Bible Journals--Reading Through the New Testament

My Matthew 11--Jesus promises to carry my burdens!

Hi Everyone!

I thought I would share an idea we are doing in our home school recently, just in case it is a good fit for anyone else out there. . . 

With the coming of the New Year, it is always a good opportunity to have a little re-evaluation of your home school.  Just a time of reflection of what is working, what is not, and what perhaps you want to do more of or even less of.

One thing that always stands out to me when I evaluate our home school, is that my ultimate goal is to lead my children to Christ.  Yes, I know--I cannot choose Christ for them.  If I could, I would, trust me!  :)  But while it will be up to them whether or not they choose to follow Jesus with their lives, while they are still living under my influence I feel strongly that I need to teach them about Him.  

And what better way to learn of Him, than straight from His Word?

I read somewhere recently that there were just 260 chapters in the New Testament, and there are 262 week days in a year.  So if a parent read with their child just one chapter per day during the week, you could read your way through the entire New Testament during the course of a year and still have two days "extra" for make up days.  That thought really struck me.  I have read the entire Bible through myself several times, but I have never read through the Bible with my child.  Of course, the goal is not to read THROUGH the Bible--the goal is to learn of HIM through the Bible.  Finishing the last page is not the reward, but knowing Him is.

With this mulling around in my mind, I thought about how I could apply this into our lives, into our home school.  And as I thought about it, I became convicted that I needed to do this, and the key would be doing it WITH our daughter, not as another assignment for her to do by herself.  To read through the New Testament together, discussing and sharing as we went along.  

So God gave me a plan.  It is simple, but I don't know but sometimes the very best plans ARE the simple ones.  And it has been such a blessing to me even in this short time that I would not hesitate to recommend this idea even to adults just doing it by themselves, if you don't happen to have a child handy! ;)  And it does not matter that we are a ways into the New Year already--we did not start at the beginning of January because I had not even read about this idea until the month had already started.  Remember that the goal is to get to know Jesus, not to finish by a certain date.  For materials all you need is a notebook of some type--don't worry about being fancy, we are just using a spiral notebook--and your Bible. :)

So here's the plan:

1)  Read through a chapter together--for my daughter and I, we are actually reading the chapter and at the same time listening to it on the dramatized Bible, so we are reading AND hearing.  I love the dramatized Bible!  We listen using a free Bible Gateway app.

2)  Draw a picture from the chapter.  This can be anything you want--either something literally from the chapter, or something that the chapter made you think of that is more of an application of what that chapter is talking about.  And yes--stick figures are just fine!!!!  Even for adults!

3)  Write a verse.  Choose any verse from the chapter--the one that speaks most to your heart or stands out the most to you.  Our verses that we write end up in a way being the caption for whatever picture we draw.

4)  Write something that you learned from that chapter.  This might not be a "something new that you didn't know before" kind of thing.  Just anything that that chapter is trying to teach.  The big picture summary, the thing that God speaks to you about.

5)  Write a question about that chapter.  Sometimes my daughter will have very literal questions such as "How many 10 year olds were there in the crowd?"  But it is also a good time to really apply this chapter to your life and give yourself a question to think about.

And there you have it--our little Bible Journal plan.  I am being blessed by doing this, and I love to see our daughter reading and learning how to think about and apply the Bible to her own life.

An example of Matthew 13 from my daughter's Bible Journal, and the same chapter from mine.  This time we choose different verses to illustrate.  Sometimes we end up choosing the same verse.  Always we share when we are finished with our page.

My daughter's Matthew chapter 1.  I love how she illustrated Isaiah giving the prophecy!

My daughter's Matthew 4.  I love her "Something Learned"--that the devil knows the Bible.  Shouldn't WE study and learn the Bible as well?

Well, that's it for our Bible Journals.  I hope you will find this idea encouraging to get into our Special Love Letter.  It will be a blessing to you if you do--God has promised!

~Susan