Parents frequently contact me to ask which devotionals or Bible studies for young adults I would recommend for them to do with their teenage children.
As our children enter their teenage years, our responsibility as parents is to help them develop good habits of engaging with the Bible. Finding an approach that is age-appropriate and manageable is key. My encouragement is simply to read the Bible with your teenager in a way that models and builds biblical literacy, without the need for special teen-focused resources.
Your teenager will constantly be exposed to devotional content and topical studies, and they probably do not need a resource specifically targeted to their demographic group. What most teenagers lack are basic tools that help them read and learn the Bible for themselves. By guiding them through a few basic study methods, you can prepare them to use devotional and topical materials with much greater discernment and benefit, since those kinds of resources often assume a firsthand knowledge of Scripture that many teenagers have not yet developed.
Below is a simple approach that you can adapt according to your teenager’s age.
1. Choose a book of the Bible to read and discuss together.
If you have never studied together before, start with a shorter book such as Jonah or James. If possible, work through longer books like Genesis or Hebrews while you still have the opportunity to guide and shape their study habits. The goal is to expose your teenager to the value of studying an entire book of the Bible from beginning to end, rather than studying only topically or devotionally. If your church is preaching through a complete book of the Bible, you could align your discussions with the sermon series to add another layer to what they are learning.
2. Get a copy of the selected book of the Bible with space for notes.
You can create this yourself by copying one chapter at a time from Bible Gateway into a document. Set the margins wide and the spacing to 1.5 so there is room to write. Or you can purchase one of the excellent ESV Scripture journals if you want something ready-made, practical, and attractive. Get a copy for both you and your teenager.
3. Set a schedule to meet once a week for a 30-minute discussion.
Use a reading plan that helps divide the text into manageable sections. Most reading plans are designed for daily reading of the entire Bible over a specific period of time. Simply adapt the daily portions into weekly sections for the book you choose. For example, an ESV reading plan may cover the book of James in eight days, but you could stretch it into eight weeks using the same text divisions. Create a schedule for your discussion times that includes the dates and passages to be discussed. A schedule for James might look like this:
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