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Ask FGBC #40: Is It Okay to Have Children’s Bibles With Pictures of Jesus?

Jim Butler · 2025-03-29 · 612 words · 4 min

Ask FGBC Anything

Is it okay to have children's 
Bibles with pictures of Jesus in them? I think that's another simple 
answer. I think the answer is no. We 
believe, traditionally, the Reformed believe, with respect to the 
second commandment, that images of God and Christ, of course, 
are forbidden. Do you want to elaborate on that 
one? I think, yeah, that's the basic argument. It's a second 
commandment violation when you have pictures of Jesus. And again, 
I know that there's a lot of people that say, well, that's 
not what the second commandment means. Well, we could have that 
debate or we could have that argument. You know, children's 
Bibles per se, pictureless children's Bibles, I get the desire to make 
it simpler and to make it understandable for children, so I don't necessarily 
have an ax to grind with that, but I do think teaching your 
kids to read and read their own Bibles is probably the number 
one option. Again, not denigrating the place 
of a pictureless children's Bible, or there can be pictures of trees. 
plants and fish and birds and all that. But, yeah, and, you 
know, explaining simply when you read Scripture can do that 
work as well. Yeah. I think there's a, you 
know, there's a measure of sentimentality and I think good intentions on 
the part of parents and family members because they want their 
children to learn more about God, to learn more about the 
Lord Jesus Christ. and to bring a measure of excitement 
and familiarity and to sort of have some measure of connection. 
But I think, as Jim mentioned, a great exercise would be in 
instructing those children in the Word of God from the Bibles 
that we have in order that as they grow, they have a knowledge 
of language, they have a knowledge of these sentences, they have 
a knowledge of the verses and how the Bible reads and to avail 
of the Word and not images because it is by the Word of God that 
God saves sinners and how God edifies his people. And so we 
go by the Word and certainly not by the picture and certainly 
not by pictures that violate the second commandment. And in 
the children's Bible market, some are better than others. 
I think it's due diligence on the part of the parents to find 
the good ones. You know, things that change meaning or things 
that paraphrase in a way that obscures meaning, I would stay 
away from that. Just like I'd stay away from 
an adult translation that obscured rather than shown the light upon 
the glory of God's Word. Yeah. And if you're going after 
a children's Bible, you know, tear out all the pictures and 
make sure it's a good, good, accurate summary, because that's 
ultimately what it's going to do. It's going to summarize or 
paraphrase biblical text, but it has to do that properly. It 
cannot give up the sense of scripture to communicate to little Johnny. Yeah. Yeah, I agree with that. But I was getting to thinking 
if Jesus came today, well first, much of the church would reject 
him. But secondly, his picture would be in the media and everywhere, 
right? I don't think he'd say, take 
it down or don't take pictures of me. He's like, I'm a man, 
right? Yeah, well, and you know, I think there's a difference 
between Christ himself being here and an image construction 
by the vanity of man's mind. They embellish. And in the fullness 
of the time, it was not the age of smartphones and cameras. God 
orchestrated that according to his purpose and plan. Yeah.