Matthew 13:10-23

Have you even been to a church service that provided a Children's Sermon before dismissing the little ones to their Sunday School Class?  If you have you will see a connection between a Children's Sermon and one of Jesus' parables. To provide a good children's sermon you must take a step back and recognize your audience, then you need a healthy knowledge of the subject you are going to teach about.

A person skilled in delivering a children's sermon is able to speak to the little ones on their level, relating the Bible story to something they they can understand.  Often you will find one of these teachers using a prop, like a stuffed animal or another toy any child would be interested.  Then you fashion your sermon by using one of these tools to get the message across.

"He replied, “Because the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them." (Matthew 13:11)

That same preacher wouldn't deliver this message on the same Bible story to his adult audience, because they have had the privilege of having heard the story before.  They have read their Bibles and maybe even discussed the topic in a small group setting.  The younger people have not been exposed to the stories yet.

Jesus used parables to teach His new followers, because they have not heard any of these things yet, so Jesus tells stories using props and tools his audience would be familiar with and could understand.

We all had to start somewhere.  If, ten years ago, you tried to reach me by bringing me to an in-depth Bible study with deep discussion and dialog, you would have been wasting both of our time.  I needed to be spoon fed for a while'; I needed simple and unassuming conversation.  I needed to be taught the basics before I was ready for the meat of the stories. That is why Jesus used parables so often, so you and I could learn the basics before tackling the wisdom and Spiritual essence of Scripture.

Read the selected text, Matthew 13:10-23, here.  Listen to the audio recording here.