CHILDREN’S STORIES
By J C Ryle
Christian Focus. 141 pages. £5.99
ISBN 978 1 781 915 738
Children’s Stories is a collection of seven short ‘stories’ by JC Ryle, the evangelical Bishop of Liverpool in the late 19th century. They are short Bible talks he wrote for children, rather than simply Bible stories.
Bishop Ryle’s language is understandably outdated and modern day children would probably not respond well to being addressed as ‘dear children’ or as ‘good (or bad) boys and girls’ or ‘wicked’.
Neither are they likely to listen and concentrate well enough to a straight talk (without illustrations or supporting activities) to grasp the several points he makes in each ‘story’.
Clear and bold
However, Ryle is clear and bold in teaching truth from the Bible and in explaining the reality of sin and judgment, death, heaven and hell and Christian living, and in calling for a response to what they hear. His teaching in this collection is based on many different parts of the Bible, including the ‘difficult’ Old Testament story of Elisha and the bears (2 Kings 2), verses from Proverbs and from Revelation, 2 John and 1 Timothy, which probably don’t feature much in our Bible teaching to children, and as such provide a helpful pattern for us. Bishop Ryle clearly does teach the gospel of grace; however, this selection of stories, if not carefully used, could seem to be a call for behaviour-based righteousness rather than dependence on grace and grace-fuelled behaviour – which is always a danger when teaching children.
For these reasons the stories are probably best used by adults, to help us in our teaching of the Bible to children, or read with a child, rather than being given to a child to read alone.
