Bibles for Kids

If you've headed over to this post via 5 Minutes for Books then welcome! As I mentioned over there, I recently received a stack of children's Bibles from Tyndale Kids to review. I've come to realize that it does require some thought to know how you'd like to present the Bible to your children. With so many options out there, it is hard to narrow down which ones you would like to use. It can be somewhat overwhelming. Hopefully this post will help you narrow down your options or just make you aware of what's out there.

I received several that we went through as a family, making lists of pros and cons and deciding which ones we thought might be used effectively for us. Our top favorite was The One Year Children's Bible. It nicely breaks down the stories from day-to-day to cover the "main points" (shall we say?) in a one year time frame. Out of the set of Bibles we received, this was the only one that started with Creation and walked through the New Testament fairly consistently all the way to Revelation. We appreciated this very much and plan on using it in our devotional time together. We liked the lay-out, found the illustrations beneficial without being too distracting and generally enjoyed it. We feel like we can highly recommend this one.

Our "second-runner up" was the Family-Time Bible in Pictures by Kenneth N. Taylor. I think I like it, in part, because of the illustrations. This was the most sophisticated Bible in terms of illustrations. They reminded me of the very first Bible I ever received as a youngster and so I suppose I feel a connection with it to some degree because of that. The stories in this Bible run anywhere from 2-4 pages long. It begins In the Beginning and also goes through to Revelation. (However, it does jump from Acts to Revelation with lightening quick speed.)

I have to say that looking through a variety of children's Bibles was a very enlightening experience. Flip through a few and you can generally tell the state of the church in America today and I'm guessing you'll also get a feel for what the most popular stories in Vacation Bible School are. It's a very interesting observational study.

As I mentioned in the 5 Minutes for Books post, I am giving away a copy of Bibles Stories for Growing Kids by Francine Rivers. (To read a description of that particular Bible, visit my post on 5 Minutes for Books.) If you were interested in winning that, please leave a comment on this post. Thanks for stopping by!

Contest to remain open through Friday, September 19th. I will select the winner with Random.org. Make sure you leave a way for me to contact you if you win!