Help Our Children Think Biblically About History

As Christians, since we are a part of this world (i.e. we live in it) but are not of it (i.e. part of its values—John 17:6, 11–16), we are challenged on a daily basis with secular thinking. This is why Jesus asked that we be sanctified in the truth of Scripture (John 17:17).

The challenge of secular thinking, however, is not limited to adults but also applies to our children. One of the main ways our children are influenced by secular thinking today is through the media. Therefore, those of us who are parents need to realize that we have a responsibility to help our children to think biblically about the world in which they live (Proverbs 22:6; Ephesians 6:4).

This is particularly relevant as this week the BBC children’s television channel CBeebies has dedicated the entire week to the idea of “prehistory.” The term prehistoric is sometimes used to describe the idea that dinosaurs lived a long time ago, before man. In other words, they existed before written history.

The Bible, however, tells us that history first began when it was recorded in Genesis 1:1; therefore, there is no such thing as prehistory. Although no humans were present at creation, God was, and He has revealed the truth of these events to us through Scripture (2 Timothy 3:16; see Exodus 20:11; 31:17–18; Jeremiah 32:17; Mark 10:6; Romans 5:12–14). There is no legitimate reason to limit facts of history to human witness when God was a witness to His own act of creation.

A number of programmes on CBeebies specifically focused upon the age of the dinosaurs to promote this idea. Sadly, dinosaurs are used more than anything else to indoctrinate children with the idea of evolution and millions of years.

However, the Bible tells us that God made all the land animals on Day Six alongside the first two people, Adam and Eve. Although Genesis 1 does not use the term dinosaur (since the word was not invented until 1841), the creatures we now call dinosaurs must have been created on Day Six, which means that no animal could ever be called prehistoric.

Unfortunately, many Christians today talk about dinosaurs as prehistoric, but this is because they have been indoctrinated in evolutionary thinking. Answers in Genesis wants to help de-evolutionize the church and get answers to our children (and adults) from God’s Word, starting in Genesis. We do this with dinosaurs by outlining seven “ages” that apply to them from a biblical worldview:

1. Formed: the age when animals were created.
2. Fearless: the age when all animals and people lived together without fear.
3. Fallen: the age when sin came and dinosaurs started to die.
4. Flood: the age when most dinosaur fossils were formed.
5. Faded: the age when dinosaurs died out and became extinct.
6. Found: the age when evidence of dinosaurs was rediscovered.
7. Fiction: the age we live in, when untrue stories about dinosaurs and millions of years are taught through books, television, and schools.

If you would like to find out more about a biblical view of dinosaurs, especially for children, then I would recommend Ken Ham’s book Dinosaurs for Kids or his DVD Dinosaurs, Genesis & the Gospel.

Thanks for reading.