Theology with a Three Year Old

I've had some interesting theological conversations with Noah recently. Yes, theology with my three year old.

It started a few weeks before Christmas. We were reading about Jesus' birth and he was looking at the picture in his book. He pointed to the shepherds and asked what they were doing and why did they come to visit baby Jesus. I told him they came to worship him. He asked why did they want to worship him? So I explained that they knew baby Jesus would be our Savior. Which prompted “What’s a Savior?”

So I explained Savior and why we even needed to be saved. Which led to talking about sin. He knew a little about the Easter story—Jesus died on the cross and came back to life again. I explained that Jesus had to die to save us from our sins. Trying to explain this age appropriately was more difficult than I expected. Each thing I explained led to more questions. We eventually ended up talking about the devil. Try explaining that in an age appropriate way that doesn’t freak him out and leave him with nightmares (did I mention this was right before bedtime?).

This is a concept I know we haven’t discussed before because honestly, I’ve just avoided it (again, not wanting to scare him). But yet, I want to be honest so I sat there trying to explain the devil. Of course this was on a Wednesday night so Mike was at youth group at church that night. I couldn’t even rely on my youth minister husband for this one!

I told him the devil is a really bad guy that likes to try to get us to do bad things and that when Jesus died, he went and fought the devil and beat him so that we could be saved from the bad things. He wanted to know what the devil looks like? In my head I thought, like a really mean ugly monster, but again, I didn’t want him to have nightmares so I just said I don’t know—which is true, because thankfully I’ve never seen him. I explained that he’s kind of like Jesus, we know he is real but we can’t really see him, so we don’t know what he looks like. Thankfully he accepted that answer. Then he asked what would the devil do to us? Again, I’m just sitting here trying to choose my words very carefully, wanting to give honest answers but also give him truth. I went back to just saying that the devil wants to try to get us to do bad things. But remember, Jesus beat the devil to save us. Then he stumped me with “How did Jesus beat the devil?” Good one, buddy. I have no clue. I did tell him I don’t know. He asked again and again and finally (thankfully) I steered him to another subject.

Later that night as we were praying, I asked him to tell Jesus what he’s thankful for (we do this as part of our bedtime prayer routine so it wasn’t a new question) and he said “Jesus, thank you for beating the debil (not a typo—he said debil, with a ‘b’)” So sute. And so true. Yes, Jesus, THANKYOU for beating the devil for me! How often do I think of it that simply, but really, that’s the best thing ever!

The next morning as soon as he got up he told Mike, “Daddy! Did you know Jesus beat the devil?!”

A couple weeks later we were reading a book about the Easter story. We were talking again about Jesus dying for us but that he came back to life again after 3 days. Noah wanted to know how Jesus could do that. We said “Because He’s really powerful!” It’s always interesting to see how his brain retains, processes and applies info. This was demonstrated a few days later.

I was holding Emily and Noah had been playing with some stickers. He put some on me, then wanted to put some on Emily. So nice of him to want to share with his sister. But I explained that stickers aren’t safe for her because she could put them in her mouth (like she does with anything she gets her hands on these days) and then she would choke on them. This led to the following exchange:

Noah: Yeah, and if she chokes on them, then she could die.
Me: Yeah, you’re right, buddy. And that would be bad, right?
Noah: Yeah. But Jesus could bring her back to life.
Me: Yes, but if she died, she would go live with Jesus in heaven and that’s good, but we’d really miss her if she wasn’t here.
Noah: No, Jesus would make her live again here because He’s really powerful!

Wow. Gotta love that child-like faith. I had a hard time arguing with him. I mean, he’s right. Jesus is powerful. And do I believe that Jesus could do exactly what Noah said, well, of course I do. But I did try to explain that yes, Jesus could do that, but that’s not usually how it happens here. I was expecting a “Why not?” but thankfully didn’t get that, because really, I’m not sure how I’d answer that one.

Makes me wonder what kind of discussions we'll have as he gets older.