Show Them Jesus: Teaching the Gospel to Kids

by Jack Klumpenhower

that sin destroys life with God.

that wherever sin destroys, Jesus heals. That girl learned about Jesus and believed. She also discovered that belief in Jesus is life-changing, that he truly is better than anything else.

Fellow teachers, our challenge is to proclaim the good news of Jesus so clearly and consistently that no kid of ours will ever place him in a category with typical religious leaders.

Wouldn’t it be better to say we should be God-centered? Aren’t you leaving out whole chunks of teaching about God by focusing only on Jesus?

The disciples said the same thing—to Jesus’s face! “‘Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, “Show us the Father”? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?’” (John 14:8–10). Although we look to the entire Bible for a full picture of God, the most complete picture we find is Jesus himself. The Bible tells us “the light of the knowledge of the glory of

God [is seen] in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 C...

“Nothing renders us so like unto God as our love unto Jesus Christ, for he is the principle object of his love; in him doth his soul rest, in him he is always well pleased.”

Did I read you right? Did you say “Ask Jesus into your heart and you’ll be saved” is not the good news?

He didn’t immediately ask for a behavioral response, but first let that good news lead to a heart response: “Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’” (Acts 2:37) Only then did Peter tell his listeners to repent and be baptized, as a necessary part of what God was already working in them.

This is the great mystery of the gospel in the blood of Christ, that those who sin every day should have peace with God all their days. —John Owen1