Douglas Wilson on reading more to our kids…
Children need to hear stories. The reason is that they must learn to interpret stories, and they must do this so that they will come to understand the story of their own lives. The gospel story is of course the center of this process. But we learn to understand this story the same way we come to understand the language of Scripture. We learn language, and because of this, we can hear the language of God in Scripture. We learn stories, and therefore we learn to hear the gospel as a story. When children are steeped in stories, they learn that they are characters in a story as well. This kind of wisdom is the result of hearting countless stories: Bible stories, fairy stories, family stories, stories about work, short stories, humorous stories, serious stories, and many more. When children come to see themselves as characters, they then come to that wisdom which asks the really profound questions. ‘Am I a Peter? A Eustace? An Edmund? Am I Samwise? Lucy?’ In short, they learn to ask what kind of character they are in the story being written all around them.”
I love this quote! I also think it’s dangerous to let our kids read books or watch movies in which immature, or worse, people are the heros. A lot of Disney-type movies have disrespectful and self-centered people as their very “cool” protagonists.
Right. I instruct my students that just because a show or movie is void of all the usual objectionable elements does not make it view-worthy. Simply because their is no profanity or sensuality does not make media blameless. So much of what they watch is simply buffoonery that deadens the spiritual senses. Our kids are addicted to giddiness.
Ryan -
I was reminded of this quote last night while attending a ladies’ work meeting at my church. We were all working on visuals for VBS & I could hear my grandma across the room telling a story to one of her friends. It took me back to my childhood when I used to sit close by her side and hear numerous Bible stories & other entertainments. What precious memories!