What Kids Hear When We Teach Them the Faith
Mark 10:13-16
Illustration
by Erskine White

Sometimes I wonder what kids hear when we try and teach them the faith. One child, for example, was doing a fine job of repeating the Lord's Prayer until she said, "And forgive us our trash baskets as we forgive those who put trash in our baskets."

Then there was the kindergarten boy who came out of Sunday School one day and his mother asked him what he had learned in class. "We learned about Moses and the Pharaoh," the boy said. "Oh, that's nice," his mother said, "will you tell me about it?"

OK, the boy said. You see, Pharaoh's army was chasing Moses and the Israelites all over the desert. It looked real bad. In fact, the Israelites ran right up to the edge of this big sea and it looked like they were trapped for sure. Pharaoh's army was coming at them and Moses knew he had to do something. So, he got on his walkie-talkie and told his engineers to build a bridge across the sea and he told his demolition squad to put some explosives under the bridge. As soon as the bridge was done, the Israelites crossed over on it.

When Pharaoh's soldiers started crossing the bridge, Moses gave the order to blow it up. But do you know what? The dynamite was wet and it didn't work! So Moses issued an emergency call for air support and they came just in time to blow up the bridge. Pharaoh's army was drowned and the Israelites were saved.

The mother was getting increasingly horrified as her son told this story. "Is that what your Sunday School teacher taught you about Moses?" she asked. "No, not exactly," the boy answered, "but if I told it to you her way, you'd never believe it!"

Yes, there are a lot of reasons to wonder what Jesus meant when He said that we must be like children to receive the Kingdom of God. But that's only part of the picture. The truth is there are also many Kingdom values to be found in children, Kingdom values even in kindergarten, if we only know how to look for them.

CSS Publishing Company, Together in Christ, by Erskine White