Out of Egypt

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 third of the storyline plans, after In the Beginning and God’s Promise Family. You don’t need to have done those, but if you did: the family God promised to make into a nation has become one, and it is stuck in Egypt. That is where this picks up.

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.

Rescue comes before rules

The shape of this plan is the shape of the whole Bible, and it is worth noticing out loud when you reach day 14. God does not hand his people the ten commandments and then rescue the ones who keep them. He rescues them first, while they are still slaves who have done nothing for him — and then says how his rescued people live. Even the ten start with “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out.”

A child who gets that order right will not spend their life trying to earn something they were given.

Making the “I will” real

Put a name in it and a day on it.

✗ “I’ll stop complaining.” ✓ “At dinner tomorrow I’m going to say thank you for the food instead of saying what I don’t like.”

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.

The hard days

Exodus is a rescue story, and rescues have a cost in them. Three days carry real weight, and they are in the plan on purpose. Don’t skip them and don’t pad them:

• Day 1 (the king orders babies killed). Say it plainly and briefly, and spend the time where the passage does — on two midwives who quietly refused, and on God being good to them for it.
• Days 6–7 (the plagues). These frighten some children and fascinate others. Stay in the text: each one goes after something Egypt trusted, and each one is God saying let them go. Don’t dwell on the horror; don’t pretend it was gentle either.
• Day 9 (the night they left). The firstborn of Egypt die, and that is in the reading. Tell it straight and briefly. A child may well ask “was that fair?” — that is a good question, not a problem. You can say: Pharaoh had been killing Hebrew babies for years and was warned again and again, God gave every single household a way to be safe, and God takes slavery and cruelty more seriously than we do. Then let the child sit with it. You are not obliged to resolve it tidily today.

If a child gets upset, stop and talk about it. A short study and a real conversation beats finishing the page.

One thing they haven’t read

Day 15 (Exodus 34) comes right after the golden calf, which isn’t one of the fifteen. Before you read it, tell them in a sentence: while Moses was up the mountain, the people made a gold statue and worshipped it, and God forgave them. That is what makes God saying his own name — merciful, patient, full of love — land the way it should.

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.