Blog
Should We Talk To Kids About Hell?
The other day I was talking to a missionary friend of mine and he mentioned to me that most of what he heard growing up in church was, “If you don’t accept Christ, you will go to Hell.”
As I thought about it I realized that I did not hear a lot about Hell in my church.
I gave my life to Christ when I was a senior in High School and I was not thinking about avoiding Hell at all.
I just knew that my life was messed up and came to a conclusion that God was real and that He could help me.
Yes, we should talk to kids about Hell, but primarily from the standpoint that Jesus went to Hell so we could go to Heaven.
If I stand up any classroom and say to a group of kids, “If you don’t receive Christ you will miss Heaven and go to Hell,” I am confident that I can get every child in the room to pray the sinner’s prayer.
But is the fear of going to Hell the right basis for bringing kids to Christ? I don’t think so.
Yes, it’s a true statement, but it comes across as legalism not grace.
We are saved by grace through faith.
Legalism says, “Obey the Law or you suffer the punishment.”
The Gospel says, “We are all sinners. We deserve to be punished
but Christ took the punishment for us.”
Legalism places the emphasis on what you did.
The Gospel places the emphasis on what Christ did.
What do you think? Should we talk to kids about Hell?
Great word, thanks
Yes, because at some point kids are going to have someone die in their life and the question of where they went is going to come up. If you don’t let kids know about hell then the lie that the person went to heaven even when they don’t know Christ will become their belief.
While I would never use Hell as a scare tactic, the reality of Hell does need to be presented. God did not design Hell for man because he need a place for all the bad people, however it is the place of separation when we choose not to allow God to save us from our sin, and live our life without him. That is the reality I give to kids. Our life is always better with God than without him, while here on earth and when our bodies die.
True that we should never use Hell as a bludgeon to get kids to serve God. His goodness is attractive enough. And as my mom always said, you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Still we can’t ignore the issue altogether. A recent study by the Barna Group showed a shocking decline in the number of young people that even believe in hell at all. It’s our job to present the whole of the Word of God, especially to our elementary students old enough to understand and reason. It’s instructive to know the pain we’ve been redeemed FROM, the consequences we deserved but didn’t get. The wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is life in Christ Jesus.
Hi Mark,
Good post, and an important topic.
I believe we need to tell children about hell, and in a balanced way. They need to know that Jesus loves us so much that He paid the price to keep us from ever going there, and that we each have a choice to accept that gift through repentance. Then we need to teach them how we respond to His loving gift, by living for Him.
Thanks for all you do to help others teach kids Truth.
Linda
Thanks Linda. I agree.