Bible study

While we were getting ready for church today, Jennifer complained about even going. She didn't want to go to church, she said. Because it's "boring." (And, yet, every time we get there, she's soooo excited to see all of her friends.) I really wanted to go because we haven't been there for a while on account of life being so chaotic and also, I wanted to see MY friends. I sure missed seeing them. I don't see all of them every time I go, but I'm bound to see one or two of them.

So we decided to go to church all the same. I convinced Jen she might have fun!

During the sermon, the pastor was talking about the story in the Bible about how Jesus says "man does not live by bread alone." From what they put up on the screen, I was able to tell that the pastor was explaining about how Jesus was referring to how we should not just rely on food for survival, but how the Word of God will give us the ultimate means of survival. Like we should also turn to our Bibles and to God for helping us to "survive," not just by relying on food to keep our physical body going.

I thought that was really an interesting interpretation. It put a whole new meaning on the story, and on the things talked about in the Bible. I have known for a long time that a lot of things in the Bible are symbolic and that there is heavy use of metaphors and allegories. But I mever realized some quotes have a deeper meaning to them.

And while on that subject, the pastor noted how the reference of "daily bread" refers to the Word of God. I remembered reading somewhere of how someone wrote out the meaning behind the Lord's Prayer, and how "daily bread" referred to something else. Not just bread! I always wondered about that and now I wanted to look into it some more. Hopefully, I can find on the Internet a copy of the annotated Lord's Prayer.

After church, we went to the mall. Jennifer needed a new Bible. BADLY. Her Bible is literally falling apart. It's very old. And, anyway, it's not a real "Bible" for children, but a book of stories from the Bible. It was time for her to have a REAL Bible!

So we bought her a Bible spefically for her age group. She was reading through it on the way home. Later, we sat together going through her papers from church and I noted how it said that if she read the Bible every day according to the verse suggestions on one paper, she would earn 8 dollars of "church cash" for each week. Every month, the kids in her church get to spend their church cash at the church store. She got all excited and started reading her Bible, dutifully recording what she read. I could only shake my head and roll my eyes over this. They are essentially PAYING kids to read their Bible! Good grief! It hadn't taken any persuasion or temptation of money to get her to read her Bible in the car. I started kicking myself for even pointing that out. Kids should read the Bible if they want to and WHERE they want to. Not so they can get paid for it. Sigh.

After that, I tried to explain to her information about her Bible. I explained that it's divided into two parts. The Old Testament is before Jesus and the New Testament is after Jesus. I said that it contained books for each part and that the books had "chapters" unlike she normally saw in her chapter books. The chapters can be on the same page. And each chapter contained verses. I showed her the verses and I explained that the verses help people to find certain parts of the Bible and parts of the chapters. I also said that when people cite a passage in the Bible, they mention the book it is in, the chapter number then the verse number. We looked up this week's Bible verse and I showed her how to find it.

But she didn't get ANY of that. I might as well have been talking to a wall. It just went right over her head! I tried to explain it 3 times but she just didn't understand it.

Well, at least she is happy with her new Bible. She read it a lot today and we even read one chapter of it together. I really like how it is kid-friendly and not as complicated as an adult Bible. I know I can't expect her to understand everything about a Bible on the first try and hopefully I will be able to get through to her on understanding how a Bible is put together and how she can use it. For now I'm just glad she's willing to read it and that we can spend time reading it together.