Bible Curriculum for Pre-Teens

My eldest will be starting middle school at the end of the month. Biblical literacy and growing in our relationship with God are core values within our education. If we want to live well-ordered lives, we need to be lovers of wisdom, which means we need to learn about God—the source of all wisdom!

Lady Jane Grey’s testimony (she debated a Catholic theologian at age 17) always reminded me of how “teens” can handle God’s Word well and are completely capable of understanding Christian doctrine; they just need to be discipled and taught well. So, as we begin middle school, I wanted to remind myself that my son can comprehend more than I realize and that my job is to give him the tools he needs to grow in wisdom!

Here is our tentative Bible plans for 6th Grade! Along with books I’ve gathered, which we may use them throughout middle school. I’ll be adding to the list, too, as I find good resources!

1. Read the Bible

Read and re-read. We will read Scripture together in the mornings, learn and practice some Bible study methods (aka hermeneutics), and occasionally pick up a Bible commentary.

Literarily by Kristie Anyabwile is easy-to-read and helps students understand Bible genres and literary context.

One-to-One Bible Study by David Helm contains great questions to ask while reading, including pages to use the COMA Method for different genres.

Jen Wilkin’s Bible studies are fantastic, and also come with teaching videos. I’ve noticed she designs her studies in a way that helps the readers to become more self-sufficient and gain tools to study the Bible on their own.

2. Read a storybook Bible.

Why? To become more familiar with the big picture (metanarrative) of the Bible. Last year we read The Kingdom of God Bible Storybook. This year we hope to go through The Gospel Storybook Bible by Marty Machowski.

3. Learn theology!

Everyone is a theologian—even our kids! The question is always whether we are a good theologian or bad one. While I haven’t really found a systematic theology book for pre-teens or teens, we may start with these!