Think you know your theology? Try explaining it to a 5 year old. We have a Children's Bible for our grandchildren who are five going on six.
It's what we read to them as part of story time at bedtime. They've been involved at church since a very young age so are remarkably attuned to God and know about Jesus.
We were reading about Easter and it's the first time I've had to explain to them about Jesus being killed. They knew this already so that obstacle was out of the way.
But they started to ask why and I stumbled through trying to explain how Jesus, being God's Son, came down to conquer death, i.e. the 'death of death'.
The concept of 'sin' doesn't make much sense to them yet and I wasn't about to try and explain that.
So the questions flowed. Who killed Jesus? Why? How did he die on the cross?
And then trying to explain how when he died he wasn't really dead. Well, his body was dead though where was it for three days? Then I tried to explain how our body isn't who we are. It's our soul. Or spirit, something deep inside of us.
I tried to explain death without using the word 'hell' because at five the idea of hell is freaky. They know too much about the devil. I think I'm hesitant to use certain terms in their impressionable minds as when I was a kid I used to think God was out to get me and that I was a child of Satan. I did not learn about God in a positive way until many years later.
And then he was resurrected. Who was resurrected? Where was his body? Where did it go?
All of the ideas I have in my head about the Trinity are very difficult to explain without resorting to theological terms such as 'one essence, three persons' and 'two natures in one person'.
It is a worthy challenge because if you can't explain it to a child it means you don't get it. Truthfully, a childlike mind no doubt more easily grasps it or isn't so bothered when it doesn't seem to add up.
No comments:
Post a Comment