Students really are more capable of digesting difficult information than youth ministers give them credit for. Leviticus 16 is only one example of that, but teaching students a chapter here or a chapter there when it comes to the Torah is only a start. In order to really grasp the significance of the Torah students need to be able to see the story playing out. In many ways it is like reading a book for the first time. There is suspense and excitement. One wonders, as one reads, what the next page will bring. Who will live? Who will die?

The most important thing I have learned when it comes to teaching students the Torah is that we have to be good storytellers. As youth ministers, we love to tell stories. We tell stories about our lives, or we seek out illustrations from popular culture. At other times we may tell stories revolving around our community or our particular ministry in order to make a point. The Torah is really one big story. It covers thousands of years; there are breaks; and the cast changes from time to time, but the overall story is the same. Because of this, the best way to teach the Torah, in my opinion, is to start at Genesis 1 and work your way through. This way, students are able to get an idea of what is going on. By starting at the beginning, students are able to see the entire story unfold as the narrative progresses. I’ve found that if I am willing to tell the stories, and especially when I am excited and passionate about the stories, students are truly interested in listening.

There is another reason we sometimes shy away from teaching the Torah to students. We may not like to admit it, but at times we don’t know the material well enough ourselves. We know the creation story like the back of our hand, and we can talk about Abraham and Isaac. We can certainly talk about Moses and the burning bush. We can talk about the twelve spies who went into the land and how God promised to save Rahab. We know the big stories, but what about the little ones that connect them? Stories like when Dinah was raped, or when Jacob makes a deal with God that he will make God his God if God protects him while he journeys to Haran. Stories like Balaam and his donkey, or the journey to Mt. Sinai. These stories are part of the narrative that comprises the Torah. They link together the disparate stories of the patriarchs and the Exodus into a cohesive whole. Without these stories the overall narrative breaks down and becomes extremely difficult for students to put together in their minds as the overarching metanarrative – God interacting with his people.

It is true that many students have learned the big stories of the Torah in Sunday school as they grew up. However, it is unlikely those same students could put together the story the Torah tells without large gaps. This is not to say that someone needs to know the Torah front and backwards to become a good Christian, but knowing the Torah well certainly will help one understand God more, and as such to strengthen one’s relationship with him. God himself comes to life in the pages of the Torah, and he comes to life even more so when students can see for themselves the story the Torah tells, from beginning to end. There certainly will be portions of the story that are less exciting than others, but there is still an importance to learning those portions of the story. Students need to understand we are not dealing with disjointed fairy tales but the story of God and his dealings with humanity.