4 Constants in Family Bible Study - Mark and Grace Driscoll

This relates to a point I made in my sermon yesterday.  Mark and Grace Driscoll were kind enough to share how they are helping their 5 children spend time in God's Word.  I clipped a segment below and you can read the rest of the article HERE.

We know they all work on Sundays, but what do the lives of Mars Hill pastors look like the other six days of the week?
Here on the Mars Hill Blog, we’re starting a series of Q&As with the pastors: we’ll ask some of them the same questions and then post the different responses throughout the week. This week we asked for some tips on how to study the Bible better with our families. First up, Preaching Pastor Mark Driscoll.
NB: How can we better study the Bible with our spouses and children?
Pastor Mark: I’m not a hugely formal student. I study a lot, read all the time, and in our family, things flex from week to week, season to season, and as the kids age. Upon reflection, though, four things are constant:

1. Lots of Bibles
   
   
   
   We have tons of Bibles all over the house. We have Bibles for every age, lots of translations, and lots of formats. To be honest, if a member of my family finds a Bible they like that is faithful, I am not at all legalistic about which one they prefer. Most days, every room of the house has a Bible of some kind in it, ready to read.
    
2. A love of Bible reading
   
   
   
   I love to read the Bible and want my family to love reading in general, and Bible reading in particular. It’s not a forced rule, but a fun part of life. Everyone in our family likes to read the Bible and does so daily. I’ve never made a rule about daily Bible reading, but we all do as a habit that we enjoy by God’s grace. We all read Scripture and pray at night before bed as a sort of wind-down wrap-up to the day and the kids like it a lot.
    
3. Life integration
   
   
   
   Throughout the daily moments of life, the window of opportunity opens up to sit down with Grace and the kids, either one on one or as a group, to open the Bible and apply a particular portion to something happening in their life. As a parent and a spouse, it is a great honor to be on watch, appointed by God to capture these sacred moments of bringing Scripture to bear on a teachable moment.
    
4. Age-appropriate discussion
   
   
   
   We eat dinner together and have a Bible at the table that I use to lead discussions. We also keep a notebook of prayers for people and the kids really like seeing prayers answered and checked off. Some nights the family gets down some rabbit trail of conversation that is not overtly theological, and as a dad I don’t force a big theological discussion upon them, but rather follow the Holy Spirit as we just enjoy one another. Other nights we have some big theological discussions that I lead out of the Bible. After church on Sundays, since I’m still working, Grace is faithful to ask the kids what they learned in the service or their class and draw out of them what God revealed to them from Scripture. Anyone wanting to grow in this skill can read Big Truths for Young Hearts by Bruce Ware, in which he shows how to teach theology to kids in an age-appropriate fashion.

Click HERE for the rest of the article.  At the end of the article Mark Driscoll mentions his personal library is pushing 5000 books - impressive!