When most of us were children we heard in school the story about how a young George Washington after receiving a hatchet from his father cut down a cherry tree. When confronted about who cut down the tree the young Washington declared that he could not tell a lie and admitted to the act, which only made his father proud of him because of his honesty.
When we got older we found out that this well-known story was, in fact, a lie, which, ironically, contradicts the moral of the story.
We tell children stories to entertain them, we tell stories to get them to go to sleep, or we tell them stories to teach them a moral lesson, and then, when they tell us a lie, we ask them if they are telling us a story.
The word story for a kid generally has the meaning of something that is not true…something that is made up. It can be difficult for young minds to know the difference.
So, we Christians, need to stop telling our children, who we want to grow up to be Bible believing adults, Bible stories.
We want them to know that everything we are telling them about the Bible is true and not associate biblical truth with made up stories of their youth.
In Sunday school, we regale them with the sensational story of Noah and his big zoo boat and then when they get older neglect to explain to them how that is the most likely story of how the Grand Canyon was formed and probably what killed the dinosaurs.
At Easter, we allow stories of the Easter bunny to dominate the narrative because the story of Jesus dying on the cross is too difficult to explain to such young ears.
At Christmas, we include stories about Santa Claus because secular society has adopted that aspect of Christmas and at least we can get some semblance of acceptance on a national level, but of course we get angry when those same people, who deny Christ the other 364 days a year, refuse to say Merry Christmas rather than Happy Holidays.
The story of Noah is a wonderful story about a man who showed almost unequalled trust in God in the face of ridicule and hardship, and it is a great example of how we should trust God, but there is also a historical element to it, and actually a geological element to it that we completely ignore, which, in the end, makes it appear to be nothing more than allegory.
It becomes just a nice children’s story that is fun for the kids when you pull out the felt board in Sunday School.
As adults both young and old, we ignore this story, because it’s maybe too much for us to believe. We often take a small God approach to these aspects of the Bible, because it’s just too difficult to explain.
We must find a way to differentiate between the fairy tales that children hear and the Bible stories that they are taught in church.
Now, I’m not saying that we need to pull out a copy of The Passion of the Christ at Easter and force a bunch of 6-year-old kids to sit through the torture scene, but we need to make it real, we need for it to be seen as history and not just another story, or even worse make it about something else like a giant bunny that delivers, and sometimes hides, eggs and candy.
This means that we must deal with the difficult questions about the Bible, we can’t just glaze over it.
The answers are there, but we must be willing to go find them and make sure that our children don’t think that the Bible stories they heard as a kid were not just an attempt to teach them a moral through a fantastic story.
So, Christians, please stop telling your children Bible stories, tell them Bible history.