Getting kids to read the Bible

An interesting thing happened on Thursday morning. I had just returned from dropping my son off at the bus. I went into my son's room to turn off his light and found his Bible and a night light on the bed.  He had read his Bible! As a Christian father this is pretty exciting stuff. As a naturally curious person I started to wonder at what brought on this interest in the Bible. I quickly recalled a conversation I had with the night before. It was late and I had settled into bed with the 6th book in the “Left Behind” series, Assassins, when he came in. He started to pepper me with questions about what had happened since he had last asked. I stopped reading and brought him up to date on the multitude of plots. I had just reached the part in the book where Leon Fortunato is scheming to assassinate Peter Maximus, the religious head of Enigma Babylon One Faith. I had to explain that in the “Left Behind” story, all the religions of the world have been combined into Enigma Babylon One Faith. Our conversation wandered into a discussion of the shared beliefs of the major religions and he proudly told me that Islam believes in Jesus. He had learned all about religions in school. I said that Islam considers Jesus to be a prophet but not the Son of God. When you look at the life of Jesus you can have only two explanations. Jesus is either a raving lunatic or he is the Son of God. I don't think he knew that. What I am most amazed at is that I didn't see how a good story with a religion theme could encourage him into reading the Bible. Ooops!