Family Life

Tonight I read about Daniel and the Lions’ Den to the boys for their bedtime story. This is a favourite, especially for son Daniel. There is often a lively discussion as I tuck them into bed, and tonight Daniel was puzzled over a glaring inconsistency. He wanted some clarification.

How come in his Read With Me Bible there were seven lions with Daniel, one of them asleep, whereas in his Night Light Bible none of the lions were asleep, and in his Toddler Bible (tonight’s version) there were only two lions total.

That stumped me for a moment. I have a child who does comparative reading between several Bible picture books.

The answer (for now) was actually quite easy. The sleeping lion had woken up by the time they put the picture in the Night Light Bible, and the pages in the Toddler Bible are quite small and they couldn’t fit all the lions on the same page.

This incident reinforced both boys’ long-held belief that the Read With Me Bible (the one with the most lions) is the most authoritative version of them all.

You may smile. But how often do we base our own beliefs on whatever paints the prettiest picture, or on whatever conforms to our mental image? The Scriptures say,

There is a way that seems right to a person, but its end is the way that leads to death.

Proverbs 16:25 (NET)

May we base our beliefs on God’s truth, and may we study to find it.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 5th, 2007 at 8:57 pm. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.