ANNOUNCER: Evangelizing young children, how can this be done efficiently and simply, and without all the extra-biblical jargon, phrases that seem to get put into gospel presentations. Let’s talk about it today on Grace and Focus. Friend, we are glad you’re joining us for this ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. Our website is faithalone.org. There you can find out about our online seminary, which is without cost if you maintain high academic standards. You can earn an MDiv degree. We’re already set for our fall semester, but if this is interesting to you, why don’t you go through the application process now and get ready to study with us in the spring? All the information you need is at faithalone.org/seminary. 

Now with today’s discussion, here’s Bob Wilkin along with Sam Marr. 

SAM: All right, Bob, we’ve got a question from Mike. You’ve talked about it many times, but I think it’s so important that it’s worth talking about it again and again. But Mike asks for some guidance on how to share the message of everlasting life with his grandchildren who are ages two to seven, and he wants to do it without convoluting it with phrases like ask Jesus into your heart repeating a prayer, asking for forgiveness of sins, because he realizes even though he grew up with those things, that isn’t really what the Bible teaches. We could quadruple that list with other phrases: make Jesus the Lord of your life, make a space for Him in your heart, the ABCs, acknowledge believe, confess. There’s so many different tools and phrases and things that people use, but when you really examine them, most of them are at best confusing and at worst, wrong. So how would you recommend doing this specifically with young children? 

BOB: First of all, Mike, one of the things you probably want to do is teach them many of the stories we find in Scripture, basic Bible stories, teach them about David and Goliath, teach them about Noah and the ark. You could talk about wee little Zacchaeus and teach them the song and everything. So I would teach him general Bible truth, but secondarily, I would also teach them about the promise of eternal life. 

And so one of the things I would do is I would take them, for example, to the gospel of John and teach them some simple verses. Probably the two-year-old isn’t going to be memorizing John 3:16, but the seven-year-old sure could and probably even a four or five or six-year-old could. So I would have them memorize John 3:16, and even the two-year-old could probably memorize a few words in John 3:16, like “whoever believes in Him.” Can you repeat that Billy or whatever the two-year-old’s name is? And he’ll say “whoever believes in Him.” 

However, with the two-year-old, it’s not real clear if they distinguish fantasy from reality. People I know in Child Evangelism Fellowship, say there’s a shift that occurs different ages for different children. But say somewhere between 4 and 10, 5 and 10, where a children recognizes that believing in Jesus is different than believing in Santa Claus or the tooth fairy. And they realize that the one thing is make believe, the other thing is real. And a lot of the child evangelism fellowship people would say, even if a two-year-old said, I believe that by faith in Jesus I’m saved forever because that’s what John 3:16 says, it says I’ll never perish. They would say the child is probably not born again at that point because they don’t yet believe it as distinguished from fantasy. 

And so they would say, if the child believes that at age, let’s say five or six or seven, then yes, they do. I don’t know, that’s probably above my pay grade. But I would say this, once a person recognizes that’s true and they believe it, and it’s not a fantasy, but that’s a reality. At that point, they’re born again. 

SAM: And why not, with that example you gave, it’s great that a two-year-old can remember something. Why not just have them memorize Scripture? Why not have them memorize a verse like John 3:16? That’s simple. It’s easy to understand and it has everything they need to know. They don’t need to know about the atonement and removing the sin barrier and what’s your article, the effects of blood of Jesus restricted and unrestricted. They don’t need to know about that. They don’t need to know about the Trinity or God’s sovereignty and the complexity of God’s sovereignty versus human-free will. 

I had a conversation with a guy on the phone recently. We were talking about something similar to this and I mentioned, we were having a little bit of a disagreement, and I said something like, I get what you’re saying, but the saving message needs to be simple enough that a child can understand it. And he said something to the effect of, well, there’s a certain degree of understanding that you have to have to be able to believe and have everlasting life. And I didn’t really like the way you phrased it because you made it sound like you have to be smart enough or you have to have enough knowledge or something in order to believe. And I think that’s completely incorrect. 

I think a child can believe in Christ for everlasting life that can never be lost and misunderstand every single other verse in the Bible. But if they believe that, then they’ve accepted Christ’s promise, they believe His promise, then they are secure and now they are going to start learning more and more about Scripture. 

You’ve given some funny examples about, the guy who thought Jesus was God’s actual son and then he finds out like a year later that the Son of God is a messianic term and it kind of confused his pastor because his pastor thought that was part of the saving message and you need to know what that means. I mean, there’s many funny examples of things like this or Christ is his last name. I thought his name was Jesus Christ. 

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SAM: You mentioned that it’s really not the job of a church to evangelize children. It’s really the job of the parents to raise them up in, it’s not even really evangelism at that point. For me, I was in church my whole life. My parents taught me these things. They taught me these stories. So yes, there was probably a time where I didn’t distinguish between fantasy and reality, but I couldn’t tell you that distinction because these stories, the Bible, was just part of my worldview. I viewed the world through the lens of the Bible being true. 

So there was never a time in my life when I was confused about whether these things were true or not or whether they were stories. And so I grew up knowing, and again, I can’t give you the exact time and date when I was born again, but I can’t ever remember a time my life where I just sat thinking like, you know, man, I’m an idiot for thinking this. My parents really just led me astray. Every time, even when I was sad, if I felt guilty, if I sin really badly, it was always, Lord, I’m so sorry. I feel awful that I did this thing to you and to these other people. I’m so thankful that I’ll spend eternity with You. There’s never a time where I questioned my belief, that my belief was just wrong because of something external that happened. 

And that’s the beauty of being able to raise your children with Scripture and with Christ, having a relationship with Christ from a young age is now it’s not, I mean, everyone has a different starting point as their own experience. But the beauty of this is there’s so much surety, you have so much confidence in the inerrancy of Scripture without even knowing what those words mean. But a 10-year-old that’s taught the Bible is true knows that Scripture is inerrant better than a theologian does who’s been in seminary, or out of seminary for 30 years because they have complete confidence in God’s word where someone else, their own mind can get in the way of them overthinking or external writings, valuing those above Scripture. 

I’m passionate about it because there’s so much beauty in this. And so I’m very thankful for Mike’s question because it’s important for all of us that have children or nieces and nephews or grandchildren, to pour into their lives in this way because… The other beauty of it is it’s not like evangelizing a stranger where you have to give them the elevator pitch or a tract and then just pray that God is going to water that, or someone that’s going to water the seed that you’ve planted. With children and children that are in your family, you’re going to get to see them grow up in their faith through their whole life and you’ll continue to be able to pour into them. 

BOB: Yeah, exactly. And by the way, part of the reason that I said, let’s teach him about Noah and the ark and let’s teach him about David and Goliath is what you just said. It becomes part of their worldview that the Bible is true. Then when you’re also teaching them that Jesus said, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him will not perish but has everlasting life,” that becomes part of their worldview. 

And so it’s not like you’re asking them to pray some prayer, asking Jesus into your heart or whatever. I love the fact that He’s saying that, because I’ve met so many people that think, well, it’s handy with kids because they can visualize asking Jesus in. Well, part of the problem with that is, that’s not biblical. There’s no verse that says that. The other part is a lot of kids think literally and so they start crying because Jesus won’t fit in their heart. 

And I think although children have a hard time grasping the concept of eternality, yet I think we can say to children, death is not the end, that what the Scriptures teach is that everybody’s going to be resurrected. They’re going to get their bodies back again, but they’ll now be, for the believer, the one who believes in Jesus. There’ll be bodies that have no pain and suffering and they’ll live forever with Jesus and with all the people who have believed in Him. 

SAM: Right. And that’s an almost universal thing. Separate Christianity, go to any other religion or a lack of religion. Parents don’t teach their children, when you die, there’s nothing. It’s just void. It’s just going to be over. No one teaches their children that, even an atheist or an agnostic is going to say, well, you’ll get to see grandma again or you’ll get to, you know, like even if it’s a lie, they’ll say those things to them because children do understand something’s going to happen after I die. They can’t comprehend and I don’t think anyone can comprehend endless void or just nothingness. Everyone thinks, okay, something’s going to happen. So I think it’s a natural human thing that children can, even if they can’t comprehend it fully. 

You know, Dix Winston, his talk at the conference was about, I can’t remember the name of the talk, but was about complexity. So I recommend people check that out. You don’t have to understand the mechanics of your car to drive your car. A child doesn’t have to understand the mechanics of the atonement and salvation and forgiveness and creation and inerrancy to know that those things work and that they apply to them.

BOB: Yeah, you can teach him John 6:47. He who believes in me has everlasting life. If a child grasps that and believes that, then they’re born again. And so Mike, just teach them the Bible like you were going to talk to them about your favorite football team or baseball team or hockey team or basketball team or whatever, it’s just that you share your life with them. And this is just a natural overflow of your life, is talking to them about this. Don’t make it weird. It’s just normal. This is just part of your life and this is what they need. They need to understand reality and so you’re wanting to teach them reality. 

Well, thanks so much, Mike, and all of you and remember, keep grace in focus. 

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