Okay, so now for something completely different – it’s time to prep the kids so that they can understand the New Testament, which contains some of the most challenging writings in all of the Bible. I heard a Jewish scholar once say that the most esoteric Jewish writing of all time is the Gospel of John because it was written at such a deep spiritual level. However, we aren’t going to do that kind of background – if you want to understand deep spiritual things, check out my friend Dr. Dinah Dye.
However, there are a great many topics that the kids will have absolutely no trouble understanding and we are going to introduce many of them this year. We’re going to start with a quick flight through the rest of the historical books of the Bible and then go more deeply into the history of the Babylonian exile, and the subsequent Medo-Persian, Greek and Roman Empires. We will also be talking about all the groups we read about in the New Testament. In a few weeks, I will introduce theMaccabeann revolt so that the kids can have some background on the celebration of Hannukah, which shows up in the Gospel of John. Hopefully, this year will be a lot of fun with Context for Kids!