Hermeneutics and Children’s Curriculum by John Walton
Seminaries and grad programs that train pastors, and the academics who teach in those programs are very concerned about proper hermeneutics. We want pastors to have the very best training so that God’s word is handled properly and that preaching proceeds from the authoritative teaching of the text rather than from human cleverness or tangential ideas. This is as it should be since we seek to teach with the authority of God’s Word. My question is, why do we not show the same interest in assuring that children are taught with the same care?
It has been my practice over the years to work with the Children’s education program in my church to evaluate curriculum and train teachers for the pre-school through elementary grades. What I find in curricula is consistently shocking from a hermeneutical standpoint. I should hasten to say that curricula are often excellent from an educational standpoint—for that is the expertise of those producing curriculum. In the area of hermeneutics, however, the violations of sound method are frequent and obvious. I have identified five basic fallacies that appear repeatedly:
1. Promotion of the Trivial: The lesson is based on what is a passing comment in the text (Josh 9:13, they did not consult the Lord), a casual observation about the text (Moses persevered in going back before Pharaoh over and over) or even a deduction supplied in the text (Joshua and Caleb were brave and strong). The Bible is not being properly taught if we are teaching virtues that the text does not have in focus in that passage. We would like children to be virtuous, but we dare not teach virtues rather than the Bible. The plague narratives are not teaching perseverance nor is the feeding of the multitude teaching sharing (as done by the little boy in one of the accounts).
2. Illegitimate extrapolation: The lesson is improperly expanded from a specific situation to all general situations (God helped Moses do a hard thing, so God will help you do a hard thing. But the hard thing Moses was doing was something commanded by God whereas in the lesson the hard thing becomes anything the child wants to achieve). In these cases what the text is teaching is passed by in favor of what the curriculum wants to teach and biblical authority is neglected.
3. Reading Between the Lines: This occurs when teachers or students are asked to analyze what the characters are thinking, speculate on their motives, or fill in details of the plot that the story does not give. When such speculations become the center of the lesson, the authority of the biblical teaching is lost because the teaching is centered on what the reader provided.
4. Missing important nuance: This occurs when the curriculum pinpoints an appropriate lesson but misses a connection that should be made to drive the point home accurately. It is not enough, for instance to say that God wants us to keep his rules—it is important to realize that God has given us a sense of who he is and how we ought to respond in our lives. It is not just an issue of obeying rules—God wants us to know him and respond to him by following in his ways and being like him.
5. Focus on people rather than God: The Bible is God’s revelation of himself and its message and teaching is largely based on what it tells us about God. This is particularly true of narrative (stories). While we are drawn to observe the people in the stories, we cannot forget that the stories are intended to teach us about God more than about people. If in the end, the final point is “We should/shouldn’t be like X (= some biblical character)” there is probably a problem unless the “X” is Jesus or God. Better is “we can learn through X’s story that God . . .”
If we are negligent of sound hermeneutics when we teach Bible to children, should it be any wonder that when they get into youth groups, Bible studies and become adults in the church, that they do not know how to derive the authoritative teaching from the text?
We all have a working hermeneutic, even though most have never taken a course. Where do we learn it? We learn it from those we respect. For many people this means that they learn their hermeneutics from their Sunday school teachers. Teachers in turn teach what is put into their hands. Perhaps we ought to be more attentive how Sunday school curriculum is teaching our children to find the authoritative teaching of God in the stories.
What has been your experience in your church?
Have people in your church recognized this problem and what are you doing about it?
Comment back with your thoughts!
I found this article here. Ali Thompson, who now lives in Colorado working for Group Publishing made me aware of this.
For more of Dr. Walton’s thoughts on this topic go to his curriculum website.
I had the real privilege of taking classes in my grad problem at Wheaton from Dr. Walton. Great scholar, and really great at teaching his students. I appreciate all he passed on to me including a top notch course in Ancient Near Eastern Backgrounds.
John,
Thanks for a thoughtful blog. Don’t you think that some of the areas in children’s curriculum are simply addressing the intended audience “where they’re at?” Children by nature are egocentric – why not introduce them to the concept of who God is by selected examples taken from scripture. The very fact that the lesson points are gleaned from scripture IS a way of showing the authority of God’s Word. Unless these lessons are outright distortions of truth, I don’t see the harm in stressing the virtuous point of a narrative, even if it wasn’t THE point. You have to start somewhere and perhaps this method of relating to an elementary audience is just another form of exegesis. God’s Word is living and true and applicable to all people (even kids) for all times. We shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bath water because the textbooks don’t adhere to a particular hermeneutic discipline. I think God is bigger than that.
Hm, this is interesting. As a Sunday school teacher of kids 3rd-5th grade, I’ve struggled with our church’s curriculum and the time frame I’m given to “get the point across.” Before beginning, I believe God conveyed to me not the importance of the lesson and the facts, but who He is…”show them Jesus,” as a friend of mine put it. Still, I struggle with the specifics of how to do it. For instance, this past week we studied Genesis 25, the story of Jacob and Esau. There is always a tendency in those kinds of lessons to focus on the people involved and how they related to each other, and that’s automatically where our conversation went. But I suppose the focus was on God’s role…which was? Keeping his promise to Abraham in spite of the flawed decendents he had? Allowing Esau to be foolish? Perhaps I’m not learned enough myself to be teaching at all…ugh. That’s a thought! So, in our church I think we definitely struggle with this, among many other things, and personally I struggle with this, among many other things! I think pastors struggle with this from the pulpit and in the classroom, as well.
@31Prov16,
Yes, I certainly agree we must address the audience “where they’re at.” However, virtuous points made where none can be found in the biblical text isn’t doing honor to biblical authority. We must let the text speak where it speaks and remain silent where it remains silent. And with kids curriculum this certainly puts us in a pickle at times. However, I must say point #5 still holds true. Lessons that miss the point of the text try to make insignificant matters arise to the forefront, thereby leaving the #1 point of GOD in the background. I see a lot of truth in Dr. Walton’s statement for every lesson to bring God into the forefront if possible, with, “we can learn through X’s story that God . . .”
@ Ann,
Thanks for serving your church in teaching the kids! The fact that you’re thinking about this is very commendable, and shows you’re headed in the right direction. Now you’re going to be thinking how each lesson fits against the mental grid you’re creating! Oh, the mental anguish that awaits you!
For Jacob and Esau particularly, because that was your lesson….Questions I would use to set up my filtering mental grid would include…
1) Who are these characters in Abraham’s line and why is this important? Where does this line lead to?
2) What do we learn about these characters? Are they godly or ungodly?
3) How do they reflect God or fail to reflect God?
4) What is God’s response to their behavior?
5) How is our behavior similar to their behavior?
6) How does God respond to us?
7) What does both their and our behavior show…(that we need a —> Savior!)
8) Point to God’s character of mercifully pursuing humanity and using Abraham’s line to do it.
That’s some random thoughts straight off the cuff. But that’s how I would weave things through to end up broader at the God level and the Abraham’s descendants line level. See both the trees and the forest.