Hermeneutics and Preaching to Children

John Walton posts about Hermeneutics and Children's Curriculum.

The 5 most common fallacies that he cites are:

1. Promotion of the trivial
2. Illegitimate extrapolation
3. Reading between the lines
4. Missing important nuance
5. Focus on people rather than God

This was extremely interesting to me and something that I have been milling about myself. Since I pastor 5th and 6th graders they come straight from our children's ministry. I have found that they have learned the biblical stories but have no idea how they fit together in the biblical narrative and more importantly how they all point to Christ.

I don't teach from a curriculum and so I have freedom to build a synopsis that is gospel centered. Although many times I do often preach a little over their heads. My struggle has been, as is every preachers struggle to, contextualize the gospel as seen throughout scripture in a way that these "tweens" can understand.

Ours is most definitely a generally proactive ministry meaning we don't have as many years of life experience to be reactive to and confront with the Bible. They are still moldable, tender and "innocent" in some ways. I believe that if we can imbed the truths of God's love, grace, sovereignty, justice etc. They will be better prepared to face the challenges ahead and through them bring glory to Jesus.