The Kid Who Thunk Too Much

For seven years our children have been involved in a Bible club called AWANA. At AWANA, kids work their way through handbooks memorizing verses and reciting them week after week to the club leaders. They do other activities as well, but Bible verse memorization is the main thing.

When they successfully complete a page in the handbook, they receive something called a "share" that can be exchanged for small prizes on "store night"--a big deal in the world of AWANA. I mean, earn enough shares and you can get a bag full of plastic toys, candy, maybe a Bible cover or a T-shirt. A couple of years ago on store night, one of the kids had so many shares she was able to bring home a Veggie Tales videotape! Memorize a verse, come home with loot. They've got a great system. Very motivating.

During all these years of memory work, I've listened to the kids practice, made up gestures to accompany the phrases, developed pneumonic (oops--wrong word. I meant: mnemonic) devices and drawn pictures to help long passages stick in their heads. Three girls, dozens of handbooks, and countless Bible passages later, The Boy is involved. He's been in the youngest class, Cubbies, for a couple of years. This year he moved up to Sparkies. That's a big move involving a thicker book and greater memory responsibilities.

He was proud to recite the Fledge and John 3:16 to earn the right to begin the book. We helped him with a new verse: "these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God." He dutifully repeated it--I added gestures to help.

"Let's review it once more, so you're sure," I said.

He did it well, and I announced that he seemed ready.

Then he made a comment that in all these years of AWANA, none of the others has uttered:

"I can say the words," he said, "but I don't know what they mean."

Oh.

Well, now. All this time, the girls were content with candy and plastic toys. Recite the verse, bring home a bag of stuff. Who cares about meaning? Or maybe they understood without additional explanation?

The Boy, on the other hand, wants to actually understand. What's the point of spouting out all those verses if he doesn't comprehend their meaning? My friend Beverley told me that he seemed like a thinker. At the time, I thought, I think he's a cutie-pie, but not really a thinker. Now I wonder if she's onto something!

Then I started to consider how I might explain the verse we were working on: "these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God." Where to begin?

Okay, I could start by introducing the concept of the Trinity, talk briefly about substitutional atonement tossing in a little Old Testament background. Then I should touch on Jewish prophesies of a coming Messiah, a Christ. I'll have to give him the chapter context to understand what "these things" is referring back to.

Or--and I don't want to underestimate his intellectual capacity, but--it occurred to me (inspired by Karl Barth) that the verse is pretty well summed up in a few words he already knows:

Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.