Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew.
Do you know how to navigate your Bible? Do your kids?
So many of us use digital formats to read scripture, and while that’s handy in many ways, we still need to know many things about scripture: where to find specific stories and verses, the foundational information of each book, who the key people and messages are, and more. That’s where the Bible Breakdowns from Teach Sunday School come in handy.
Knowing your Bible is really important. It’s one thing to win a speed competition, when you can flip to any called-out verse faster than anyone else in the room; but can you understand what you read? Do you also know how to put it in historical context, to know who’s saying it and why and to whom? Do you know what that verse or passage is really about?
Bible Breakdowns can put you on the path to this kind of understanding. They’re kind of like cheat sheets to help you get started by having bibliographic and statistical information about the books of the Bible. They’re available for both the Old and the New Testaments. In most cases, there’s a page for each book of the Bible, but some books have more stories or ‘breakdowns’ needed and so are split across more pages.
Overall, the pages are colorful and color coded. I’d definitely recommend printing these in full color – it makes this elementary teacher very happy! That color coding makes it easier to identify the context of different stories and the information contained, though, so … go for the color.
The top block of information is a brief summary of the book. It contains the most important and basic stuff to know – what was happening historically, who wrote the book, etc. Similarly, the information at the very bottom is a ranking of the top most popular verses in that book. I’m not sure how these were determined, but it is interesting to see.
The information in the middle is most important. Middle top is the stats: How many chapters, what type of book is it, when was it written, etc. This is all great stuff to know, but I’d really love to see this go just a bit deeper. Some of the words used are certainly used by Biblical scholars but not typically by kids, and having them defined or explained could be helpful. Adding another reference sheet to the resource explaining what ‘Pauline’ or ‘Synoptic’ is could be helpful. The date when the book was believed to be written is here, also, and a simple, colorful timeline across the top or bottom of the page could add clarity to that. Whether it included all books in that part of the Bible or only that specific one, I think it would help children piece together Biblical history and see how it fits together.
The middle bottom block is where the bulk of the information is found. I really though that this would be the chunk we’d use the most, but I was mistaken about that. This section breaks down the entire book by passage and lists the subject; so, the stories are listed by title, etc. This could be really useful if you know a certain story is in a given book but you can’t remember where, or if you are skimming the page to find something that looks interesting to read. Other than that, we really didn’t use this part much, but my kids are both teens who know their Bibles well. Perhaps if we’d had these when they were younger, they would have used this section much more.
Overall, I think that these Bible Breakdowns could be a great resource for a Sunday School class, youth group, or children’s Bible study. I think they would make a great resource for families who are purposeful about teaching their children how to navigate and understand their Bibles. Our pages look great printed and in a folder, and having this resource in the area where you store your Bible study materials will be both handy and useful. A really good study Bible is going to have most of this information as a front page for every book, but study Bibles for kids are usually too simplistic or broken down to have all of this. Being able to print it and have it handy for those kids who are ready to use this information would be very convenient.
If you’re looking for materials to help teach children Bible study basics, these Bible Breakdowns from Teach Sunday School may interest you – but don’t take my word for it. Click on the graphic below to read other reviews from the Homeschool Review Crew.
Want to know more about resources from Teach Sunday School? Read my full review of their Summary Sheets of the Bible here.
