My wife and I have the wonderful privilege of being Uncle Sam and Aunt Grace for our two nieces and nephews. Watching them grow up and loving them deeply along the way has been one of the greatest privileges of my life. Each year for Christmas, one of our gifts to each of them is a special sleepover. During it, they get to choose any five things in the world to do. Without fail, each one of them chooses a shopping spree at Rocket Fizz and dinner at La Parrilla—a pile of candy and a plate of chips, ground beef, and queso. It’s every child’s dream.
There is a time and a place to eat food and enjoy things purely for the dopamine hit. However, if my nieces and nephews ate ground beef, cheese, and Skittles for every meal, they would severely lack the nutrition they need for their biological and psychological development. Ultimately, without a balanced diet, including the veggies they try to avoid with all their might, they would be tremendously undernourished.
In a similar way, how tempting it is to preach candy-coated and nutritionally weak sermons in youth ministry.
Why Students Need You to Teach the Whole Bible
Often the thinking goes something like this: We’re only teaching middle and high schoolers, so we need to dumb everything down. Nothing could be further from the truth. My brothers and sisters, resorting back to safe, familiar, topic-only teaching will disciple the students under our care into a partial Bible and, by default, a partial Christ. The beautiful tapestry of the Bible presents a comprehensive Christ—a fully formed savior who not only saves us from sin, but unites us to himself in his resurrection, thereby defeating the power of sin and death and giving us hope for the life to come.
When we feed students a partial gospel, they are left with a fragile faith, tossed to and fro by the waves of Religion 101. No wonder so many students leave the church when they graduate. We have a rich opportunity in the limited years we are given with students to present the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ from every part of God’s Word and apply it to every area of life.
Why We Struggle to Teach All of Scirpture
Now, I highly doubt that any youth minister willingly seeks to preach a partial Christ. But over time, without strategy and intentional planning, it can happen. As the demands of ministry press in, we drift back to familiar passages and avoid challenging ones. Before we know it, months and years have passed. Our students graduate having been exposed to a surprisingly small portion of the counsel of God’s Word because of our discomfort about teaching the harder, more obscure sections of the Bible.
We feel this tension most when we encounter difficult passages. Whether it’s the countless deaths in the “children’s” story of Noah’s ark, the apocalyptic imagery of Revelation, or the weighty language of God’s love for Jacob and hatred of Esau in Romans 9, it’s no wonder we return again and again to the compassionate Jesus of John 4. But when we consistently avoid the hard passages and retreat to the safe ones, we aren’t just simplifying the Bible; we’re shrinking the God our students believe in.
And the reality is, we don’t have unlimited time. The average student may be with us for two to five years. Even at the high end, we’re working with roughly fourteen semesters. That’s not enough time to cover everything. But with intentionality, we can expose students to the breadth of Scripture and show them that every part of the Bible matters. The law, prophets, writings, Gospels, letters, and even Revelation give us something essential about Christ. Here are a few ways to start teaching the whole bible.
1. Trust the Whole Bible.
One of my favorite moments in the Gospels is when Jesus appears to the two on the road to Emmaus. Disheartened after the horror of Good Friday, they had left Jerusalem and were walking away. Jesus appears to them, but due to their spiritual blindness, they do not recognize him and even question him: “Are you the only visitor in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened?” (Luke 24:15-18).
What follows is perhaps the greatest sermon never recorded—Jesus gives a Christ-centered exposition “beginning with Moses and all the Prophets,” showing how all of Scripture points to him (Luke 24:27).
While we don’t know exactly what Jesus said, we can assume he walked through the breadth of the Old Testament. When the New Testament refers to “Moses and the Prophets,” it is speaking broadly of the entire Old Testament. Jesus shows no hesitation, no avoidance, no favoritism. He trusts the whole of Scripture to reveal himself.
Paul echoes this: “All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable…” (2 Tim. 3:16). The full canon, the 66 books recognized by the church, is not only inspired but sufficient. Even the passages we struggle to understand are not obstacles; they are invitations to deeper trust and formation.
2. Don’t Avoid the Hard Texts.
From Jesus’ teaching, we see that the entirety of the Old Testament points to him. He does not pick and choose, ignoring certain sections while elevating others—and neither should we.
In fact, many of the most challenging texts, when we wrestle with them carefully, find resolution in Christ in ways that are deeply beautiful and theologically rich. But if we consistently avoid them, our students won’t just miss information; they’ll miss categories and frameworks of the application of the gospel. They won’t know what to do when they encounter these passages on their own, and we, as leaders and pastors, will stunt our own growth.
Walking through difficult passages with students, even imperfectly, teaches them that all of Scripture belongs. It all has authority, and Christ is present in every part. By preaching hard texts, we are forming our students to wrestle, to ask questions, and find the comfort of Jesus in the midst of it. Not only that, we are showing our students the beauty and value of wrestling with challenging texts and ideas.
3. Teach with a Plan for Long-Term Formation.
The Parable of the Sower continues to sober me—both for myself and for those I teach. How can I preach in a way that doesn’t result in students who “spring up” quickly only to “wither away”? Ultimately, God is sovereign. Even the most faithful and strategic preaching depends on him to open blind eyes. But that truth doesn’t remove our responsibility; it sharpens and grounds it.
One of my favorite images from the prophets comes from Isaiah 61. In a deeply messianic passage, we are told that those who receive the good news will become “oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified” (Is. 61:3). Oaks grow slowly. Their roots run deep. They endure storms and strong winds.
That is our aim in student ministry. Not quick growth, but deep formation. Not momentary excitement, but lasting endurance. By God’s grace, we long to see students become resilient, faithful men and women who will endure to the end. And that kind of formation doesn’t happen accidentally. It requires intentional, long-term teaching that exposes students to the full breadth of God’s Word, week in and week out. Teach the whole Bible, and trust that over time, God will use it to give your students a bigger Christ and a faith that endures long after they leave your ministry.
Youth worker, the gospel empowers you to preach the unsearchable riches of God (Rom. 11:33). He has not called you to change hearts, for that power is uniquely his. He has called you to be a mouthpiece for his grace. Eat this book (Ez. 3:3), pastor, and enjoy the thrill of introducing your sheep to the beautiful mysteries within, trusting the eternal work of the Holy Spirit to apply the benefits of Christ to the hearts of those God has entrusted to your care.
Building Resilient Faith: Helping Students Follow Jesus for Life is a guide for youth pastors and ministry leaders who want to help students develop a strong, enduring, Christ-centered faith that can withstand doubt, cultural pressure, conflicting worldviews, emotional challenges, and life’s inevitable storms.
