THE USE OF THE BIBLE IN THE HOME
If we keep clearly in mind the aim of religious education in the family
as that of the development of the lives of religious persons, the place
and value of the Bible will be evident. It will be used as a means of
developing and directing lives. This will be quite different from a
perfunctory use because our fathers used it or a use under the
compulsion of the fear lest some strange evil should befall us, some
visitation of an offended deity.
§ 1. THE CHILD'S NEED
Children need the Bible as a part of their social heritage. Just as they
get a larger life, inspired and stimulated by the realization of their
connection with the past of their family and their country, so the Bible
brings them into connection with the religious history of the race.
General history brings heroic forefathers into the stream of
consciousness; we feel the push of their lives. So the Bible reveals the
stream farther back and makes us part of the process of life in unity
with great characters and great movements.
The child has a right to the Bible as his literary heritage. Here in the
Bible is the precipitation of the ideals of a people unique in the
place which religion held in their lives. Here is a literature which is
the source of much of the best in the language and reading of the
child's life. Its phrases are beautiful and convenient embodiments of
religious ideals; they will have a steadily developing richness of
meaning as life opens out to the child.[21]
§ 2. DIFFICULTIES
The difficulties in the way of the use of the Bible in the home are: the
crowded programs, or a lack of time due to the absence of any program
for the days; a feeling of unnaturalness in the special reading of this
book; the decay of the custom of reading aloud; parental ignorance of
the Bible and especially of its beauties for the young; and the
excessive amount of task-reading frequently required by the schools. The
Sunday school also sometimes offends in this respect by overemphasis on
academic tasks for home work.
§ 3. METHODS
First, let parents use the Bible themselves. Use the books as you wish
children to use them. This will be the longest step you can take toward
the solution of the problem.
Secondly, use the Bible naturally. When children have an aversion to the
Bible it is due usually to two causes: the peculiar place and use of
the book which makes it a thing apart from life, and often an object of
dread; and the practice of using it as a task-book, to be opened only in
order to prepare Sunday-school lessons. Just as it takes years to
overcome the aversion set up against English literature by its
analytical study in the schools, so that the child becomes a man before
he voluntarily reads Dickens, Thackeray, the poets, and essayists, in
the same manner we have succeeded in making the Bible undesirable to
youth. If you read passages aloud, use the tone of voice which would be
appropriate if this was a new book not bound in leather. Read it for
pleasure as one would read a literary masterpiece--not because opinion
might frown on you if you had not read the classic. Does someone object
that that would be to degrade the Bible to the level of secular
writings? You cannot degrade a literature; it makes its own level and
our labels do not affect it. Certain it is that a pious tone of voice
will not protect the Bible from the secular level. But to use it
unnaturally will degrade it in the opinion of those who hear us.
Thirdly, make its use a pleasure. All children enjoy story-telling and
listening to reading. Many parents practice the children's hour, some
period in the day when they will, alone with the children, read and talk
with them. Let the Bible story be the reward of a good day, something
promised as an incentive to good behavior. Children delight, not alone
in the story itself, but in rhythmic passages, in the poetic flights of
Isaiah and the beautiful imagery of the Psalms. To them it is natural
and pleasant to think of the hills that skipped and the stars that sang
and the trees that gave forth praise. They know the song of nature and
are happy to find it put into words.
Fourthly, use the Bible as a book of life. How many times a day do
questions of conduct arise in the family! How often do children ask what
is right, and freely discuss the question! Here is a book rich in
precept and example on at least many of the questions. There are
pictures of actual lives meeting real temptations; there are the
epigrammatic precepts of Proverbs and of the teachings of Jesus. Call
attention to them, not as settling the question out of hand, but as
testimony to the point. Accustom children to getting the light of the
Bible on their lives, remembering that this book is a light and not a
fence nor a code of laws.
Fifthly, use the Bible in worship. This does not conflict with the plea
for its use naturally, for worship should be as natural as any of the
social pleasures of the family. Here select those passages for reading
which count most for the spirit of worship. It is a good plan to read a
short passage, suitable for memorizing, so frequently that children
learn it and are able to repeat it in concert. Be sure that all the
passages read or recited are short. It will often be wise to preface the
reading with a brief account of its original circumstances, so that all
may hear the words as the actual utterances of a real man living in real
life.
Sixthly, provide material which helps to make the Bible interesting, and
which helps children to see its pictures through the eyes of geography
and history.[22]
Seventhly, make the use of the Bible possible at all times for all. See
that as soon as the child can read he has his own Bible, that it is in
large, readable type, as much like any other book as possible. It is no
evidence of grace to ruin the eyes over diamond-text Bibles. If
possible, also provide separate books of the Bible, in modern literary
form and some in the idiom of our day.[23]
§ 4. DOUBTFUL METHODS
It is doubtful whether good comes from the use of the Bible as a
riddle-book, nor do the "Bible games" tend to develop a natural
appreciation of the book. There is no new light but rather a confusing
shadow thrown on the character of Joseph by the foolish conundrum
concerning Pharaoh making a ruler out of him. Sending a child to the
Bible to discover the shortest verse, the longest, the middle one, etc.,
trains him to regard it as an odd kind of book, to think of it as a
dictionary, and to use it less.
We assume too readily that a knowledge of the separate details of
biblical information, such as the date of the Flood, the age of
Methuselah, the names of the twelve tribes, the twelve apostles, the
books of the two Testaments, is the desired end. But one might know all
these things and many more and be not one whit the better. For the child
surely the desirable end is that he may feel deeply the attractiveness
of the character of Joseph or of Jesus, may say within himself, "What a
fine man; I want to be like him." Be sure the persons are real, that you
see them living their lives in their times, just as you live your life
now.
I. References for Study
T.G. Soares, "Making the Bible Real to Boys," in _Boy Training_,
pp. 117-40. Association Press, $0.75.
W.T. Lhamon, "Bible in the Home," _Religious Education_, December,
1912, p. 486.
G. Hodges, _Training of Children in Religion_, chap. x. Appleton,
$1.50.
II. Further Reading
_The Bible in Practical Life._ Religious Education Association.
Numerous references to the use of the Bible in the home in this
volume.
Patterson Dubois, _The Natural Way_, sec. iv. Revell, $1.25.
III. Methods and Materials
"Passages of Bible for Memorization," _Religious Education_,
August, 1906.
Louise S. Houghton, _Telling Bible Stories_. Scribner, $1.25.
Johnson, _The Narrative Bible_. Baker & Taylor Co., $1.50.
Hall and Wood, _The Bible Story_, 5 vols. King, $2.00 by
subscription.
Courtney, _The Literary Man's Bible_. Crowell, $1.25.
The above are but a few of the many collections of biblical
material.
IV. Topics for Discussion
1. What are the conditions which seem to make the reading of the
Bible different from other reading? Is there a sense of unreality
about it as a book? What are the causes?
2. Try the experiment of reading the story of Joseph at one
sitting. Try to retell this to children.
3. What biblical material stands out in your memory of childhood?
In what degree is this due to the art of the story-teller or the
reader? to the character of the material?
FOOTNOTES:
[21] See M.J.C. Foster, _The Mother the Child's First Bible Teacher_.
[22] Mackie, _Bible Manners and Customs_.
Chamberlin, _Introduction to the Bible for Teachers of Children_.
Worcester, _On Holy Ground_, 2 vols.
[23] For example, Moulton, _Modern Reader's Bible_. The new Jewish
renderings of Old Testament books are good, especially the Psalms.