Bible Panorama

If you are a Christian and have children, read this 👆

My pastor’s son just told him he’s an atheist — and suddenly I looked at my 12-year-old son and realised he can quote Bible verses, but he can’t answer a single “why” question. It was 10:32 p.m. on a Wednesday when Pastor Mike told our small group. His son, Daniel. Homeschooled through secondary school. Memorised entire books of the Bible. Now, in his second year at a Christian university, telling his own father that “faith is intellectually dishonest”. Pastor Mike’s voice broke when he said it. “He said I taught him what to believe, but I never taught him why any of it is true.” I drove home in silence, my hands gripping the steering wheel too tightly. When I got home, my son Caleb was at the kitchen table finishing his Sunday School lesson — filling in blanks about the twelve disciples. I sat across from him. “Caleb, why do you believe the Bible is true?” He looked up, confused. “Because… it’s the Word of God?” “But how do you know it’s the Word of God?” Blank stare. “Because the Bible says it is?” My stomach sank. “And how do we know the Bible is right when it says that?” His face went red. “I don’t know, Dad. It’s just what we believe.” It’s just what we believe. Circular reasoning. The exact trap that destroyed Daniel’s faith the moment a lecturer challenged it. I sat there looking at my son — a boy who could recite Romans 8 from memory — completely unable to defend his own faith for sixty seconds. The next morning, I tested him again. “Why did Jesus have to die? Why couldn’t God simply forgive us?” “Because… we needed Jesus to save us?” “But WHY? What would happen if God simply said, ‘you are forgiven’ without the cross?” Silence. He had no idea. He knew the story. He didn’t understand the theology. On Friday, at the men’s breakfast, I mentioned it. Four other fathers had the same story. Children who did very well in Sunday School. Children who had been baptised. Children who couldn’t explain why they believed a single word of it. We were raising a generation of Bible experts who would fall apart the first time someone asked “why”. I spent that weekend obsessed. At 1:47 a.m. on Saturday, I was reading articles about Gen Z and faith deconstruction. The pattern was everywhere. Young Christians arriving at university, meeting their first atheist lecturer, and having no answers. Not because they were rebellious. But because they had been taught WHAT to believe, and never WHY it was true. At 3:22 a.m., I found myself on Daniel’s Instagram. Going back three years through his feed. Posts with Bible verses. Youth group photos. “Beyond blessed” everywhere. Then came his first year at university, and the posts changed. Philosophy quotes. References to Richard Dawkins. Then, nothing about faith anymore. I could see the exact moment it happened. Week 3 of his Introduction to Philosophy class. A post that said: “I realised I can’t answer basic questions about what I claim to believe. Maybe I never really believed.” On Sunday morning, I couldn’t focus on the sermon. I kept watching Caleb in the pew beside me, colouring the church bulletin. He looked so confident. So sure. But it was a house built on sand. One good lecturer. One intelligent atheist friend. One difficult question. And it would all fall apart. That afternoon, I did something I had never done before. I asked Caleb to explain the Trinity. He knew it was “Father, Son and Holy Spirit”. But when I asked HOW it works, he couldn’t answer. When I asked WHY it matters that Jesus is God and not just a good teacher, he guessed. When I asked how we know the Bible wasn’t simply written by men and changed over time, he said, “I think someone checked?” My twelve-year-old son had spent eight years in Sunday School and couldn’t defend his faith for sixty seconds. Then it hit me. Neither could I. Not really. Not with answers that could stand up to a philosophy lecturer. I had been a Christian for thirty years and realised I had heart knowledge — I knew Jesus was real because I had walked with Him — but I had never learned how to put it into words. 1 Peter 3:15 says to “always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have”. I wasn’t prepared. And I certainly hadn’t prepared Caleb. Two weeks later, I was in a bookshop, standing in front of a wall of apologetics books. William Lane Craig. Alvin Plantinga. Ravi Zacharias. All too advanced for a twelve-year-old. I needed something that would teach him to THINK theologically, not just memorise better. That was when I overheard a conversation behind me. A father and his teenage son, maybe fourteen. “So, if someone says Jesus simply copied other religions, what would you say?” The boy didn’t hesitate. “I’d say the manuscript evidence shows that the story of Jesus came first, and I’d explain how the myths about dying and rising gods are different in at least six important ways. We covered that in week 19.” I turned around. “Sorry, what are you studying?” The father showed me a programme called: “Discovering the Why of Faith.” 52 weeks of systematic theology for children. Real arguments, not just stories. How we know the Bible is reliable. Why the resurrection proves that Jesus is God. What makes Christianity different from other religions. His son had been studying it for seven months. “He dismantled the youth leader’s doubts last month,” the father said, laughing. “The leader said something about science disproving Genesis, and my son spent twenty minutes explaining why that’s a category error. I was so proud.” The boy shrugged. “I just like knowing WHY things are true. It’s like solving puzzles.” I bought the programme immediately. That Sunday afternoon, I sat down with Caleb and opened lesson 1. “How do we know God exists?” But it wasn’t “because the Bible says so”. These were real arguments. The cosmological argument explained at a sixth-grade level. The moral argument with examples from his own life. A logic puzzle where he had to follow cause and effect to understand why there must be a First Cause. Caleb leaned forward. “Wait… so EVERYTHING that begins to exist needs a cause? Even the universe?” We spent a full hour on that lesson. He asked nine questions. Real questions. Not “what’s the answer”, but “how does this work?” and “what if someone says this instead?” Here’s what surprised me: I was learning too. At 47, I finally understood arguments I had never been taught. Concepts that would have strengthened my own faith decades ago. Two weeks later, something changed. Caleb started debating with me at dinner. Not disrespectfully — theologically. “Dad, I don’t think that’s right. Because in lesson 6 it explained that God existing outside of time means…” He was THINKING. In week 5, he came to me frustrated. “Dad, I can’t solve the problem of evil. Like, I understand the free-will answer, but what about natural disasters?” He was wrestling with the question. Not just accepting it. Actually facing the difficult things. And here’s what I realised — the more Caleb understood WHY his faith was true, the deeper his relationship with Jesus became. This wasn’t replacing heart knowledge with intellectual knowledge. It was giving his heart something his mind couldn’t destroy later. In week 8, we were at a family lunch and my brother — who is agnostic — commented that the Bible was “written by men”. Before I could respond, Caleb joined the conversation. “Uncle Rob, do you know about the manuscript evidence? We have more copies of the New Testament than of any other ancient document, and they are much closer to the original events. If you don’t trust the Bible, then you can’t trust anything we know about Julius Caesar either.” My brother was speechless. So was I. That’s when I knew. This wasn’t just memorisation. It was genuine understanding protecting genuine faith. Three months later, we’re on lesson 31 of 52. Caleb can explain the Trinity using the correct theological terms. He knows why Jesus needed to be fully God and fully man. He can give you four reasons why the resurrection is historically reliable. But most importantly — he prays differently now. He talks to God like someone who knows He is really there. Because now he knows WHY He is there. Last week, he asked if his friend Marcus could join the lessons. “Marcus says he doesn’t believe in God, but I think I can show him why that’s actually the most logical option. Can we go through the cosmological argument week again?” My mother called last Sunday. She’s 71. “I’ve been hearing you and Caleb talk about these lessons,” she said. “Could I have a copy? I’ve been a Christian all my life, but I realised I couldn’t answer half the questions Caleb can answer now.” Those Sunday afternoons did what eight years of Sunday School hadn’t done. They turned my son into someone who can defend what he believes. Not perfectly. He’s twelve. But when he gets to university and some lecturer challenges him? He won’t fall apart. He’ll have answers. And those answers will protect the relationship with Jesus that we’ve been building since he was little. I think about Daniel all the time. Pastor Mike’s broken voice. All those Instagram posts that went from “blessed” to silence. Those young people weren’t stupid. They weren’t rebellious. They just didn’t have a foundation. No one taught them the WHY behind the WHAT. Caleb won’t be Daniel. Not because he memorised more Bible verses. But because he learned to think theologically AND walk relationally. Head and heart. Together. This programme — “Discovering the Why of Faith” — now sits on our dining table, covered in Caleb’s notes and highlighted passages. Proof that faith can be intellectually robust without losing the heart. If you’re watching a child who loves reciting Bible stories but falls apart when faced with basic questions, you need to know there is another way. Before the first year of university. Before the first philosophy class. Before they become another pastor’s child who walks away from the faith. The programme that changed everything for Caleb is still available. It’s 52 weeks of systematic theology that teaches children to think, not just memorise — while deepening their real relationship with God. I don’t know how much longer we’ll keep building faith on sand and expect it to survive the storm. But I do know this: every week you wait is another week your child practises circular reasoning instead of building a defensible faith. Don’t let them become another Daniel. While there’s still time.