Telling the Truth

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 second of the six thematic plans, and unlike the storyline plans it moves around the Bible on purpose — but it is not a grab-bag. It runs as one arc: the first lie → hiding → being found → being put right. Keep the order.

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.

The one thing this plan must not become

This is not three weeks of catching your child lying.

Fifteen days on honesty puts a very sharp tool in a parent’s hand, and the temptation — every single day — will be to aim question 2 at whatever they did on Tuesday. Don’t. A child who works out that the study is really about them being in trouble will start giving you the answer that ends the study fastest, and you will have taught them to lie during Bible time.

Question 2 is the day’s safe place. If your child says “I do that” — about hiding, about the excuse, about the secret — that is the plan working, and your only job in that moment is to make it survivable. Say thank you. Don’t punish what was confessed in the study; deal with consequences another time, and say so out loud so they know the difference.

The fastest way to make it safe is to go first. Answer question 2 about yourself, honestly, at your own level. A child who watches a parent say “I do that too” learns more about confession in ten seconds than fifteen studies can teach.

Where the plan is going

Note the shape, and say it out loud around day 10, when it starts to feel heavy:

• Days 1–4 are lies and their cost. Adam hides; Cain dodges; Jacob dresses up as his brother; the brothers hand over a coat and let their father conclude the rest. Nobody is fixed yet. That is on purpose.
• Day 5 is the turn. Judah, twenty years later, tells the whole thing and offers to take the punishment himself. It is the same man from day 4.
• Days 6–12 are what truth costs and what it protects — the commandment, a trick that worked because nobody asked God, an excuse that sounded religious, a friend brave enough to tell a king, a psalm about how a secret felt in David’s body, a servant who traded everything for some silver, and a man with nothing to catch.
• Days 13–15 are being put right. Zacchaeus pays it back. Peter fails badly. Jesus gives him his job back.

If a child only remembers one day, make it day 15.

Day 6 is the odd one out

Day 6 is Exodus 20 — a law passage in a plan otherwise made of stories, and the one deliberate exception. Anchor it on verse 16: do not give false testimony about your neighbour. That’s the one that belongs to this plan.

With a six- or seven-year-old, read only verses 12–17 — the “how to treat people” half. With an older child, read all seventeen, and ask why God reminds them who he is and what he did for them (v.1–2) before he gives them a single command.

When it surfaces something real

It will. Somewhere in these three weeks a child is likely to tell you about something they broke, took, copied, or said. When that happens, the study is over — that day’s questions have already been answered better than any discussion could manage.

Do three things, in this order: thank them for telling the truth; help them make it right (say sorry, give it back, tell the person); and tell them what day 15 says — that failing is not the end with Jesus. Consequences can still be real. Just don’t let the telling of the truth be the thing that costs them most, or they will learn the exact opposite of what you are teaching.

Making the “I will” real

Put a name in it and a day on it.

✗ “I’ll be more honest.” ✓ “Before dinner on Wednesday I’m going to tell Dad I was the one who broke the tap, not my sister.”

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.

Two days need a light hand with the youngest: day 2 (Cain kills Abel) and day 11 (Gehazi’s punishment). Read them plainly, don’t dwell on the detail, and let the child’s questions set how far you go.

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 — this plan especially, because the first two-thirds is mostly people getting caught and the last three days are the reason any of it was worth reading.