it and learning from it.  Let them see you wrestle with questions and search for answers.    Going to God's Word is the best habit to develop in them!  Pushing in their chair, or making their beds, or saying "please" and "thank you", among so many other habits are all good, but if you must stress, and fret, and focus on one... make it the reading and learning from God's Word.