Everything a Child Should Know About God — Essential Bible Truths for Young Children

What does a child need to know about God?

Not everything — that would take longer than any lifetime. But some things. The essential things. The things that, once known and loved and carried into the heart from the earliest years, provide a foundation so solid and so deep that nothing life throws at them will be able to shake it.

What is God like? Why did Jesus come to earth? How does the Holy Spirit help us? What does it mean to be saved? What is prayer? What happens at the end? These are not questions to save for Sunday school or confirmation class or theological college. They are questions that children ask naturally, from the youngest ages — and they deserve clear, honest, child-friendly answers rooted in the Word of God.

Everything a Child Should Know About God by Dr. Kenneth Taylor is a genuinely extraordinary resource — a children's systematic theology that takes the great doctrines of the Christian faith seriously enough to present them honestly, and respects young children enough to present them accessibly. It is, quite simply, one of the most important and most valuable children's Christian books available — and a gift to every family that wants to lay the deepest possible theological foundations in their children from the very earliest years of their lives.

A Real Children's Systematic Theology

The description is not hyperbole. As one endorser — Tim Chapman, Vicar of Christ Church South Cambridge — puts it: this is "a real children's Systematic Theology."

Most children's Bible resources focus on narrative — the stories of Scripture presented in an engaging, age-appropriate way. And narrative is essential — it is how the Bible itself primarily communicates, and children need to know the stories. But narrative alone does not give children a systematic understanding of what Scripture teaches about the great doctrinal categories that shape Christian thinking and Christian living.

Everything a Child Should Know About God fills that gap. It takes the essential topics of systematic theology:

God — who he is, what his character is like, what it means that he is the Creator and Sustainer of everything
Creation — how God made the world and why, and what it means for human beings to be made in his image
Jesus — who he is, why he came to earth, what he accomplished in his death and resurrection, and what he is doing now
The Holy Spirit — who the Spirit is, how he helps believers, what it means to be filled and guided by him
Salvation — what it means to be saved, what sin is and why it matters, how God rescues his people through Jesus
Christian Living — what it means to follow Jesus, how to pray, how to read the Bible, how to live in a way that honours God
The End — what happens when we die, what heaven is, what God has promised for the future of his people and his world

Each of these topics is explained in the kind of clear, warm, accurate, child-friendly language that Dr. Kenneth Taylor — the translator of the Living Bible — is uniquely gifted to provide. The explanations are not dumbed down. They are genuinely thoughtful, genuinely faithful to Scripture, and genuinely accessible to children aged 3 to 6.

Why Kenneth Taylor?

Dr. Kenneth Taylor is one of the most respected and most trusted communicators of biblical content to ordinary readers in the history of Christian publishing. As the creator of the Living Bible — the paraphrase that brought Scripture to millions of readers who had struggled to engage with more formal translations — he demonstrated an extraordinary gift for making deep, serious biblical content genuinely accessible without losing any of its substance or its authority.

That gift is on full display throughout Everything a Child Should Know About God. Taylor takes the great doctrines of the Christian faith — doctrines that have occupied the greatest theological minds in history — and presents them in language that a three-year-old can begin to engage with and a six-year-old can genuinely understand. Not by simplifying them into meaninglessness but by finding the precise words, the right images, and the accessible explanations that allow the truth to land without distortion.

The result is a book that parents can read to their youngest children with confidence that what they are conveying is accurate, and that theologians can read with appreciation that the accuracy has not been purchased at the cost of genuine accessibility.

The Greatest Gift You Can Give a Child

There are many things parents want to give their children. Security. Education. Opportunity. A sense of belonging and of worth. These are good and important desires.

But the greatest gift any parent can give any child is a deep, accurate, personally owned understanding of who God is — what he is like, what he has done, and what he offers to those who trust him. Because everything else a child needs to navigate this world — their sense of identity, their moral framework, their capacity for genuine love and genuine service, their ability to face suffering and death — flows from who they believe God to be.

Everything a Child Should Know About God is a tool for giving that gift — one clear, accessible, theologically faithful explanation at a time.

What This Book Covers

The book is structured around the great essential topics of Christian doctrine, each presented in child-friendly language with the depth and the faithfulness that children deserve:

God — his existence, his character, his attributes, his love, his holiness, and what it means that he is the Creator of everything

Creation — how God made the world, what it means that human beings are made in his image, and why creation matters

Jesus Christ — his identity as the Son of God, his incarnation, his life and ministry, his death and resurrection, his ascension and his return

The Holy Spirit — who the Spirit is within the Trinity, how he works in the hearts of believers, and what it means to be led and filled by him

Sin and Salvation — what sin is, why it matters, what God has done through Jesus to rescue his people from it, and what it means to be forgiven and made new

Prayer and the Bible — how to talk to God, how to read his Word, and how these practices form and sustain the Christian life

Heaven and the Future — what happens when Christians die, what God has promised about the future, and why the Christian hope is genuinely, specifically, bodily, and eternally good

What This Book Will Help Your Child Do

Develop a genuine, age-appropriate, systematic understanding of the great essential doctrines of the Christian faith — from the earliest years of their life
Know clearly who God is, who Jesus is, and who the Holy Spirit is — and why each person of the Trinity matters for their daily life
Understand sin and salvation at a level appropriate for their age — grasping why they need Jesus and what he has done for them
Develop the habits of prayer and Bible reading grounded in a genuine understanding of why these practices matter
Grow in their sense of security and identity — rooted not in circumstances or achievement but in the character of the God who made them and loves them
Build the theological foundation that will undergird every other aspect of their Christian formation and education as they grow
Be equipped to ask and engage with big theological questions from the earliest years — developing the intellectual and spiritual curiosity that is the seed of lifelong faith

Who Should Use This Book?

Everything a Child Should Know About God is ideal for:

Parents of children aged 3 to 6 wanting to lay the deepest possible theological foundations from the very earliest years — giving their children a genuine, accurate, age-appropriate understanding of the great doctrines of the faith
Families wanting a resource that complements their Bible storybooks by providing the systematic doctrinal grounding that narrative alone does not supply
Sunday school teachers and children's ministry workers wanting a theologically reliable, age-appropriate systematic theology resource for the youngest age group
Home-educating families wanting to incorporate systematic theology into their curriculum for young children in a creative, accessible, and genuinely faithful way
Grandparents wanting to give a meaningful, doctrinally serious, and genuinely child-friendly theological gift that will shape a grandchild's understanding of God from the earliest years
Pastors and church leaders wanting to resource families with the most theologically serious and most accessible children's theology book available for the 3-6 age group
Any family in India wanting to ensure that their young children develop a genuine, accurate, and personally owned understanding of who God is — rooted in the great doctrines of the Christian faith from the very beginning

Part of the A Child Should Know Series

Everything a Child Should Know About God is part of the A Child Should Know series — a collection of resources designed to introduce children to the essential people, ideas, and stories of the Christian faith in an accessible, engaging, and age-appropriate way.

The companion volume Everyone a Child Should Know introduces children to 52 inspiring Christian heroes — one for each week of the year. Together, the two books provide a comprehensive, two-dimensional Christian formation resource: the doctrinal foundation of Everything a Child Should Know About God complemented by the biographical inspiration of Everyone a Child Should Know.

The Wonder of God — For the Youngest Hearts

Children are natural theologians. They ask the biggest questions without embarrassment — who made the world? Why do people die? Where is God? What is heaven like? — and they deserve answers that are honest, accurate, and given with the seriousness that the questions deserve.

Everything a Child Should Know About God is written for exactly those children — the ones with the big questions and the open hearts, who are ready to receive the truths of the Christian faith in all their depth and all their wonder, if only someone will take the time to present them faithfully and accessibly.

Dr. Kenneth Taylor has taken that time. And the result is one of the most genuinely valuable children's Christian resources available — a gift to families, to churches, and to every child who deserves to know the wonder of the God who made them, loves them, and has done everything necessary to bring them safely home to himself.

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