I spent many years as a family pastor looking for good resources to give to parents who wanted to teach their kids the Bible. If you've ever rummaged through the kids section of Christian book stores, you've probably already realized that there is not much to offer in this vain. The shelves are full of poorly illustrated children's bibles whose main applications are "be nice," and "use God to get what you want" (not surprising since many of the adult bestsellers are identical). My ambition was to one day be involved with the writing of a children's bible that would be worth reading to kids to point out to them the Gospel of Jesus.
I no longer have this ambition because author Sally Lloyd-Jones published the "Jesus Storybook Bible." This book is fantastic. It presents the Bible as a cohesive story with Jesus as the hero and main character and wonderfully ties in the redemptive historical perspective of God's kingdom that is central to understanding Scripture. In her retelling of the Biblical stories, Lloyd-Jones emphasizes faith in God who keeps His promises to redeem mankind instead of emphasizing rule keeping Christianity that is faithless and dead. The beautiful prose and illustrations have kept my three-year-old captivated and made his little prayer life more vibrant. Consider the following exerpt:
"You see, God knew, however high they reached, however hard they tried, people could never get back to heaven by themselves. People didn't need a staircase; they needed a Rescuer. Because the way back to heaven wasn't a staircase; it was a Person.
People could never reach up to Heaven, so Heaven would have to come down to them.
And, one day, it would" (from the closing of the story about the tower in Babel from Genesis 11).
I highly recommend this resource to anyone with kids and have jokingly mentioned to my wife that I may begin preaching out of this book.
