‘My First Books and more’ have a helpful children’s catechism that runs through the book. This is great place to start as we get into Luke 3:1-9, and John’s baptism of repentance.

54. What does it mean to repent of your sins?
I am truly sorry for my sins, I hate them and want to stop doing them. I want to live to please God (Is.1:16-17).

You might want to unpack that just a bit further. John explains that we must ‘produce fruit in keeping with repentance’. That suggests a step beyond Q&A 54, to include a change of behaviour. It would be great to begin to talk about what that means – though we’ll be coming back to that conversation next week!

But for this week, perhaps using the image John develops to help everyone realise that through our experience of repentance, God is changing who we are... and so we will see the fruit in our character and lives changing to reflect that. Helping our children identify that in their own experience and lives can be a source of real joy as they see the evidence of the Spirit’s work for themselves!

I’ll leave to parental discretion whether to press the imagery on into v.9. I’d recommend we do – I think we rarely serve our children well by avoiding passages we might find difficult. Often times we find our children are far more receptive to such things, and helping them work through harder parts of the Bible is a parent’s privilege. One way through might be to put the whole question of judgment (one that Jesus Himself uses, Matt.7:19) on a less defensive footing. We may feel we need to apologise for such teaching, but in fact we can find encouragement in knowing that God will not be fooled by hypocrisy, nor will He let the wicked prosper indefinitely.

Older children might find it helpful to work through Psalm 73. They might need a little bit of help, but the basic overview is of someone who is struggling as a Christian, because of injustice and the fact that wicked people get to keep being wicked... and that is causing damage to others. Only when they consider that there is a Day of Judgement, can the rest in God’s justice.

…in the Prentice household, there would of course be some (carefully supervised!) chopping of wood as part of family devotions this week!!