A Review of Genesis: A Commentary For Children
Nancy Ganz has filled the gaping holes that exist in so many materials that are used as resources in teaching our youth.
- Byron Snapp
Parents and church officers have the responsibility to make sure that covenant children are taught the truths of God. One of the difficulties in carrying out this mandate is finding material that consistently reflects covenantal truth and that follows the development of the covenant throughout Scripture.
With her Herein Is Love Commentary series Nancy Ganz has filled the gaping holes that exist in so many materials that are used as resources in teaching our youth.
Her lessons on Genesis consist of 68 lessons that are structurally sound, Christ and covenant centered, and stress God's redeeming love.
Texts that are difficult for many to teach such as Genesis 19 and 34 are dealt with in a style that is honest, underlining evil and glorifying God. These as well as the other lessons are written in a style that is easily understood by children.
The initial twenty-six lessons cover the first three chapters of Genesis. They are used to point the student to Christ, the second Adam, who fully accomplished what Adam did not. This is another benefit of the material. The importance of the opening chapters of Genesis is underscored with this proper emphasis. Also students immediately learn the importance and propriety of viewing Scripture as a whole through Mrs. Ganz's apt integration of New Testament texts into her lessons.
The volume concludes with a Teaching Guide section that includes two pages of teaching ideas that can be incorporated into the student lesson. Each teaching guide includes suggestions for visual aids that are generally easy-to-find objects that will help to further impress the lesson upon the students' memory. Review questions, memory work, craft and field trip ideas give teachers further opportunities to bring points of the lesson home. She also suggests psalms to sing as well as a brief prayer.
Interest is heightened in the lessons by the creative ideas the author uses within her explanations. For example, to help students understand what life and thinking may have been like for Noah on the ark, she includes several entries that Noah may have written into a daily diary had he kept one.
Throughout the lessons, Mrs. Ganz focuses on the love of God toward sinful creatures like us. Her writing should fill us, adult and children alike, with the wonder and majesty of this God who brings sinners to Himself and who keeps His covenant with His people to the thousandth generation.
In addition to her volume on Genesis, commentaries and accompanying Teacher's Guides are available for Exodus and Leviticus.
In the United States they may also be obtained from Crown and Covenant Publications, 7408 Penn Ave. Pittsburg, Pa. 15208
These volumes can be easily and usefully used in family devotions or Christian education programs in churches and related ministries.
- Byron Snapp
Byron Snapp is a graduate of King College (B.A.) and Reformed Theological Seminary (M.Div.). He was Associate Pastor at Calvary Reformed Presbyterian Church, Hampton, Virginia, from 1994 until his retirement in December 2014. He is a native of Marion, Virginia. He has had pastorates in Leakesville, Mississippi, and Gaffney, South Carolina. He served as Assistant Pastor in Cedar Bluff, Virginia prior to his ministry at Calvary Reformed. He has served as editor of the Presbyterian Witness and was a contributor to A Comprehensive Faith and Election Day Sermons. He is currently a member of Westminster Presbytery in the PCA. He and his wife Janey have 3 children and several grandchildren.