30 Bible Verses About Teaching Children

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Parents, teachers, or children’s ministry leaders can use these 30 Bible verses about teaching children for encouragement and inspiration.

Raising godly children is no walk in the park. Whether you are just starting to learn how to teach your children biblical values, or need guidance on how to instruct or discipline them, or you are looking to become more intentional about giving them a biblical foundation. I pray that these scriptures will launch you in the right direction.

As parents, God has placed a weighty responsibility on us to be our children’s guidance. When they are born into the world, we are the very first people with whom they form connections with and who they look up to. The values we teach them from an early age, have the ability to completely transform the kind of people that they grow up to become. Further, the way we live, and the things we value speak volumes even when we say nothing at all. They learn not only from our instruction, and words, but from our actions, and what we live out.

No one understands humanity more than our Maker, and that applies to children as well, no matter their age. As a parent who can sometimes feel overwhelmed, you can turn to scripture to show you the way.

As Christian parents we can allow the word of God to teach our children, and not only safeguard them, but help them discern between the teachings of the world.

Whether your child will have their own relationship with the Lord, is only something God knows, and they will one day have to choose from themselves, but as a parent God has given you a great front row seat to showing them the way and helping them to know God and to come into a relationship with Him.

May you find God’s grace and strength as you lead your children in His wonderful way.

All Bible verses below are from the NIV Bible translation.

Scripture on Teaching Children

Bible Verses on Teaching Children - Parents sitting down reading a boo to two young children

Proverbs 22:6

Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.

Ephesians 6:4

Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

Isaiah 54:13

All your children will be taught by the Lord, and great will be their peace.

Colossians 3:21

Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged

Deuteronomy 6:6-7

These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.

Proverbs 23:13-14

Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you punish them with the rod, they will not die. Punish them with the rod and save them from death.

Proverbs 1:8-9

Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction and do not forsake your mother’s teaching. They are a garland to grace your head and a chain to adorn your neck.

2 Timothy 3:14-15

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

Deuteronomy 11:19

Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.

Proverbs 13:24

Whoever spares the rod hates their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them.

Colossians 3:20

Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.

Proverbs 19:18

Discipline your children, for in that there is hope; do not be a willing party to their death.

Galatians 5:22-23

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

Deuteronomy 4:9-10

Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them fade from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them. 10 Remember the day you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, when he said to me, “Assemble the people before me to hear my words so that they may learn to revere me as long as they live in the land and may teach them to their children.”

1 Timothy 4:12

Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity.

Matthew 19:13-15

Then people brought little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked them. Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” When he had placed his hands on them, he went on from there.

Ephesians 6:4

Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

3 John 1:4

I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.

Deuteronomy 5:29

Oh, that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my commands always, so that it might go well with them and their children forever!

Proverbs 22:15

Folly is bound up in the heart of a child but the rod of discipline will drive it far away.

Hebrews 12:5-11

And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says,

“My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.”

Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all.

Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness.

No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

Psalm 78:2-4

I will open my mouth with a parable; I will utter hidden things, things from of old – things we have heard and known, things our ancestors have told us. We will not hide them from their descendants; we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power, and the wonders he has done.

Matthew 18:1-3

At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”

He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Proverbs 3:5-6

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.

Isaiah 38:19

The living, the living—they praise you, as I am doing today; parents tell their children about your faithfulness.

Proverbs 29:17

Discipline your children, and they will give you peace; they will bring you the delights you desire.

Deuteronomy 6:5-9

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

Matthew 18:5-6

And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me. “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.

Ecclesiastes 12:1

Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, “I find no pleasure in them”.