Michael Grady - Making God Part of Your Family: The Family Bible Study Book

Making God
Part of Your Family

Making God

Part of

Your Family

The FAMILY Bible Study Book

Michael Grady

New York

Making God Part of Your Family

The FAMILY Bible Study Book

2015 Michael Grady .

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LIbrary of Congress Number: 2014938689

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For My Mother

I am dedicating this book to my mother, the late Martha Grady. When I was five years old, she began telling me Bible stories. When I was twelve, she convinced me that I was old enough to read the Bible on my own each daya habit I have continued for the last fifty-three years. The year I turned seventeen she challenged me by saying it was time to study the Bible. At the same time she gave me a book that opened my eyes to the truths the Bible shares with us if only we will take the time to seek Gods Word. Through it all she encouraged me to share my knowledge and love for God with others. She, too, is a storyteller from whom I have learned so much. So in memory of her I offer this study book in story form as my gift to you.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

At the age of seventeen I read my first Bible study book, Portraits of Christ in Genesis . This book revealed from the very outset that God has a plan for mankind that includes our need for Jesus as our Savior. The author, Dr. M. R. DeHaan, who founded the Radio Bible Class, provided me a foundation in biblical truths that has not changed in the last forty eight years. Accordingly, my book is heavily influenced by Dr. DeHaan. While the two books are not similar in their purpose, I did use some of his imagery in drawing the portraits of Christ.

I am very grateful to Free Bible Images (www.freebibleimages.org) for the generous contribution of their illustrations in this book. It is important for families to have a visual perspective as they read and listen to the truths presented in each story. Further, I also have been significantly influenced by the elementary children I have been privileged to teach for the past thirty years, and I thank them for all of their encouraging words.

Many of the Bible quotes in this book are my own paraphrase to assist in the ease in reading the story.

Introduction to

Making God Part of Your Family

If you are like most families, your schedule is probably busier than ever. Sports and dance practices, homework, computer games, school projects, family responsibilities, parents work schedulesthey all combine to make it very difficult to find any time to spend together as a family, leaving little or no time for God. If a relationship with God and learning more about him is important to you and your family, this book is for you.

Bible reading can easily become a duty or a chore, and when children tell us how boring it is, it becomes easy to let it go. So what should be a joy may become a family argument and a burden that is not worth the aggravation. But what if the time spent was enjoyable? The truth is that the Bible is full of stories about families just like ours. In fact, theyre usually far more troubled than our own. If the events in the Bible occurred today, we would see newspaper headlines such as Young man arrested on charges of killing his brother, or Husband and wife forced to leave homeland for not following religious rites, or Ten men charged with selling their brother into slavery. But equally important is that there are also family stories of love and romance, forgiveness and understanding.

From the very beginning, we learn that Christians are members of Gods family, all the way back to Adam and Eve, and grafted directly onto Gods family tree through the cross of Jesus Christ. So not only are these stories about families just as imperfect as yours, theyre stories about your familyGods family.

A Family Bible Study Book: Not Just a Storybook

If you have been looking for a way to read the Bible to or with your children that will interest a variety of age groups, this may be your answer. Most storybooks are oriented toward young children and are too simplistic for adults and older children to enjoy. On the other hand, those written as Bible study books are for older, more serious Bible students.

As a United Methodist Bible teacher of children and adults for more than thirty years, I have discovered that very few people have even a basic knowledge of the Bible. In trying to help them learn outside of Sunday morning, I have struggled to find resources that will engage the entire family. In addition, I have found that too many people fall into the trap of believing these stories have little to do with daily life or personal historyor worse, they dismiss them as mere stories. Throughout the Bible, God has a message that will be life changing if we take the time to read and listen to his Word.

So even though this book tells the Bible stories, it is not just a Bible storybook. It can be a study book in small, thought-provoking dosesprimarily for the family that would like to become more familiar with the Bible, particularly the Old Testament. For this reason, the stories are written to be engaging for the entire family: parents, teenagers, and particularly children of elementary school age.

Making God Part of Your Family is ideal for the family that wants a flexible Bible tool to enhance the Christian walk of all ages. For example, the text is designed for your family to read and discuss the stories together. In that vein, my experience in reading these stories to elementary-age children and teenagers has shown that thirty to forty-five minutes is a good amount of time to set aside for reading and discussing each story. However, the book can also be used for a nightly read with older elementary-aged children (eight to twelve). Each story can be read in ten to twelve minutes and will leave them with food for thought. Finally, this Bible storybook can be used as an in-depth study for mature Christians who want to dig deeper into Gods Word by seeking out the scriptures provided at the end of each story.