How Do I Talk to My Kids about the Trinity?
As moms who love and follow God—who delight in his Word and desire to know him more deeply—it is one of our greatest privileges and joys to teach our kids about the Christian faith. And that includes talking about who God is—in his eternal nature and unchanging character.
At first glance, it may seem that talking to our kids about God is simple and straightforward, but when we look more closely at these conversations, we find that what we are doing is teaching our kids theology. We are seeking to teach them Christian doctrine every time we teach them about who God is.
When I first realized this, I immediately felt inadequate. Even as someone who has been to Bible school and seminary, I found myself overwhelmed by teaching my kids theological truths about God. The task felt too big! My kids felt too small! My abilities felt too limited!
One of the topics that I initially found most intimidating was trying to explain the Trinity. The Trinity is a mystery for so many of us, adults included! It is a topic that many theologians have puzzled over. It is a topic that Christians throughout church history have very carefully navigated, employing choice language to help guide our steps as we discuss this essential doctrine with precision and theological care.
Because the doctrine of the Trinity is so essential to the Christian faith, it became of utmost importance to me to learn to talk about it with my kids in a wise, simple, and understandable way. I didn’t want to overwhelm their little hearts and minds, but I didn’t want to oversimplify the nature of God either. As a theologian and a mama, here is what I chose not to do and what I choose to do when talking to my kids about the Trinity:
First, avoid using metaphors. I grew up in the Sunday school era where metaphors about the Trinity were all the rage. God was compared to an egg—something that has three parts but also maintains some semblance of unity. God was compared to water—a single element that can appear in three different forms: liquid, gas, and solid ice. God was compared to me, even, in the way that I can be a single person but have different relationships, like that of a sister, daughter, or friend. But all of these metaphors fall apart at the theological level. God is not one being who appears in three different ways, and he is not three persons who unite together to create a grander whole.[1] The language adopted throughout church history has been this: God is three persons in one.
This precise language helps us maintain the mystery of God’s triune nature without trying to explain it away. I find that by repeating this phrase over and over for my girls, they are able to repeat it back to me, even if they don’t fully understand it. (If I’m honest, I don’t fully understand it either!) But rather than using an imperfect metaphor that may only serve to confuse them further in the end, this phrase gives them a solid foundation on which to build their understanding of God, while maintaining the mystery of God’s three-in-one nature.
Second, use the gospel story to explain the Trinity. Instead of relying on a metaphor, I use a story my girls are very familiar with: the story of redemption. Here, we see all three members of the Trinity at work. Since we’ve talked a lot about this story in Scripture, seeing how God is at work in different parts of the gospel makes it much easier for them to understand and grasp his triune nature. In salvation, the Father sends the Son to be the Savior of the world.[2] It is the Father, in the Old Testament, who promises that the Savior will come and make his people right with him again.[3] It is the Son who dies on the cross, paying the penalty of our sin and bearing in his own body the suffering we deserved.[4] And it is the Spirit of God who makes all who come to Jesus and faith alive again.[5] The Spirit of God unites us to the person of Christ as we place our faith in him.[6] Father, Son, and Spirit, are all at work within the gospel story—the story of redemption that comes from the heart of our one great God.
Will this explain all of God‘s triune nature to your kids? Will it answer all of their questions? Certainly not! But it’s a great foundation from which you can build, as both you and your kids deepen your understanding of God’s Word.[7]
Remember, discipleship and theological training are lifelong conversations you get to have with your kids. When you approach this topic—or other difficult ones from the Bible—with young ones, you don’t need to give them all the information at once. But you can start the conversation and let it grow from there. By helping them understand the Trinity as three persons in one, you are giving your kids a solid foundation to grow in knowing and loving God their whole lives long.
[1] Scripture is abundantly clear that God is three Persons in one. Throughout church history, different groups of Christians have overemphasized God’s “threeness” or his “oneness” to the exclusion or minimizing of the other. These are considered theological heresies because they don’t align with the testimony of Scripture regarding the three-in-one nature of God. Here are just a few: Tritheism holds that God is three, to the exclusion of his oneness; Docetism taught that Jesus only “appeared” human to maintain his oneness with the divine and did not actually take on human flesh; Partialism taught that the Father, Son, and Spirit were three parts of the divine whole and not really three distinct Persons. Each of these were ruled heretical because they negate one key part of trinitarian theology.
[2] Galatians 4:4-5; 1 John 4:14
[3] Psalm 2, Isaiah 9:1-7; Isaiah 61
[4] 1 Corinthians 15:3; Ephesians 1:7; 1 Peter 2:24
[5] John 6:63; 2 Corinthians 3:6; Ephesians 1:13
[6] Romans 8:9, 16-17; 1 Corinthians 6:11
[7] A few of my favorite resources to start with are All About God’s Word and Jesus Changes Everything, both workbooks by Tiny Theologians. The ABCs of Theology (also by Tiny Theologians) is another great card set for moms wanting to learn doctrinal matters alongside their kids; T is for Trinity!
