I've been reading through the Bible with my children. I have a 4yo, 2yo, and a 1yo. I wondered how some you deal with texts such as Joseph and potifiers wife. Onan. And a few other highly sexual texts throughout the OT. I've just been skipping them for now, because I wasn't sure how to discuss this with a 4yo or if I even should. What do some of you do when you come to texts like this?

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Aaron Josh Wright
Deerbrook Baptist Church, Humble Tx
New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary

Though I am relatively new to this family devotional practice, I would simplify the story or at least make it more vague. I wouldn't get deep into details that the little ones wouldn't even understand because it's not sinful to "lie down" with somebody in the way that your child will understand the story - and that's a good thing at this point in their lives. So bring it down to their level a little bit. Off the cuff example: "Potiphar's wife wanted Joseph to do bad things, to sin against God. But Joseph wouldn't listen! He told her no because he wanted to do what was right. He didn't want to sin against God." Then of course the application is so easy in this story. When other kids want you to do bad things, you need to say no and . . . you get the point. Trust me, I hate watering down the Word of God but I don't think this is actually watering it down at all. You are basically taking a story that would mean nothing to them right now and giving them a way to understand the most basic meaning of it. Later in life, as the kids understand sexual matters more and more, getting into details about just how Potiphar's wife tempted Joseph will make a lot more sense.

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Andrew Thornquist My Photo Album
Calvinistic Baptist
Ukiah, California
To follow Christ was the best decision God made for me!

If I were going to broach the subject, I would say something like, "Potipher's wife was married to Potipher but she wanted Joseph to pretend to be her husband, too. You know how Mommy and Daddy hug and kiss? Well, we do that because we are married and love each other in a special way. Someday you might get married and you'll hug and kiss your wife/husband. But you won't hug and kiss everybody. Just your wife and children. Joseph wasn't supposed to kiss Potipher's wife, because they weren't married, just like Mommy only kisses Daddy and you guys. So Joseph was good because he wouldn't kiss Potipher's wife."

Or something. I think it is good to allow the kids to know that mommy and daddy love each other and show that through kissing, and so I think you can explain this story using your own relationship.

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Shalom,
jessi
PCA
Steelers fan exiled to Virginia


“Whatever your heart clings to and confides in, that is really your God.”
Martin Luther

we told the kids that Potipher's wife wanted Josheph to sin. when reading though the Bible we skip Songs all together and we skip geneologies and the laws some of them got pretty graphic too. and just make just up as we go (meaning we paraphrase so it's not sexually graphic or gory). Read the chapter or section first and talk it over with your wife and come up with age appropriateness together.

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Jessica Auner
Wife, Mother,
Garden City, Ga
Ephesus Church
(a Reformed Baptist church)

Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

Ultimately, you can bring it down to "so and so" either transgressed or didn't conform to the Law of God. They obeyed, or did not obey.

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Josh Hicks, Chloë's Dad
Christ Covenant Reformed Presbyterian Church, RPCGA
Facebook - The Calvinist Vent
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It is God that multiplies our sorrows.... God, as a righteous Judge, does it, which ought to silence us under all our sorrows; as many as they are, we have deserved them all, and more: nay, God, as a tender Father, does it for our necessary correction, that we may be humbled for sin, and weaned from the world by all our sorrows; and the good we get by them, with the comfort we have under them, will abundantly balance our sorrows, how greatly soever they are multiplied. - Matthew Henry

Um, how about just reading God's Word as God's Word was written?

Why exactly is it so hard for some people to come within 10 feet of the word "sex" with their kids? Good grief. If using the word or vaguely discribing what "it" is really bothers you, just say something like, "Potipher's wife wanted Joseph to kiss and touch and do things that are only permitted with her husband."


On a separate but related note: Overly sensitive sensibilities is part of why I am not a huge fan of hard core age inclusiveness in contexts where Scriptures and life are supposed to be discussed in depth - like Sunday School. I've been to more than a handful of chuches where they do this and in every case the subjects and discussion are always kept at a safe arms distance from the world in which adults live because of the presence of children. And I for one am not a fan of it.

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Ben
Chaplain, US Army
Ft. Riley, KS
TE Ohio Valley Presbytery, PCA

Thank you so much for all of the replies they are very helpful.


My 4yo will keep asking questions. He is quick to recognize if I am being too vague or passing over something. If I read the test outright he will ask me about the particulars that he does not know about. I'm not ready to have the sex discussion with my son at this point.

If you just say that she wanted him to kiss and hug her that is not lying, and even that would be wrong for a married woman to do with another man, so I personally think you could skip the word sex and the particulars, and still be faithful to the text with a four year old. Otherwise, maybe just skip it. There is no law regarding this--God has not said, "read every word to every age." I think a parent is allowed to share what he feels comfortable sharing and what he thinks will not confuse his son. You could just skip that specific story and share with your children Joseph's other good deeds and explain that he was imprisoned because a woman said he did something mean to her, even though he didn't really.

We read the text the way it is.

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Conscience may lash us, but it cannot replenish a languishing life. Conscience may be God's word and minister to you, telling you of your faults and your follies and your destitution. It may point out, but it will never supply you. Christ must give you new life. Hart has well expressed it: "He to the feeble and the faint, His mighty aid makes known; and when their languid life is spent, supplies it with His own." - J. K. Popham

I don't think skipping anything is a good idea. How are your children to get the whole counsel of God? Explanation will be necessary, but God said it for a reason, and all Scripture is profitable. Skipping parts of the Bible should not be an option. What happens when the preacher preaches Song of Solomon? Do we rush our kids out of church?

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Josh
URC
Sioux Center, IA
www.christianhomeschoolstore.com

I'm more likely to edit a word or two than to omit an entire story. I recall getting to the account of the angels who visited Lot in Sodom. I read aloud that the men of Sodom demanded, "Bring them out, so that we may hurt them." Now "hurt" was not how the text was written, but it gets the point across to a 4-year-old who doesn't need to have his innocence assaulted quite yet.

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Jack K.
PCA, worshiping with some fine Baptists in Colorado

Read it the way it is. Your children are only going to understand up to the level of their exposure.

If you are coming out of a pagan background, with lot's of exposure to the wickedness described in such passages, then your children will begin to hear the right way to consider such wickedness, as opposed to the way our culture tells them to view it.

If your children are not coming out of a pagan background, they will only understand what you have allowed them to be exposed to. I.e., you control the timing and the depth of the explanation.

Read it straight, and use age appropriate explanations.

Try reading through the story of Lot with three teenage daughters sitting there with you. The mere closeness to the shame of Lot's daughters was much more effective in proclaiming the gospel in that passage than any effort on my part to tone down the text.

My 4 year old son meanwhile, was non-plussed.

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Reed DePace
Pastor, 1st PCA
Montgomery, Al


busy seeking
a better home.
~ Heb 11:14-16