Can the Ark Encounter Help Kids Find Truth in the Bible with Ken Ham [Podcast] | Trace Embry

Whether you understand it or not, your child’s healthy attitudes and behaviors are inextricably linked to his or her spiritual well-being. Though this spiritual well-being doesn’t require that Junior understands every truth in the Bible—or even knows that a Bible exists, for that matter—the Bible, nonetheless, is the “owner’s manual” for aligning our human spirituality with God’s will, way, and Word. In fact, the Bible is actually referred to as the very Word of God.

Yet the Bible contains things that are problematic for our increasingly secularized society such as a six-day creation, talking animals, a global flood, and an ark bigger than a football field built by folks without modern equipment. These are all tall tales or myths in the minds of a growing consensus of Americans today. So if we expect our kids to flourish and become spiritually mature by knowing the truth all while heeding the divine wisdom found in the Bible, helping our kids understand the problematic and controversial aspects of Scripture is a must. After all, every parent desires a pleasant child-rearing experience—both for their children and for themselves.

Since moving to America in 1987, Australian Ken Ham—CEO and founder of Answers in Genesis and the highly acclaimed Creation Museum—has become one of the most in-demand Christian conference speakers and talk show guests. Ken has made television appearances on Fox’s Fox and Friends, CNN’s The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, ABC’s Good Morning America, and other media outlets. He became internationally known for his 2014 creation/evolution debate with Bill Nye, the Science Guy, which has been watched by an estimated 25 million people.

Ken is also the visionary behind a popular, full-size Noah’s Ark replica. The Ark Encounter opened in Williamstown, Kentucky, in July 2016, and in its first 10 weeks, drew over 300,000 awestruck visitors and 200 media. The life-size Ark is the centerpiece of this evangelistic attraction, and it is located about 40 miles south of the Creation Museum.

Why Parents and Kids Should Seek Wisdom and Truth in the Bible

Since the beginning of time, many kids from different places around the world have honored their parents and been well-behaved without instruction from the Bible. So why is knowing Scripture and understanding it cover to cover the big deal we make it out to be?

Well, most of us don’t have to read the owner’s manual to actually drive our cars—the owner’s manual is that little book gathering dust in your glove box, by the way. Many of us don’t need it to tell us how to use the different accessories on our dashboard, either. We tend to have the adequate observational skills and cursory knowledge of cars necessary to figure out most things—but not everything. We can even do maintenance on our car without the owner’s manual—to a point. That’s why we have owner’s manuals. But the human experience is a lot more complicated than our cars. And, just like our car’s owner’s manual, you can pursue God and how to raise kids without a Bible—and people have done it all through history.

But why would you want to do that? Our Owner/Creator has designed and built us. Why wouldn’t we use His manual, the Bible, to find out the right way to do things? Like our car’s owner’s manual, the Bible is the guide to set us straight on a lot of things—like raising kids. As spiritual as we might think we already are, without an objective source like God’s Word, it is easy to hear from the wrong spirit. Remember who the devil is—he is an entity disguised as the angel of light! The Bible is a tremendous tool for keeping all of us on the straight and narrow. And when it comes to raising our kids, Scripture helps parents with wise insights and tools for bringing up children; it also helps kids better understand what it means to be a good and wise son or daughter.

Will our kids stray from what they know to be right now and then? Perhaps. But don’t we all? At least we always have that objective and perfect source—our Divine owner’s manual—to refer back to for strength, encouragement, knowledge, wisdom, peace, guidance, precedent, and clarity.

When we read anything, we have to know how to properly interpret it and then disseminate the information. This is especially true for the Bible if our kids are going to get an accurate picture of who God is, how He interacts and operates in our lives, and what He expects with respect to a healthy parent/child relationship. Today’s guest has sparked the production of some pretty amazing tools that can help us legitimize to our kids and others that the Bible is the document it claims to be and, therefore, worthy of our trust. These tools range from media, reading, and video resources to huge biblically based theme parks. Today, Ken Ham and I discuss parenting, the Bible, and the Ark Encounter as we cover the following topics:

How did Ken Ham manage to create a life-size ark?
Is the Ark Encounter for non-Christians?
How did Ken get the ark to scale?
How has The Ark Encounter helped people who are not Christians?
How can parents use the story of Noah to help their kids understand the truth of evolution?
How can parents use the book of Genesis to help their kids understand the truth of history?

Picture provided by: Chris Light [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], from Wikimedia Commons