THE BIBLE EXPLORER
God’s Word from Genesis to Revelation
By Carine Mackenzie
Christian Focus. 159 pages. £8.99
ISBN 978 1 781 913 017
Lovely culturally appropriate illustrations by Jeff Anderson, great layout and very child friendly, this Bible overview for children has much that made it jump off the shelf and become part of family Bible reading; much of the book can be highly recommended.
Each double page has a retelling of part of the Bible, with a half page section given over to a Fact File, Think Spot and a Memory Verse – all very popular with the child reviewers. The idea of pointing to Jesus through the stories is often used in these additional sections. Genesis is given 12 double pages and the Old Testament forms around two thirds of the book as a whole.
A real strength, mostly glossed over by other children’s Bibles, is the attention given to the minor prophets. Although 11 are on one double page, a key verse from each one is given, alongside a summary of the book. The life of Jesus is taken chronologically across the four gospels and what some will find really helpful is that the book is entirely free of pictures of Jesus.
Whilst really being drawn to the book due to the memory verses linked to each story, some have needed to be replaced as the book has been read. Summarising Genesis 6-9 with ‘Noah did everything just as God commanded him’ seemed a little weak when compared to Genesis 6.5 taught alongside later verses concerning God’s covenant. The need to split up the story was also necessary as, with Noah and earlier chapters in Genesis, too much foundational teaching was swept over a little too quickly.
With actions
However, this doesn’t stop the book being a useful tool for getting the thinking Christian parent to teach the Bible as a whole over many days or weeks. Our family opted to cover one section each week. With the addition of actions to learn the memory verses, our spread of 2-7 year olds have been inspired to learn and remember many parts of God’s Word by heart, and appreciate even more the amazing story of God’s saving love for his people shown throughout the Bible.
