Jesus Comes

This page is for you, the parent or teacher — not for the child.

Fifteen studies, five weekdays a week, three weeks. One short passage a day. It is built to be a child’s whole Bible time for the day and to take fifteen or twenty minutes, not an hour.

This is the last of the six storyline plans, and the one the other five have been walking toward. If your child has done them, say so on day one: the promise God made to Abraham, the rescue out of Egypt, the kings who kept failing and the prophets who kept pointing — this is who all of it was pointing at.

The shape of one day

1. Read the passage out loud. Twice. You read it the first time. Let the child read it the second time if they can.
2. Close the Bible and have them tell it back in their own words. This is the step everybody skips, and it is the one that does the work. If it comes out thin, read it again and let them try again. Don’t correct the retelling into a lecture — just ask, “what happened next?”
3. Ask the four questions. Let the silence sit. A seven-year-old needs longer to answer than you think, and the first thing they say is usually not the thing they mean.
4. Help them land one “I will.” Small and real beats big and vague.
5. Pray. The prayer under each day is there if they want it; their own words are better. Pray at the end, not the start — it’s a response to what they found, not a hint about what they were supposed to find.

The four questions

Every day, the same four:

1. What does this show me about God?
2. What does it show me about people — and about me?
3. What will I obey this week?
4. Who will I tell?

Under each day you’ll find a kid-sized version of each one. Use those if the standard wording goes over their head; use the standard four once they can carry them. They are the same questions the adults’ plans use, on purpose — a child who learns these four can walk into any Bible study for the rest of their life.

Don’t teach it

The strongest instinct you will have is to explain. Resist it. The moment you start teaching, the child stops discovering, and you have replaced a skill they could keep with an answer they will forget.

If they say something that isn’t in the passage, don’t correct it — ask, kindly: “Where do you see that in the story?” Let them go back and look. If they get something wrong and nobody catches it today, they will meet it again — the Bible is long and God is patient.

This is the plan where a child may want to respond

Somewhere in these three weeks — often at day 11, or day 14, or day 15 — a child may say something like “I want to follow Jesus.” Be ready for it, and do not rush it.

What helps: ask what they mean, in their own words. Let them pray in their own words too, out loud, however clumsy. Don’t script it for them and don’t make it a performance. Then tell somebody together — question 4 is right there.

What doesn’t help: pressing for it, or treating a quiet child as a failure. Some children respond at eight and some at eighteen, and a plan that pushes for a decision teaches a child to perform one. Your job is to keep putting Jesus in front of them and let God do God’s part.

The hard days

Days 13 and 14 carry the weight of the whole plan, and they need care rather than avoidance:

• Day 13 (the garden). Jesus is genuinely afraid and genuinely sad. That is not a problem to explain away — it is the day a frightened child learns that Jesus knows exactly what that feels like.
• Day 14 (the cross). Tell it honestly and simply. You do not need the physical detail; a child does not need to picture the nails to understand that it cost him everything. Stay where Luke stays: he forgave the people doing it, and he promised paradise to a criminal who asked. If your child cries, that is a right response, not a problem to fix.

Then do not stop there overnight if you can help it. Day 15 is the answer to day 14. If the two land on a Thursday and Friday, that is ideal. If day 14 would fall on a Friday and leave the weekend in between, consider doing 14 and 15 together rather than leaving a child in Saturday for two days.

Making the “I will” real

Put a name in it and a day on it.

✗ “I’ll be kinder.” ✓ “Tomorrow I’m going to sit with Daniel at lunch and ask him how he is.”

Then ask about it the next day, before you read. Did you do it? Who did you tell? Asking is what turns this from a reading plan into a habit of obeying.

Ages, and mixed ages

Written for roughly ages 6–12. A six-year-old will need you to read it and will answer in one sentence; an eleven-year-old can read it themselves and write their answers down. If you have both at the table, read once for everybody and let them answer at their own depth. Don’t split them up — the younger ones learn how to answer by hearing the older ones do it.

What comes next

The plan stops at the empty tomb. The church’s story — Acts, and everything after — isn’t here, and that is deliberate. If your child asks “what happened next?”, that is the best possible place to finish: tell them the disciples went out and told everybody, and that is why you know about it at all.

If you miss a day

Pick up where you left off. Fifteen studies is fifteen studies whether it takes three weeks or five. Whatever you start, finish.