Kevin

About Kevin

Kevin works at BJU Press as a secondary-level Bible curriculum writer. He has a BA in Bible and an MDiv. He has also worked as a youth leader, a short-term missionary in Singapore, and a classroom teacher (elementary, junior high, and high school). In addition to theology, he loves the study of history and literature. Read more posts by Kevin.

A Simple Method for Teaching Bible

September 8, 2016 by Kevin

How do Bible study skills relate to biblical worldview shaping? First, you must understand that a biblical worldview consists of three ingredients:

(1) the larger story of the world,

(2) the beliefs and values that grow out of that larger story, and

(3) the cultural action or personal behavior that should result from those beliefs and values.

Second, once the purposeful aim for a series of Bible courses has been established, there needs to be a practical method in place for accomplishing that aim of worldview shaping. It’s important to teach children and teens a good process for studying the Bible to ensure that their beliefs and values (ingredient 2) truly grow out of the larger biblical story of the world (ingredient 1) and thus lead to appropriate cultural participation and personal behavior (ingredient 3).

Here’s a simple inductive Bible study method that you can teach your children:

Observe (what the Bible passage says)
Interpret (what the Bible passage means)
Apply (how the Bible passage should become meaningful)

The method can be tailored to multiple age-appropriate learning levels. Each step in the process can be more or less detailed as appropriate.

Example of an Inductive Study

You can use what God said to His people through Isaiah to teach your children a particular value—repentance. But that value will only make sense to your children when they accept the big story of Scripture (Creation, Fall, Redemption) regarding the reality of their condition before God. Only then will that value be personally adopted.

Example of how the inductive method can make this passage understandable and practical in terms of a biblical worldview:

Observe (identify the belief/value): This step involves asking your children (at different age-appropriate levels) to mark or point out the word pictures and phrases that describe or show repentance.
Interpret (understand and give significance to the belief/value based on the reality of the big story): This step involves asking your children to explain the word pictures that describe genuine repentance. Why is genuine repentance important to God?
Apply (put the belief/value into practice): This step involves asking your children how the teachings on repentance relate to their own lives. Are there any parallels in their own lives that compare to the examples described in the passage?

Why the Order of the Inductive Method Is Important

Observing what God’s Word says and interpreting what it means must precede the application of its morals to life. If the process is reversed (beginning with application, skipping careful observation and interpretation), then Scripture gets twisted to fit into a preconceived human system of morals. Or the real significance—of relating properly to God in accordance with the larger reality of the world—gets lost.

The Moral of the Story: How Not to Read the Old Testament

June 16, 2016 by Kevin

Have you ever gotten lost in the middle of reading the Old Testament? Getting lost is easy because the Old Testament is long, the culture is foreign, and your recollection of the history may be fuzzy. From childhood, most of us have been taught to approach Scripture looking for morals to apply to our lives today. (Or maybe we just fall into this approach naturally.) But the Old Testament just doesn’t seem to provide what we’re looking for—unless we’re willing to stretch or twist the text out of context.

What’s the solution?

First, our approach to Scripture needs to change.
Second, we need to focus on the structure of the larger story of Scripture.

A God-Directed Approach to Scripture

Teaching children a foundation of biblical facts is important, and guiding them to make practical application should be an end goal. But the driving focus must be God-directed, not self-directed. Otherwise, children may learn all the morals for how to behave without recognizing the point—a right relationship with their Creator. For example, the point of the David and Goliath narrative isn’t to teach children to find courage in themselves. The point is to trust God because “the battle is the Lord’s” (1 Samuel 17:47).

Children need to be taught from a young age to look for what God reveals in His Word about Himself. And from those truths they can learn to look for what God has revealed to humans about having a relationship with Him. If we don’t teach children to approach the Bible this way, they may miss the Person at the center of it all; they may miss the all-powerful, self-existent God overflowing with love—the one all creation points to (Psalm 19:1).

The Creation, Fall, Redemption Structure

Children need to learn to understand individual Bible stories according to the larger context of what the Bible is all about. The BJU Press textbook The Story of the Old Testament teaches young teens to approach Scripture theologically. That means that they understand the Bible to be the true story of what God is doing to glorify Himself by redeeming His fallen creation (Creation, Fall, Redemption). Why is this important?

The Bible isn’t a random collection of stories or moral platitudes like the Qur’an or the sayings of Confucius. Biblical morality must be grounded in the reality of the larger story of this world. And that story tells your children how to have a relationship with their Creator. No other moral system teaches what the Bible does; every other religion is false, no matter how laudable its morals, because the larger story of the world told in those other religions is false.

Even the truth of our need to trust God (another moral that can be drawn from the account of David and Goliath) doesn’t make sense unless children understand that David’s trust in the Lord rested on the covenant God had made with Israel when redeeming them out of Egypt. Similarly, the New Covenant cross work of Christ teaches us and our children to trust in God. Every story, every moral has to be seen in the larger context of the Creation, Fall, Redemption story line.

When you read the Old Testament and teach it to your children, remember that the morals that you want to teach only make sense when grounded in the overarching story (Creation, Fall, Redemption) that reveals who God is. Right behavior ought to be grounded in right beliefs (Titus 2:11–12).

Putting on Your Worldview Glasses

February 4, 2016 by Kevin

The Need for a Biblical Worldview

We have always lived in a fallen world, but it seems to be going from bad to worse (2 Timothy 3:13). The issues are snowballing; rebellion against God rages like an avalanche overtaking any chance of escape (Psalm 2:1–3). Will the rebellion of this world swallow up or smother your own children?

Truth claims and moral values that were once clear to many Christian parents are now being questioned by their professing Christian children. Some of the classmates I grew up with—who still profess Christ—have fallen into the traps that seem to be everywhere: justifying their indulgence in immorality, downplaying compromise with evolution, or gravitating toward the edges of orthodox Christianity.

As godly parents, you watch your young people growing up and see that they’re about to depart from home. You’re rightly motivated to equip your children to respond with biblical wisdom to the cultural upheaval: gay marriage, the murder of babies for profit, “safe zones” for the entitled on college campuses, and frequent mass shootings. The cultural situation is grim.¹

The biblical worldview team at BJU Press is motivated to provide the tools you need to equip your young people to face the chaotic world in which they live and to stand firm. That’s why we wrote Biblical Worldview: Creation, Fall, Redemption—to protect Christ’s little ones who truly belong to Him by providing them with biblical worldview glasses.

Biblical Worldview: Creation, Fall, Redemption

This one book brings together the biblical worldview approach that is integrated into all of BJU Press’s curriculum. First, it helps students understand what a biblical worldview is and its significance to all of life. Second, it helps students to specifically understand the biblical worldview of Creation, Fall, and Redemption. Third, it guides an application of this worldview to multiple social institutions and disciplines (marriage and the family, government, science, history, and culture and the arts).

In the process, it introduces students to apologetic methods and guides them to discern and refute false worldviews. Particular attention is given to motivating students to contribute positively to the social institutions and disciplines—to rebuild them according to a biblical worldview.

Four distinctives summarize our approach to teaching a biblical worldview:

Focus on a biblical worldview: The goal is to focus students on a constructive presentation of Creation, Fall, Redemption rather than to overwhelm them with information about a multiplicity of false worldviews. False worldviews will be evaluated, but always in the context of reinforcing the true biblical worldview.
Bible-first perspective: The starting point, the ultimate authority source, is God’s Word. It’s the standard by which all evidence and claims must be evaluated, and not vice versa.
Emphasis on evaluation and positive response: Students should be challenged not only to evaluate ideas intellectually but also to apply the biblical worldview as they become salt and light in the culture.
Content that is both accessible and compelling: This textbook was purposefully written in a style that’s more enjoyable to read and draws from several conservative Bible translations. Rather than introducing students to an encyclopedic overview of abstract philosophical concepts, our approach to worldview studies is designed to be engaging by being set in the context of the unfolding story of the world.

The Student Text is complemented by these additional resources: Teacher’s Edition, a Student Activities Manual and Student Activities Answer Key, and Tests and Tests Answer Key.

Take a look inside the book to learn more.

1. Ken Ham, “The Chasm Is Widening: Are You on God’s Side?” Answers in Genesis (website), April 29, 2013; D.C. Innes, “The Fight for Religious Liberty,” World (website), January 26, 2015.

Discipling Younger Children

February 12, 2015 by Kevin

Godless Days

What do you think of when you’re challenged with the grand task of discipling the next generation—especially when they’re not even out of lower elementary yet? Although there’s great potential, there are also numerous pitfalls. Increasing godlessness isn’t a figment of the imaginations of hysterical prudes; it’s a reality in the progression of the biblical story. Paul describes these last days for Timothy (2 Tim. 3:1–5, 12–13; cf. Rom. 1:28–32), but he also assures Timothy that there is an antidote (2 Tim. 3:14–17). Making sure children are founded in the Word can’t wait until they’re teens or young adults; the stabilizing discipleship in the Word must begin now.

Goal

What is character? What is Christlikeness? Character is the inward reality of a person’s integrity. It’s more than what a person does; it’s who that person is. (However, who a person is will be manifested in what that person does.) Thus, Christlikeness must be at the root of character. Teaching character doesn’t necessarily lead to Christlikeness, but Christlikeness will produce good character. The primary goal must be to lead our children to establish a relationship with Christ by bowing the knee and confessing Him as Lord (Phil. 2:6–11) so that they can have the mind of Christ (2:5) and demonstrate the working out of their salvation in Christlike character in the midst of a perverse world (2:12–16).

Groundwork

What’s your role if you’re a teacher (rather than the child’s parent)?

Involvement with parents—communication, reinforcement, and partnership. Plan and build into your busy schedule ways to bolster these things beyond a once- or twice-a-year parent-teacher conference.
Building trust with your students. Show them that you understsand and care about the struggles they’re going through; find ways to encourage and help.

Guidance

Thinking on your feet may not be your forte. Plan ahead to apply the wisdom of the Word to the daily situations of life that arise on the spur of the moment. This is how younger kids learn the Bible’s wisdom. Every situation is an opportunity to provide examples of the pithy wisdom of Proverbs or Jesus’ teaching. Immerse yourself daily in the Word (or even memorize it) so that you can have an automatic response to their spiritual needs as situations come up. Start with the proverbs, the Beatitudes, the fruit of the Spirit, the love chapter (1 Cor. 13), or the essential virtues of 2 Peter 1:5–8. These daily practical reminders from pithy scriptural wisdom will be more powerful and lasting than any of our feeble human reasons or bargaining for obedience.

What opportunities have you found to disciple your children or students?

The Greatest Commandment in the Classroom

August 1, 2014 by Kevin

The Temptation of Pragmatism

Have you ever felt completely helpless to regain control over your classroom using a biblically driven methodology? Concentrating on teaching children a biblical approach to a subject is easily sidelined when you are concentrating on keeping the students from erupting into a cacophony of chaos. Worse, you could end up teaching them an unbiblical approach to life if you deal with their sinful actions in pragmatic ways that are more consistent with secular psychology. Maybe your classroom is a model of discipline because you know plenty of practical methods to get students to behave. But, as you know, simply getting students to behave is not the end goal. The end goal is to disciple children to practice godliness because of their own inward desire to see God glorified (Titus 2:11–14).

Rewards Are Biblical

Let me be clear that I’m not opposed to rewarding students for a job well done. (When I was a teacher, I used a mystery box to reward my students.) Rewarding students can be done in a manner that is consistent with God’s practice of rewarding His children (1 Corinthians 3:14; 2 Timothy 4:8; James 1:12; 1 Peter 5:4). Pursuing the blessing of the reward is a legitimate motivation when that motivation is rooted in the ultimate desire to live in a pleasing manner because of your already-established relationship with God. Believers ought to be primarily motivated by the value of a loving personal relationship with God Himself (Philippians 3:8-11). The relationship is central. And so it should be in the classroom.

The Biblical Foundation for Classroom Control

Classroom discipline must be founded on a proper relationship with God and others. Structure your practical methods to reinforce motives that are in line with the Great Commandment: love God and love others (Matthew 22:34-40). All God’s laws are simply descriptions of what it means to love God and others. When you formulate classroom rules, make sure to ground them in love for God and love for others. Communicate to your students how all of your classroom rules are meant to reflect a love for God and others. Help the students realize that their willingness or unwillingness to follow policies clearly reveals who and what they truly love. Use these classroom rules as an opportunity to teach your students the whole point of the Great Commandment. It’s impossible to keep God’s law perfectly. It’s constant evidence that they’re not naturally good (Matthew 19:16-22). They need to turn to Christ for forgiveness and the ability to live a transformed life under His redemptive rule (Colossians 1:13-14).

Put It into Practice

Be sure that love for God and others is the foundation for all of your classroom discipline. Begin the first few weeks by focusing on these truths. Plan blocks of time throughout the year to reinforce the relational obligation students have to God, to other students, and to you based on the Great Commandment. Your first and routine response to disobedience should be to immediately point them back to the Great Commandment. If you’ve already done the groundwork, a simple reference to this obligation ought to be a sufficient reminder. However, you may need to set aside time at some point in the day to address the heart with further discipleship. Even when you use practical methods or rewards, always keep the biblical truth at the forefront by explicitly mentioning it. Don’t be discouraged when they don’t seem to get it or care. Keep reminding them anyway what their true motivation ought to be.

What have you found helpful for encouraging your students to follow the Great Commandment?