Teaching Little Hearts Big Truths About Easter: John Greco | Episode 283

[00:00:03] Hello and welcome to Candid, where we never settle for less than the truth. I'm your host, Dr. Jonathan Youssef. Each week we'll tackle tough issues, answer your hard questions, and take a candid look at the Christian faith. If you've been with us for a while, you know we love good children's books at Candid. Everyone on the team has children between one and eight. So, we love getting and sharing good children's books.

[00:00:32] Today I'm joined by John Greco, author of the children's book, The Easter Lamb, Jesus, Passover, and God's Amazing Plan to Rescue Us. John is a writer, editor, and self-described Bible geek who lives just south of Nashville, Tennessee with his wife Lauren and their three boys.

[00:00:52] His impressive background includes serving as the editor of the He Reads Truth Bible and as the New Testament Theological Editor for the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible. John has authored several other books, which you can find out more in the show notes.

[00:01:10] In his latest work, The Easter Lamb, John weaves the stories of Passover and Easter together, helping young readers understand the profound connection between these two significant events in biblical history. As we approach the Easter season, families seek meaningful ways to share these foundational stories with their children.

[00:01:33] John's book offers a unique perspective illuminating how God's plan for salvation has been consistent throughout history. From the first Passover to Jesus as the ultimate sacrificial lamb. Today we'll explore how this book can help parents deepen their children's understanding of Easter, beyond the bunnies and chocolate eggs. John, welcome to the show. Well, thanks for having me. I'm really happy to be here.

[00:02:00] Before we get to the book, I wonder if you can give us a little bit of background. Tell us about your journey and in particular how you got into editing Bibles and specific He Reads Truth and all these things. Yeah, so I'm one of those writers who kind of stumbled into it. I didn't go to school going, I want to grow up and be a writer when I'm all done. I was just, you know, from an early age I felt, I just had this calling on my life.

[00:02:24] I had this experience with the Lord where He had called me out and showed me a Bible. And I just knew it was something to do with studying the Bible. And so I set out to do that. And so I studied Scripture in college and then seminary. And I just assumed, you know, I was going on the pastoral track. I was going to be a pastor. And I was working for the Billy Graham Association. And I was overseeing a team of writers, not writing myself, but just kind of doing some middle management work.

[00:02:54] And I kind of worked myself out of a job. And I found myself going to work every day going, what do I do? I'm looking around. And one day, you know, I asked my boss. I said, well, can I try my hand at some of these letters? I was in seminary at the time. And, you know, she said, yeah, we have some of these theological ones that kind of require some research and some digging. And, yeah, I mean, the worst thing that happens is they're terrible and we throw them away and start over again. So knock yourself out. And so I did that. And I just, you know, kind of like fell into writing and found out like I was actually just good at it.

[00:03:21] And it wasn't anything that I had really ever put much effort into. And so from that moment, I said, you know, this is clearly how God has wired me. Much better writer than I am a preacher. And so I started writing and never looked back. And my shtick has still been, you know, I love scripture. I love helping people get into God's word, understand it, make the connections across various books and passages. And most of my work has been for adults. And, you know, like you said, I've gotten the opportunity to edit a few Bibles.

[00:03:51] And I've written some devotionals and some trade books. And this is my first children's book. So I'm super excited about it. It's kind of a new frontier. As someone deeply immersed in biblical scholarship, what inspired the getting into the children's world? I mean, I know, obviously, you've got your own boys, but I would think that's a very different world. Yeah. Well, you know, honestly, it was, it's a combination of, yeah, I have my own boys. And so I was, you know, kind of learning as a dad.

[00:04:18] I'm sure, you know, you've experienced this where you kind of go like, it's a different thing when you have these new people who know what you've taught them. And they know kind of what they've learned in Sunday school, but they don't really know how things are connected. Or as I was talking to my boys, you know, they're, you know, they have me for a dad. So they have a little nerdy than probably most kids. They've got the exposure there. Yeah. But, you know, I realized that there was nothing out there that was doing what this book now does, which is helping kids with biblical theology.

[00:04:47] Basic understanding of all of the Bible points to Jesus. Yeah. So one of the things that, you know, I normally do this stuff for adults. And I don't, you know, it's one of those things where like, I talked to a lot of adults and they didn't really make this connection. Yeah. In a very, you know, maybe a very surface level, you know, like, oh yeah, John the Baptist calls Jesus the Lamb of God. And that's kind of it. Right. And so I realized that there are adults I'm talking to that don't get this. There's certainly our kids. Yeah.

[00:05:16] And then, you know, there's always the challenge. You know, I've been in Christian publishing and ministry for a number of years and there's a lot of hesitancy about talking to kids about these sorts of subjects. There's blood, right? There's killing the lambs and Jesus is crucified. And it can be a, how do you talk to kids about that? Yeah. And I, I'm just a firm believer that, you know, it's scripture. It's for everybody. And obviously there's a way to talk about it that maybe I wouldn't talk about with my six-year-old the way I would talk, you know, with a peer.

[00:05:45] But the story is still for him. My youngest name is Luke. And I want Luke to be able to pick up the Bible or pick up the storybook and be touched by God in the same way that an adult can. And so that was the challenge was to kind of make it true to scripture, but soften some of the harder edges so that even, you know, a young child can get God's love through that hard story.

[00:06:09] Well, I mean, it is fascinating because, I mean, even the Passover story, the lamb was invited into the home with children. So they're even seeing, now they would have been accustomed to the sacrificing of the animal, but even that is the bloodshed and all that is, it's very visual. It's very sort of in your face in a lot of ways. So it's, it kind of tells us that God is saying, we need to teach this to our children, that these are realities.

[00:06:36] But to your point, how do you soften the hard edges of, you know, not trying to be violent for kind of shock factor? Yeah. Yeah. We've had Nancy Guthrie on previously and she teaches, she's gotten really into biblical theology and she teaches this to women. And I remember her saying that she would have these women who would come down crying and they would say, I've been teaching the Bible for 40 years.

[00:07:01] And this is the first time I've seen how all the pieces kind of fit together through the biblical theology framework. And they feel guilty. And she says, no, no, you know, I was the same way, you know, until that light kind of came on. And so it is such a special tool that the Lord has given us.

[00:07:19] Let's talk a little bit about how that biblical theology, it's helpful to adults, but it's specifically helpful, I think, to children who can see those threads so clearly running throughout Scripture. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, again, and I don't want to knock anybody, but I've just, you know, as a dad, I've kind of watched how, you know, sometimes in children's Christian entertainment or other books or, you know, Sunday school lessons, you name it.

[00:07:48] A lot of the Old Testament stories are taught as kind of either hero tales or morality tales, right? Yeah, moralism, sure. The better ones make God the hero, at least that's good. But still, there's kind of this, there's a kind of a disconnected, this is a story that happened a long time ago, and this is what happened. And, you know, either God's the hero or David or Samson or whoever, they're the hero. And there's a lesson to be learned, right?

[00:08:12] And I think, you know, that to me is super scary because we can get morality lessons from anything, right? I can watch an episode of DuckTales with my kids and tell them, you know, give them a morality lesson, right? Got it. Yeah. And so I wanted to make sure that, you know, we kind of train kids to know that the Bible, while it may not have originally been written to them, it was written for them.

[00:08:34] So one of the things that I do in this book is while I'm telling kind of two epic stories from Scripture, I'm telling Passover and then the story of Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday. But I'm also inviting children to see themselves in this story. So it doesn't end there, right? It continues on to talk about how, you know, in the book I call Sin, the monster called Sin who always brings his friend death with him.

[00:08:58] How, you know, we still have this monster called Sin in our life and we still need Jesus' death to take our place. And so the book actually ends in the new heavens and new earth, right? Heaven comes down to earth and that's kind of the final spread you see in the book because I wanted kids to go, oh, I can be there, right? It's cute. My youngest, Luke, there's a picture. In that picture, there's a little boy running with a fox and he goes, daddy, I love foxes. I totally want to hang out with a fox.

[00:09:28] And, you know, and there's this joy, right? Like, you know, joy unfolded on this spread as much as you can do with, you know, some illustrations. But I wanted to make sure that those stories didn't just become morality tales. They became, oh, God has been thinking about me and my need for a Savior for a long, long time. And so, you know, Jesus wasn't plan B, right? Jesus was always God's plan.

[00:09:55] And you can see it clearly because he was painting a picture of Jesus with that Passover event. And it wasn't just for the people of Jesus' day. It was for people all throughout history. And I get to be part of that story. So that was really important to me. And I think good biblical theology always does that. It draws the reader in, whether it's for children or adults. Yeah. Let's get a little bit into the story because, of course, you know, you have people who attend church at Easter and they could probably regurgitate to you. I get it.

[00:10:23] Jesus died on a cross and, you know, makes available me, you know, to be freed from my sin, et cetera. But they don't necessarily understand the biblical historicity. That picture has been given for centuries, for millennia. And that part of that story really begins in the Passover story. So kind of help us like link the two things. I'm sure a lot of our listeners are, of course, familiar with this, but I think it's helpful to reiterate it. Yeah. And so this is one of the wonderful things that I just want Bible readers of all age to get this right.

[00:10:53] I don't know who said it originally and lots of people have repeated it. But the quote is something like the best commentary on the Old Testament is the New Testament. And I think that's 100 percent true. But I also think the best commentary on the New Testament can sometimes be the Old Testament. Because you have to remember, right, in addition to the human author who was penning these books, there's also the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit is God. There's no like, oh, his brain power is limited. He can only focus on one thing at a time. No.

[00:11:22] The Holy Spirit is he's inspiring. He's inspiring Moses to record the events of Passover. He's also thinking about Matthew and Luke and John. And so there's no disconnect between the Old and the New Testament. So we shouldn't be surprised when we find little pieces of Jesus in those Old Testament stories. So, you know, with Passover specifically, you know, it's this wonderful Israel is in Egypt. They're under bondage. And God comes to set them free.

[00:11:49] And he gives Moses, you know, these signs and wonders, these plagues that he is going to use to, you know, crack Pharaoh's hardened heart and set his people free. And, you know, the last plague is the plague of the firstborn is going to die in every Egyptian home. I love this one because I shouldn't say I love it. That's morbid. But I love the picture that it paints because some of the other plagues, you know, Israel's sort of spared, right? Like, you know, the darkness didn't happen in Goshen where the Israelites lived and that kind of thing.

[00:12:19] But with this one, you know, it's very clear that, no, every firstborn will die. And Israel is not going to be spared except for God makes a provision, which is this beautiful image of we're all sinners. We all deserve death. Yeah. None of us can go, well, I'm associated with this family or this, you know, lineage or, you know, I've got this special relationship, whatever. It doesn't matter. Everybody deserves that death. So God then makes a provision for his people. He says, now I need you to have some faith.

[00:12:49] I need you to do something to receive this grace that I want to give you. And so he instructs them. He says, take that. Take something that seems ridiculous, too. Something that seems totally ridiculous. So it's got to be faith because it doesn't make sense, right? Nobody's going, well, okay, I can understand how blood's going to keep the destroyer away from my home. Like, it doesn't make any sense. Not a locked door or anything like that. You know, it's, yeah, exactly. So he instructs them to take an unblemished lamb, have a meal of lamb and take the blood from that lamb and, you know, spread it on the door frame.

[00:13:19] And it will be a sign telling death. These people belong to God. And so, like, so Israel has this part of their history and God makes it a very important part of their history. And they commemorate it every year. And it's this, you know, beautiful picture. And I don't know that the Israelites and, you know, the Jews that came after that they fully understood what it was pointing to. They understood it was God's provision and it was their need for a savior and their need for a deliverer.

[00:13:48] But, you know, the Gospels do this wonderful thing. All four Gospels, when they present Good Friday, Passover is the background, right? And what the Gospel writers are telling us is you are not going to understand what's about to happen unless you go back in your Bible and read about that Passover story. And so, and I think adults, same thing. Like, I want adults to do that. I want, you know, it's just part of the story to understand what Jesus is doing.

[00:14:14] We have to go back into Israel's history and familiarize ourselves with the Passover event. So Jesus becomes that lamb. His blood is shed. You know, and we, again, when we are covered in that blood, when we accept it, Jesus' blood on our behalf through faith, we then are covered. And it's like a sign telling death we belong to God. So that's a lot of big abstract ideas for kids.

[00:14:39] But I'm like, I want this to be something that gets cemented in my own kids at an early age. This story in particular, but we can do it with a thousand others from the Old Testament into the new. When you talk about biblical theology, you know, if it's not helping someone grow in their faith, if it's not making them more dependent and more in love with Jesus, then it feels more like an academic exercise. And, you know, there's some value in just learning stuff. But, you know, in the Christian life, that can be a dead end.

[00:15:08] I like to think about, you know, if you're familiar with the story in John 5 where Jesus heals a man who has been lame for 38 years. And he heals him on the Sabbath. And so this riles up, you know, the Jewish leaders and they come after Jesus and they confront him. And Jesus says this thing, and I want to read it because I think this is one of the scariest verses in scripture for me. Because these are the, these religious leaders are the Bible thumpers. They're the people who know the scriptures. They certainly knew the Passover story. They certainly knew the Old Testament better than we do.

[00:15:39] And this is what Jesus says to them. This is John 5, 39 and 40. He says, you study the scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very scriptures that testify about me. Yet you refuse to come to me to have life. And so as a dad, like I go, well, I could teach my kids all the Bible stories. They could know it frontwards, backwards. They could win all the Bible trivia quizzes and the sword drills and you name it.

[00:16:04] But if they don't recognize Jesus when he shows up in their life, when he's standing in front of them, then something's gone majorly wrong. And that's, that's a horrible tragedy. So that's, that's what I want help kids do. I want them to be able to read that story in Exodus and go, I see Jesus and he's there for me. Yeah. And it, it undermines the whole moralism framework, doesn't it? It says one of my seminary professors used to say, now you can stick a rubber band around your whole Bible.

[00:16:33] It's not like, here's some stories of people that did good things. And then here's Jesus who's kind of seemingly different. He does everything right. But it actually says, no, the, the whole point is that God is pursuing your heart, you know, to give you that covering. If you would bow your knee to him, if you would confess the Christ and put his blood upon your own household, your life, which I think it's so needed. And, you know, we kind of laugh around our church.

[00:17:02] We're always sort of like, does anyone have any good kids books, you know, that aren't just down that track? And so the more of this we can get into not just the children, but even into the parents as they read. I mean, how many stories I've heard of people who have said, I was reading a book to my kid and I'm just like, this is unbelievable. I don't even know if I understood this or heard a kid's talk at church or something like that.

[00:17:25] And sometimes it is getting to that, those basic core, almost elementary, like breaking it down the way you would for a child that even seeps into the adult's mind. And like you said, not just the academic pursuit of the head, but it actually goes for the heart. I have kids sort of eight to two.

[00:17:46] And it is funny because my daughter, who's three, almost four, she will open a book if it has a beautiful, bright color on it or something. And then she'll see it's just words. She gets upset. She's like, where are all the pictures? We understand for kids, illustration is a really important aspect of conveying story.

[00:18:08] And sometimes the image for a little one stays with them or it pairs well with the writing so that the story just gets so implanted in their minds. So tell us a little bit about the illustrations, the illustrator. How did you find your illustrator? How do you all work together? How does that kind of all form and formulate? Yeah, the illustrator for this book is a young woman named Sean James. She actually lives in London. And I was connected to her through the publisher, Zondra Kids.

[00:18:36] But I was given a bunch of different illustrators, artists to look at their work and kind of say, who do you think best represents what you're hoping to do with this book? And I loved Sean's work because there was a softness to it, a kindness to it. It was beautiful and traditional, but it didn't look foreign. It looked inviting. And I wanted the pictures in this book to – I just wanted kids to want to return to this world again and again.

[00:19:06] And the other thing was, as we were working together, Sean is a wonderful artist. And this is new for me because this is my first children's book. I wanted to make sure things were accurate. I didn't want to have angels with wings, that kind of thing. But at the same time, it's a children's book. So too accurate becomes a little, well, what's going on here? So there was a lot of back and forth. Right.

[00:19:29] There was a lot of back and forth about how do we keep this understandable to kids to fit in sort of the conventions they already know and have when it comes to the Bible. And, you know, but at the same time, you know, make sure that we aren't – you know, years ago, I won't name the organization. I was working with an organization and I came in halfway through a project and it was a Christmas book. And they had this manger scene where gathered around the manger and Mary and Joseph were all these animals and they had pigs there.

[00:19:56] And I went like, you know, no Jew would have had – Not a bullpen. Wouldn't have pigs. Yeah. So anyway, like so I want to avoid that kind of thing. But at the same time, you know, have it. So we found that, you know, and when you're telling – you know, this is one of the challenges when you're telling a big story from scripture for little kids, you can't include everything.

[00:20:17] So it becomes how do I keep this accurate, focus on the most important aspects, but, you know, do it in a way that, you know, doesn't clutter it with stuff that's not there. So hopefully when parents read it, no one's upset. Oh, he left out this detail and this isn't going to – that's not, you know, the point was – We're the pigs. Right. It was to find the, you know, God's heart as the through line and keep it all there. So anyway, Sean did a great job and I was so pleased with how it turned out. I just, you know, I love that cover. I love the lamb.

[00:20:47] And my kids, you know, keep asking me, when are we going to get a – you know, are they going to make a stuffed lamb to go with it? Oh, that's clever. And I said, well, you know, it's up to the publisher. I don't think that's happening. At least not – it's not this year. So your book came out 2024. What's sort of been the response so far? I mean, it's how are parents and families, et cetera. Yeah. It's a little misleading because it came out, I think, December 17th of 2024. So they put it out like a week before Christmas. So it wasn't exactly – yeah. I don't know why.

[00:21:17] Buy it at Christmas for Easter, you know. Yeah. So there was a – it's funny. When I did the – I did a little, you know, launch video for social media and I'm, you know, it's totally Christmas time. And I'm like, hey. And I show the picture of – you know, there's one of the spreads has Jesus' birth in the book. So that was the spread I started with. Like, you're thinking about Christmas. Let me tell you another great story about Jesus. That's right. So this is really the first year. This is kind of the initial response. But so far, it's been wonderful. The comments people have sent or, you know, on the book page on Amazon have been wonderful.

[00:21:46] They're understanding the vision of, hey, let me help kids get a bigger picture of the Bible, understand, you know, how Jesus connects to all of Scripture in a way that is, you know, kind of both fun and inviting. And, you know, that's been wonderful. So, yeah, I'm actually – I'm going to bring copies this Sunday. I'm going to bring copies to the families in our church that have kids this age. And I'm super excited to kind of see their, you know, real-life response when they get it. Oh, that's great.

[00:22:15] Besides reading the Easter lamb to your kids, do you have any sort of Easter traditions that you do that are sort of, you know, creating that meaningfulness and putting that imagery in front of them? Yeah, so we, you know, so we do the same. Like when it comes to both kind of the Advent season and the Lent season, my wife and I are very big on rehearsing, repeating, just kind of finding new ways to invite our kids into the truth of that season. So, you know, like, you know, on Easter, we'll do an Easter egg hunt.

[00:22:45] But, you know, we're not big Easter bunny people. We're not, you know, it's whatever. But we will throughout, you know, the weeks leading up to Easter, we'll do crafts and we'll read stories and we'll, you know, have devotional time. We'll talk about these things and we'll just kind of put it on repeat so that our kids can not only know the story super well, but kind of hear it from a bunch of different angles and, you know, kind of learn when we're talking. They kind of pick up the, oh, wait, you know, this story tells us a little bit differently.

[00:23:14] What is that about, dad? Or, you know, they'll ask questions, you know. You know, there's a, the power of kids is they have this great capacity to take in information. They can memorize stuff. They can learn stuff in a way that, you know, as adults, we kind of, you know, our senses are a little bit dulled and we can't do that as easily. So I'm like, this is the opportunity. Let's get this in them. At the same time, they're also like, I mean, maybe it's just my kids, but I suspect it's, it's lots of kids is they really want to know how things work.

[00:23:43] So they ask the greatest questions that you're like, I've never thought of that, you know, and you get to, you get to like do a little digging or, you know, come up and come up with some answers. 40 years to think about that. So, so that's part of the fun. But yeah, we want both seasons to kind of be both Advent and Lent to be very celebratory. And we are looking forward to Jesus, right?

[00:24:08] You know, at Advent time, it's, hey, we're looking forward to Christmas, celebrating Jesus' birth, but also looking forward to a second coming. At this time of year at Lent, we will, we're looking forward to celebrating, you know, Jesus' death and resurrection. And we're looking forward to the day that, you know, all things are made new, right? When the resurrection comes for the rest of us. And so, you know, I want my kids to have that dual sense of this happened in the past and this is what we're waiting on. And we can run with foxes. Yes.

[00:24:38] Well, the book is The Easter Lamb, Jesus, Passover, and God's Amazing Plan to Rescue Us. It offers parents and children a deeper understanding of God's redemptive plan throughout Scripture. I encourage our listeners to pick up a copy of John's book as Easter approaches. Share it with your family. You can find more about John Greco and his books on his website. John, thank you so much for taking the time to be with us on Candid Conversations. Thank you so much for having me. It was a lot of fun.

[00:25:09] Candid is a podcast from Leading the Way with Dr. Michael Youssef. Don't forget to connect with our social media pages on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. And subscribe to Candid Conversations on your favorite podcast platform so you never miss an episode. While there, please leave a review. It does help people find us. As always, thank you for listening to and sharing this episode.