Context for Kids

Episode 47: Noah’s Altar and God’s Nose?

This week we will see our first altar mentioned in the whole Bible so we are going to talk about what they were used for and about what kinds of animals could go on an altar and about the whole burnt offering. We’re also going to talk about how God can like the smell of the offering being roasted when he has no nose. And we have a lot to share about how Noah was the beginning of God’s plan to save us all.

Episode 46: Leaving the Ark and Starting Over

Finally, God tells Noah and his family that they can get out of that stinky ark. I bet they kissed the ground! But what kind of life could they expect compared to what they had and why does this part of scripture sound so much like Genesis 1?

Episode 45: What Did Noah Think about the World?

Why did Noah think that the earth is flat?

Some of the things in the Bible don’t really line up with what we understand about the world around us because God uses what we believe about the world to teach us about Himself. Not only does He do that now with us, but Jesus did it in His day and God also used what Noah, Abraham and Moses believed in order to teach them about what is really important in life. Our understanding of science and the world around us has always been changing since the beginning, but God remains the same. Since the Bible is a book about God, there isn’t room in it to bother with science. Not only that but we’d never understand what God understands about the world anyway because our brains are way too small.

Episode 44: When God Is Silent

One of the weirdest things in the flood story is that after telling Noah how to get everything done for so long, once the flood starts, God stops talking and the Bible even says that God had to remember about Noah and the animals. But what does the Hebrew word zakar really mean and how can we know that God never actually forgets about us?

Episode 43: Two’s and Seven’s and What on Earth Is a Clean Animal Anyway?

Are the animals coming onto the ark by two’s or by fourteen’s and what’s all this about clean and unclean animals? Did Noah have to give them all baths or what?

Episode 42: Noah's Obedience

Over and over again, we hear about Noah doing everything God commanded Him. Why is this important?

Episode 40: Noah’s Covenant Part 1

This is the very first time that the word covenant is mentioned in Scripture, but what exactly does that mean and why is it important to understand before Noah builds the ark? And we’re also going to talk about hyperbole again.

Episode 41: When Terrible Things Happen and You Are Scared

I wrote this in the wee hours of the morning, recorded it, edited it and am putting it up before it airs this week on the radio. In light of the recent tragedy in Afghanistan and the understandable fear and outrage among adults, kids are often left not knowing how to handle the emotions that we as adults often aren't handling well either. All around us we see adults getting angry and attacking the wrong people when they feel out of control, but what power do kids have to change anything? Plenty! We're going to talk about what it means to have God's phone number and our obligation to mention those who are suffering even when we can't do anything concrete to help them when they need help right now. Kids need to know that when they pray, God always hears them and acts even when we can't see the results, and we are also going to discuss what Jesus had to say about these kinds of events. 

Episode 39: Peter and the Passover

As we go through the Bible and especially Genesis and Exodus, we will come across so many situations where we will have to make a decision whether someone was right or wrong, which is a good thing to do. But the temptation is always there to say, “If I was there, I would have done things so much better!” We’re going to use the story of Peter at the Last Supper to talk about why bragging is a bad idea but also about how God knows that we are going to mess up and never gives up on us.

Episode 38: Babylon vs the Bible

This week we are going to learn about a very myth-understood word! And we will be doing that so that we can talk about one of the flood myths of ancient Babylon written down during the time of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—the Atrahasis Epic. We’ll learn a bit about ancient storytelling, the difference between mythology and lies, and how we can compare and contract stories from the Bible with the writings of other cultures to learn how different our God is from the false gods of the nations.