There is really no book in the Bible, or in all the world, that is like Romans. And while much of Romans is advanced reading that requires a good grasp of language, logic, and Old Testament history, it also teaches some of the most fundamental and foundational truths of the Christian faith. In that way, Romans is for children as much as adults and for new Christians as much as seasoned ones.
So here’s the question: How can we make the treasures of Romans accessible to young people? Marty Machowski has done just that in a tremendous new book titled The Sword: Magnus and the Mystery of Romans. The book’s purpose, he says, is “to introduce grade-school children to Paul’s letter to the Romans.… Why write a book for children that is so steeped in God’s deepest truths–truths that adults can hardly begin to understand? The gospel is like the ocean. Children can safely wade in the shallows of the broken waves that lap the sand, even while our most accomplished scientists have still to plumb the ocean’s greatest depths. Yet the foamy inches of seawater that roll across the shore provide the same critical nutrients for life. Water an inch deep is just as wet as the water in the darkest trenches. The water of the gospel, though we step but ankle deep, has the power to transform the heart and provide life-transforming truth for the soul.”
Indeed, it does! To draw children into those life-transforming truths, Machowski weaves a fictional story into what is essentially a basic commentary. The story is one of contemporary children finding an object that gets them involved in an ancient mystery. This mystery introduces a character who traveled with Paul and spent time with him in Rome. It’s a fun and effective literary device that will help engage children as they make their way through the book of Romans passage-by-passage. There are around 150 brief and simple readings that will take just a few minutes each, whether read by parents or children. It is beautifully and skillfully illustrated by Flavia Sorrentino, who, interestingly, hails from Rome.
“The main goal of The Sword,” says Machowski, “is to help children understand the sobering bad news of sin so that they better understand the good news of our gospel rescue through the cross of Christ. Like many books in Scripture, Paul’s letter to the Romans carries several more mature themes. These topics, defining and explaining circumcision, for example, are left to parents.” The book really nudges children to understand that Romans is not just for the mind, but for the heart and the will. It is not meant to merely inform them, but to transform them.
Though my children are no longer within The Sword’s intended readership, I am confident it is just the kind of book we would have read to them and they would have enjoyed. It would have exposed them to the richest beauties of Romans at a young age. Of course, an open secret of children’s literature is that it is meant to train the parents as much as the children, and I know Aileen and I would have learned from it as well. I believe this is an especially strong resource, and I suggest you consider adding it to your family’s library.
(Note: Obviously, Machoswki had to make many interpretive decisions as he wroite, and he chose not to do what a pastor might be able to do in a sermon by saying “This passage might mean this or it might mean that.” He expresses gratitude for the scholars whose work he relied on the most: John Piper, Douglas Moo, and Thomas Schreiner, all of whom are gifted and trustworthy. Each of Machowski’s interpretive decisions is in alignment with one or all of them.)
