We can gently and lovingly help them navigate difficult topics, or we can bypass them, mistakenly believing we are safeguarding them, and one day your children will shock you with knowledge you didn’t know they possessed: learned not from you, and not with the authority and protection of Scripture. So, love your children enough to do the hard and uncomfortable things and trust that God will honor your obedience.

Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You.
Psalm 119:11

Recently on X, I ‘ve been a little alarmed by the number of parents, mostly moms, that are voicing concerns about how they should navigate the Bible with their children. Some have stated they skip over verses, while others admit they exclude entire passages or books of the Bible altogether. What I find even more disheartening is how many likes and comments encouraging this type of behavior I see in support of these parents, support even from Pastors. Now before I cause unnecessary confusion, let me qualify a couple of things: 1) these are Christian parents of Christian households, 2) I am immediately grateful that they are attempting to engage in Biblical parenting and exposing their children to Scripture at all, and 3) their worry for their children’s innocence and purity is commendable.

Having now dispensed with the qualifications, let me proceed forward with my own concerns and some practical advice on how we, as parents of young children, may better engage our children with the texts of Holy Scripture.

I too am the parent of young children, my wife and I, at the time of this writing, have three small children, ages 9, 6, and 2; we completely understand the desire to safeguard them from inappropriate material and the need to catechize them in our Christian faith. Our children are in church and attend Christian school. We read the Bible to them and pray with them every night. We sing hymns and spiritual songs together as a family, and as Presbyterians, they are even going through the youth catechism for further theological training. We, like many of you, are taking the rearing of our children quite seriously, and we are trying to be as faithful as possible to the command to “raise them up in the fear and admonition of the Lord” (Eph 6:4). The question on every parent’s mind is: how do we best accomplish this?

Is it enough to keep them from YouTube, Netflix, Disney+, TikTok, and all the other potential dangers in our increasingly, electronically intrusive world? Or must we equip them with the ability, from the youngest of ages, to evaluate things with a critical eye and spiritual discernment that will be with them long after they have moved on to college or career?  When we see verses in Scripture like Paul’s encouragement to “not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Rom 12:2), how do we renew our minds other than by the consistent application of God’s truth found in Scripture? This is of course where all the Christian parents are agreeing with a hearty, “Yes and Amen”. Unfortunately, while you may nod in agreement, your gatekeeping of God’s Word reveals that you don’t truly believe that. Children’s Bibles, children’s church, Veggie Tales, flannel graphs and Superbook all desire to help the Christian parent with the task of instilling a love of Scripture in your young ones, but my fear is that while we are animating their imaginations, we are whitewashing or fully omitting the parts of God and His Word that embarrass or even scandalize us.

The world will grant your children no such kindness. Not only will they expose them to the heights of sexual perversion and moral relativism, but they will also encourage them to participate in these activities and then intentionally hide it from you as their parents. On a recent trip to the new public library near our home, we excitedly entered the shiny, new, publicly funded building and immediately were given our newly issued library cards. One for me, one for my wife, and two for each of my children over the age of five. This effectively means that they can check out their own materials (up to 50 at a time) with the swipe of their own card. While our municipality has some admirable restrictions on what children can check out, this does not limit them from anything in the children’s section, and sadly, that includes plenty of books on sexuality, queer theory, transgender ideology and more. This doesn’t begin to cover the things found on the aforementioned streaming services or social media platforms, and God-forbid within the government school system.

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