Fourthly, use the Bible as a book of life.  How many times a day do questions of conduct arise in the family!  How often do children ask what is right, and freely discuss the question!  Here is a book rich in precept and example on at least many of the questions.  There are pictures of actual lives meeting real temptations; there are the epigrammatic precepts of Proverbs and of the teachings of Jesus.  Call attention to them, not as settling the question out of hand, but as testimony to the point.  Accustom children to getting the light of the Bible on their lives, remembering that this book is a light and not a fence nor a code of laws.

Fifthly, use the Bible in worship.  This does not conflict with the plea for its use naturally, for worship should be as natural as any of the social pleasures of the family.  Here select those passages for reading which count most for the spirit of worship.  It is a good plan to read a short passage, suitable for memorizing, so frequently that children learn it and are able to repeat it in concert.  Be sure that all the passages read or recited are short.  It will often be wise to preface the reading with a brief account of its original circumstances, so that all may hear the words as the actual utterances of a real man living in real life.

Sixthly, provide material which helps to make the Bible interesting, and which helps children to see its pictures through the eyes of geography and history.[22]

Seventhly, make the use of the Bible possible at all times for all.  See that as soon as the child can read he has his own Bible, that it is in large, readable type, as much like any other book as possible.  It is no evidence of grace to ruin the eyes over diamond-text Bibles.  If possible, also provide separate books of the Bible, in modern literary form and some in the idiom of our day.[23]

Sec. 4.  DOUBTFUL METHODS

It is doubtful whether good comes from the use of the Bible as a riddle-book, nor do the “Bible games” tend to develop a natural appreciation of the book.  There is no new light but rather a confusing shadow thrown on the character of Joseph by the foolish conundrum concerning Pharaoh making a ruler out of him.  Sending a child to the Bible to discover the shortest verse, the longest, the middle one, etc., trains him to regard it as an odd kind of book, to think of it as a dictionary, and to use it less.

We assume too readily that a knowledge of the separate details of biblical information, such as the date of the Flood, the age of Methuselah, the names of the twelve tribes, the twelve apostles, the books of the two Testaments, is the desired end.  But one might know all these things and many more and be not one whit the better.  For the child surely the desirable end is that he may feel deeply the attractiveness of the character of Joseph or of Jesus, may say within himself, “What a fine man; I want to be like him.”  Be sure the persons are real, that you see them living their lives in their times, just as you live your life now.