I received the following message from a reader responding to the thread about violence, children, Star Wars, and the gospel. This is one of the most heartwarming testimonies I have heard in a long time. If more of our kindergartners were introduced to the twelfth chapter of Revelation, I’m convinced we would not lose so many of them by young adulthood! Here’s the note:
I am a relatively recent subscriber to Touchstone and a reader of Mere Comments. Your recent thread about Star Wars/violence/4 year-olds and reference to Revelation 12 reminded me of a recent experience.
My kindergarten-aged son has shown an early interest and propensity for reading (much to his parents’ delight). My wife and I bought him his own “grown-up” Bible. He likes to read in bed at night with a flashlight; sometimes his selection is the Bible. One day he came up to me and proudly stated he had read a whole chapter in the Bible. I asked him to tell me about it and, with wide-eyed fascination, he spoke of a dragon chasing a woman, of a third of the stars being swept from the sky. He stated it was in “chapter 12 of the last book in the Bible.” I must admit I was initially a bit concerned my 5 year-old boy had picked that passage as his introduction to serious Bible reading. I contemplated directing him to towards one of the gospels. But he showed no fear of what he had read, only wonder. Perhaps the lack of fear can be explained by the later message in chapter 12: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of His Christ. For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before God day and night, has been hurled down.” So I let my son be, and I know he has since returned to Revelation 12. I praise God for this, for in reading that passage of Scripture this message is being planted in my son’s heart: “They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.” Incidentally, my son did later turn to the gospels. And it is there that he was scared to tears. That whole business about cutting off your right hand and throwing it away if it causes you to sin, now that is scary stuff.
