Whole books of the Bible

In the last couple weeks I have had occasion to read a few books of the Bible completely out loud all in one sitting.  The other day (Saturday) I managed to read both I & II Thessalonians while we were finishing up lunch which helped to turn what started out being a raucous day into something quite a bit more palatable.  It was interesting to see how attentive both Ian and Nathaniel could be while I read two whole, albeit short, books of the Bible.

Earlier the previous week I took one evening and read through the whole book of I Corinthians aloud to my wife while she was trying to get the baby down to sleep.   That took quite a bit longer, of course, but she was unable to do anything else and appreciated being able to hear the word spoken even if the baby still wasn't asleep once I was through. 

There is great benefit to reading the Bible out loud.  Not only does it naturally slow us down, but it allows others to also hear at the same time.  We also increase our own comprehension by hearing as well as reading.  Add to this that the shorter books are quite easy to read, even out loud, in a single sitting.  Some books (Obadiah, Philemon, 2 John, 3 John, & Jude) are as short as a single chapter and over a dozen more are just four chapters or less.  It is indeed not burdensome then to expose both ourselves and those who can listen to much biblical content.

Easter Flannelgraph

Last week over Easter we cut out felt crosses, soldiers, a tomb, several bystanders, a couple thieves, and several other related items and read through the account of the Easter story while showing it all graphically up on the flannel board.  It was a nice way to help the young ones get a better idea of what we were reading about and why Easter is so important.  We did a similar exercise at Christmas time.

The flannelgraph opened up lots of questions!  We'll definitely be doing this again next year!

Family Worship Synopsis

 A brief summary of the activities that occur during our family worship time:

1. Scripture memory and/or catechism
2. Singing (hymn of the month followed by Doxology)
3. Bible reading
4. Prayer

ESV Study Bible

We have been reading through the book of Exodus as a family.  The other day as we were continuing our reading in chapter 28 about the priestly garments I realized that the children (oldest is 5) had been getting disengaged not only that day but also for the previous several days during our reading.  Suddenly I remembered that the ESV Study Bible contains some very nice color representative drawings of many of the things we'd just been reading about including the ark of the covenant, tabernacle, golden lamp stand, alter, tabernacle court, and the most importantly the priestly garments which we had just covered.  I had originally purchased this study Bible for personal reference and never imagined using it in family worship, but the boys really enjoyed seeing the pictures of what these things might have really looked like.  It was nearly worth the purchase of the Bible just for that one use.

Beginnings

It seems fitting to recap how we ended up doing regular structured worship together as a family.  When we were first married my wife and I would read from the Psalms together each evening.  We did this together for pretty much the whole of our first year of marriage until our first child was born.  After that, once he became old enough, we started reading to him from the Psalms each night as we put him to bed.  We continued this trend after our second child was born and eventually branched out and read through Proverbs, Acts, and the gospel of John.  With the children getting a bit older it became evident that more structure was necessary.  I also remember especially wanting to teach them specifically how to sit through church.  Having also been exposed to some pretty good teaching having to do with family worship I happened to be introduced to some great resources to help facilitate the process and morph it into what it is today..

I wish I could say that we have been perfectly consistent throughout this entire time, but nonetheless God has truly been at work to bring this to fruition and we want nothing more than to please him as a family, together as parents, and myself personally as a father.  Although we've been doing this for many months now, with a family so young we are truly only just beginning and look forward to the months and years to come.

Soli Deo Gloria