The Dad's Guide to Reading the Bible With Your Kids

Nobody Told Me I Was Supposed to Know All This

When I decided I wanted to read the Bible with my boys, my first thought was: I don't even know where to start. Not "which book is best for kids" — I mean I literally didn't know enough to know what I didn't know. I grew up going to church, but I couldn't have given you a coherent summary of most of what's in the Old Testament. I knew the hits. David and Goliath. Noah. Christmas, Easter. Everything in between was a blur.

I suspect I'm not alone in that. Most dads I talk to are somewhere on that same spectrum — enough familiarity to feel like they should know more, not enough to feel confident leading their kid through it.

Here's the thing: you don't have to know the whole Bible to read it with your kids. You just have to know how to start. And starting right — with the right parts, the right approach, the right expectations — makes all the difference between a practice that sticks and one that dies after two weeks.

Where Not to Start

I'll save you some time: don't start at Genesis 1 and try to read straight through. I've seen dads attempt this. They come in motivated, they get through Creation and Adam and Eve, and then they hit Cain and Abel and suddenly they're explaining murder to a six-year-old in more detail than planned, and then they get to the genealogies in chapter 5 and it's just names begetting names for a page and a half and everyone's lost.

The Bible was not written as a children's book. A lot of it is not appropriate for young kids. A lot of it requires context that even adults don't have without study. Going cover-to-cover is not the move.

What you want instead is to start with the stories that naturally make kids go "whoa" — and work outward from there.

The Stories That Actually Land With Kids

Every good Bible reading plan for kids starts in the same places, because these are the passages that hit different when you're small and your imagination is running wide open:

Creation (Genesis 1–2)

God speaks, and things exist. Light appears. Sky. Sea. Animals. It doesn't get more dramatic than that. Kids get this immediately. A God that powerful? That speaks whole worlds into being? That's the beginning of something real for them.

Noah (Genesis 6–9)

A guy builds a boat. Every animal. It rains for 40 days. The whole earth floods. A rainbow. This is a legitimately wild story. Don't oversimplify it. Let your kid sit with how big it actually is.

David and Goliath (1 Samuel 17)

A kid, a sling, and one rock. Against a nine-foot warrior that the whole army is afraid of. This story has never not worked on a child. It's adventure, courage, and a God who doesn't measure things the way the world does. Kids feel it in their bones.

Jesus Stories

The Gospels are where Jesus feeds five thousand people with a kid's lunch, walks on water, heals blind men, and turns water into wine at a party. These are miracle stories, and kids receive miracles differently than adults do — with less skepticism and more wonder. Lean into that window while it's open.

Daniel in the Lions' Den (Daniel 6)

Thrown into a pit with lions. Survives. The king is astonished. It's short, it's gripping, and the takeaway — God shows up when you trust him — is clean and memorable.

What to Do When Your Kid Asks Something You Can't Answer

This is the thing dads worry about most. What if they ask about suffering? What if they ask why God allowed something terrible? What if they ask whether heaven is real? What if I say the wrong thing?

Here's the answer I've come to: you don't have to know.

Saying "I don't know, but that's a really good question" is not a failure. It's honesty. Kids respect honesty more than they respect a confident answer that doesn't feel real. When you say I'm still figuring some of this out too, you're modeling something huge — that faith isn't a finished exam you pass or fail. It's a relationship you stay in, questions and all.

The best thing I ever said to my older son mid-devotional was "I don't know why that happened — what do you think it means?" He had an answer I hadn't considered. That conversation lasted longer than the reading.

If you want a deeper look at how to navigate the hard questions kids ask about God, this article on what to say when your kid asks about God goes through the most common ones and how to handle them without pretending you have it all figured out.

When You Don't Want to Navigate the Bible Alone

Here's the honest part. For most dads, opening a Bible and figuring out what to read, how to frame it, what question to ask, and how to make it age-appropriate — that's a lot. It's not impossible, but it's a reason people stop before they start.

This is exactly why devotionals exist. A good devotional takes a biblical truth or story, frames it at the right level for your kid, gives you the question to ask, and sends them to sleep with something to actually do tomorrow. You don't have to be a theologian. You just have to show up.

The Let Me Tell You About God series in Hosted Devotions is built for exactly this — foundational truths about who God is, written for kids who are asking big questions and dads who are figuring out how to answer them. It's the starting place I'd recommend for most families who haven't done this before.

Building a Foundation, Not a Theology Degree

When you read the Bible with your kid — even 5 minutes, even just a story and a question — you're doing something that matters way beyond the words on the page. You're building a shared language. A reference point. The moment years from now when life gets hard and your kid thinks wait, I know this story. I know how it ends.

You don't have to get through the whole Bible. You don't have to explain Leviticus. You don't have to know what to say when the hard questions come. You just have to be in the room, willing to figure it out together. That's what your kid needs from you — not expertise. Presence.

Start tonight. Open something. Read something. Ask one question. That's it. If you want a fuller guide to what to look for in a devotional before you pick one, this complete guide to bedtime devotions has everything you need to get started from scratch.