How can we teach biblical theology to kids? How do we share God’s truths with our children in ways that are thoughtful, beautiful, and true? A good place to start would be Irene Sun’s Taste and See. In her beautifully illustrated children’s book, Irene shares God’s goodness and love in the food he provides for his children all through the Bible.
SOLA social media manager Aaron Lee interviewed Irene about her book and how she came to write it. They also discussed:
- How she became interested in writing biblical theology for kids.
- Her background as a missionary’s kid
- The process for writing and publishing a children’s book.
- Advice for parents in terms of going deep in theology with young children
Watch their conversation below or on our YouTube page. You can also listen to their conversation on our Podcasts feed. Read Aaron’s article: Do Not Live by Bread Alone: A Book Review of “Taste and See.”
Below is a transcript of their conversation. Please note that there may be grammatical or spelling errors.
Aaron Lee: Hi, everyone, this is Aaron. I am here today for SOLA Network. And I have a very special guest today, Irene Sun. She is… well, I’m gonna let you introduce yourself. I mean, I don’t want to put words into your mouth, but you’re my friend. Is it okay to call you my friend now?
Irene Sun: Oh my goodness. Yes. (laughing)
Aaron Lee: Irene, can you please introduce yourself? (laughing) And then I wanted to talk about your books, which is how I know you. So yes, please introduce yourself and tell us about how you got interested into doing biblical theology for kids.
Irene Sun: Oh, thank you so much, Aaron, you’ve been such a great support. I am a mom in Pittsburgh – the short way to put it. And that is what I do from – not the moment I wake up, you know, I don’t want to give myself too much credit (laughing) – but that’s what I do from morning to night.
I am also a pastor’s wife. Hans, my husband, he is a pastor in the Pittsburgh Chinese church here in Pennsylvania. And he and I, we serve and belong to PCC. You know how all the different Chinese churches have all the C’s? We belong to one of those churches, we belong to TCC. And it’s just been a great joy. We moved to Pittsburgh around the pandemic. And so it’s only been about two years since we moved here. But we are so grateful to be part of this community.
And how I got interested in biblical theology, I think the person who introduced it to me was D.A. Carson, because I was at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School where when Hans was doing his PhD in systematic theology, I was doing my ThM in Old Testament, and this was before I even had children.
I was sitting in Carson’s class. And I just remember, I would just weep as I was sitting in that big lecture hall, and I hate crying in class because I’m one of the – at the time, this was 14 years ago – at the time, there were just not a lot of women in seminary classrooms. I know that, praise be to God, there’s just a lot more nowadays. But back then I would be… there would be a classroom full of brothers in Christ studying, and I didn’t want to be the wild woman crying.
But I remember, I was just so moved, by the way that God put this book together, in order to tell us what he’s like and what he has done, in order to win us to belong to Him. And it’s just crazy to me, that he would weave these threads that would begin from Genesis, and he would pull the thread all the way to Revelation, and we would have this whole story of kings and priests.
And so when I became a mom, you know, it’s studying the Bible is not so high up or abstract. Studying the Bible is very down to earth, right? And so my second son loved numbers. And so I started just collecting all the different numbers of the Bible, the way that Dr. Carson had collected all the passages about kings. I would collect all the passages about number four. And then as I was, like, following the thread of number four. One day, I was like, “Okay, so there are four rivers in the Garden of Eden. And there are four winds. And then there are four creatures before the throne of God.”
And I was like, “Oh, my goodness, like, is it even possible that the number four is about God’s creation?” And then I would do that with number five, you know, just following Dr. Carson’s method of like, following all the different number five through Scripture. I think it’s about God’s word being blown over and over and over again. And of course, like 12 is always about like God’s people, right? It’s like it’s, it’s always about God bringing his people to Himself and, and then there’s like the 12 fruits on the tree of life in the Book of Revelations. I was just like this is so cool! it wasn’t very abstract when it came to my children, and I just love that God was revealing himself through my reading the Bible with his children.
Aaron Lee: I can already tell by the way you’re talking that you’re a storyteller. You love stories, and you love God’s word and the way that he crafted it. But the way that you fell in love with biblical theology sounds really natural. It sounds like you were exposed to a little bit and God captured your heart with it. And I think it’s amazing. I think it’s awesome that you want to pass down that passion to your kids. And not just to your kids but to my kids now and to kids everywhere.
Irene Sun: Aaron, you have a child named Numbers. I want to know the story behind that!
Aaron Lee: Okay, Irene, I’ll tell you off the podcast, when we stop recording (laughing). But I am thankful for your books… they do love the book. Numbers loves the book on numbers.
You have two books so far. The first one is Taste and See: All About God’s Goodness. And you have God Counts: Numbers in His Word and His World. I reviewed both of them. So I’ll put the links in the show notes for this podcast. But can you give us a quick intro to those two books just kind of the gist of what they’re about?
Irene Sun: Yeah, of course. Um, the funny thing is that whenever I set out to write a book, I or God never makes it happen. And so I have a lot of books that did not come to fruition. But whenever I started a project or a study that did not involve making a book, somehow God would bring up the opportunities to turn it into a book. So that’s just the way that God works.
So this first one is God Counts. And this was written for Johanan, who loves numbers. He would sit in the back of the car and he would add numbers. We’ll be looking at the address and highway signs and everything and numbers are everywhere. And so I just wanted him to know that God’s book is also full of numbers so that he not only love God’s numbers, but he loves God’s word.
And the second one is called Taste and See: All About God’s Goodness. It was because my other son loves food. And I steam fish for him, and when I steam it—since we’re speaking to an Asian audience—I steam fish with like, garlic and ginger oil. As I was taking out this steamed fish, the first thing that he said was, “I call the fish eyeballs!” He loves food at a different level. So I love his love for food. And I just want him to know, you know, even food is a way that God teaches us about who he is and shows himself to us.
Aaron Lee: Yes. And I read your books are beautiful. I love them both. And I love how it’s personal for you too. I mean, it sounds like you really did write them for your kids first, and then you know, you’re sharing it with everyone else. Can you tell us a bit about your bio, maybe your salvation testimony story. And then just a little bit about your family. You don’t have to go too much into detail, but just so we can know you a little bit more personally.
Irene Sun: Yeah, thank you. I love telling my testimony. I was born in Malaysia, I am a girl. I was born next to the ocean. And from my living room in Malaysia, I could see the mountains that Mount Kinabalu and from the kitchen. I could see the South China Sea. So it was it that that was kind of part of my childhood.
But my parents were pastors and missionaries. And my first memory was in Tahiti. And you know, they were people who flung their lives and still are flinging their lives for the sake of the gospel. I think I was in a plane when I was 21 days old. And by the time I was four, I had lived in four different countries. And so that’s just part of my childhood and the challenge of being a missionary child.
So I think we experienced a lot of God’s grace and Providence in all things. We didn’t have a lot of good friends because we just didn’t stay in one place for very long. And when we did stay in places for a long time, I will be maybe the only Christian you know, my friends. So it was a very lonely childhood, even though it was a very happy childhood.
You know, in the Bible, every person comes to Jesus because of a desire, right? Like the blind people want to see. The lame people want to walk. I came to Jesus because I wanted a friend.
And I remember I was 14, and I was bullied at school quite often during that time. And so every morning before going to school, I would sing “As the Deer.” Do you know that song? There was that line in there: “You’re my friend and my brother even though you are a king.”
I remember that was the first song I learned at the piano without having the song assigned by my teacher. You know how the teacher writes little dates on each song, you know, but that was the first I learned just by my own motivation and it gave me so much.
It gave me strength to go to school. Like because I would say, “You alone are my strength, my shield.” And when I say shield, I can picture Jesus literally covering me because I was just so scared of the bullies. I had no friends at school. I would walk alone in the hallways, I will be alone during lunchtime. I was alone at recess, you know, and it just gave me so much, guess you could call it peace, to be by myself and yet be okay. Because Jesus was my friend and my brother and my shield. And so that was how I came to know the Lord.
Aaron Lee: Yeah, Irene, that’s beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing that with me, with us, with everyone. I’m sorry to hear about the bullying and the whole situation, but I’m so thankful to hear God’s faithfulness to you and God’s saving you. Yeah, that’s awesome.
Man, you triggered some memories in my head with “As the deer.” Yeah, that’s what piano teachers do. They write the date next to the song. And for “As the deer” is like in Maranatha books. I don’t know if you had it, but there’s like a green one, there’s a purple one. Yeah, that’s triggering some deep memories for me.
Irene Sun: Yeah, it was in D major!
Aaron Lee: Yeah, that’s the perfect song to learn as a piano student. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that with us.
Irene Sun: Thank you for listening.
Aaron Lee: Okay, so you grew up in Malaysia, and you were living the life of a missionary kid. But it sounds like some of our upbringing was similar. Just being Asian, I guess. We talked about this a little bit beforehand.
You talked about the dinner table as a place of repentance versus dinner as celebration. Let’s talk about that with everyone else so they can hear it too. You talked about how the dinner table is something different for Asian Americans versus maybe what the Bible would have us think. Can you talk about that?
Irene Sun: It was an overflow from this book. I had already finished it, and by then it was already in the press. The Gospel Coalition was really kind to invite me to give a workshop on the “biblical theology of food” knowing that in a women’s conference, there will be a lot of women who are thinking about this topic, and I gladly accepted the invitation. And as I was preparing, I was looking at Exodus 16 because that was the passage about manna, and manna is the bread from heaven.
The crazy thing was, as I was writing this book, one pattern that I keep seeing is that God loves to feed his children when we least deserve his kindness. So, the food always comes right before, right after, or during a great rebellion. So if you think about it, the manna passage comes right after the passage of the grumbling and mumbling and groaning and moaning in the desert.
Elijah, when he was running away from Jezebel, he was scared, and he was running away. And then God sees him. Instead of giving him a lecture, baked him cake, literally, according to the Hebrew texts.
And then, of course, there’s the last supper that was the night when Jesus was going to be betrayed. And then, even after Peter’s three denials of Christ, during the resurrection week, Jesus called out to his disciples from the shore and say, “Come have breakfast.” Yeah, that was when he asked Peter three times as an act of repentance, “Peter, do you love me, Peter, do you love me, Peter, do you love me?” Three and three so that he can repent three times. And that was when I saw that food is not a reward in Scripture. In Scripture, food is not a lollipop you give to your child for being good at the doctor’s office. Food is given as an invitation. Even up to the very last moment before Judas steps out into the night to betray Jesus, Jesus was still offering bread to Judas, Judas, you don’t have to do this. Here is a piece of bread. He’s still extending an invitation to come to him to return to repent. You don’t have to betray me.
And so in the Chinese Context, we love celebrating around food, whether it’s Chinese New Year, or Lunar New Year and of course, there’s like the feasting to eat every day for 15 days. I go to a different relative’s house, at least in Malaysia, and we do the full blown 15 days Chinese New Year— and it was filled with strife, it was filled with unspoken tension. The way that we get past tension is to eat, but it’s the eating without the forgiveness—whereas God is always extending forgiveness. And that is how God’s table is different from a human table.
But I think as Christians we are called to set a table that God sets, which is to say, He wants us to set tables that are laden with forgiveness and Mercy. Yes, there’s judgment because God is a holy God and he cannot help but the holy. But then if we accept his food, we must also accept His mercy.
And so that’s why at the Lord’s Supper, it says if you do not meditate, and think about how you sin, you are eating judgment upon yourself, because you’re just accepting the judgment without accepting the mercy at God’s table. We accept judgment and mercy together.
And so going back to Exodus 16, the text says, he rained bread from heaven, and that was when I was completely blown away. Because the rain is not Hebrew word for rain like a neutral rain, like when Elijah is asking for rain on their crops. This is the rain of judgment, which is to say, the Sodom and Gomorrah, fire and brimstone kind of rain and rain that God sent to flood the earth during the time of Noah. God sent rain, the judgment of bread. So in other words, judgment and mercy is baked together.
And that is how God works, his goodness is beyond our imagination. And I could not have seen it if I didn’t have the opportunity to teach it from the Hebrew text. So I’m so grateful.
Aaron Lee: Okay, mind-blowing stuff here. I’ve got to rethink my whole theology now.You’re obviously super knowledgeable. So how do you take this knowledge and put it into a children’s book? What’s the process for that? Do you have it all in your head? How do you put it onto paper? How do you get it to the publisher and be like, “Hey, this needs to be out there.” Give me the rundown.
Irene Sun: Whenever I’m out to tell people stuff in a book form, God does not make the book happen. So like, I’ve written a book about Jonah. And I wrote another book about being an Asian American child, and those books were all rejected. So like, my rejection letters are definitely way more than my acceptance letters. But the ones that were accepted, are when I think I genuinely want to tell my children about what I’m learning. So the process, I think it’s, it’s a lot of failing. And so I always teach my son’s English or writing, okay, and I can tell them that every single day.
First, drafts are always ugly. First, second, and third, always ugly, and a lot of writing and rewriting and rewriting and rewriting and to be able to take criticisms and to be able to throw away stuff. Those are crucial skills to throw away stuff.
So I send stuff out to friends. I have connections in the higher academic world who are studying. So I would send my drafts to friends who would just give it to me—tell me what is not working here, and they’ll tell me. And they’ll tell me. And then I would try to take it graciously and thank them for their kindness.
Aaron Lee: I think that’s good life advice. I’m thankful that you went through the process of doing that, and we have your work now to be thankful for. And I’m sure the rejected works all contribute to this. I’m of the mind where you have to get through the bad stuff to get to the good stuff. So I, I’m thankful that you went through the process.
Let’s step back from the books, and I just, I want to end with this. Do you have any advice for parents in terms of going deep in theology with young children? Maybe that includes books? What would you say?
Irene Sun: Aaron, you have three very young children?
Aaron Lee: Yeah, I do. Yes. They’re all under three. Yeah.
Irene Sun: So when I was where you were, the three words that were so helpful for me just from day to day are: “Behold not behave.” Because I think as, especially those of us who are raised in Asian homes, “Bbe good; behav” is what we hear all the time.
I grew up as a pastor’s daughter in Asian churches, you know, so, my whole upbringing is about being good and behaving, especially at church. And because of that, I missed seeing God for a large part of my childhood.
So when we are teaching our children theology, and at this stage they don’t know very much about theology yet (they don’t even know what that word means, right), so I would take a lot of walks in the botanic garden and teach them to behold. And if they start crying at the doctor’s office, instead of saying “shh, behave” or “shh, be good” you point them to where their eyes need to look at.
So instead of saying, “No, don’t do this,” you give them an alternative of what they should be looking at. Okay. And so I think that’s for very young children. So instead of saying, “No, don’t jump off the table.” You say, “Come to mommy.” So you’re giving them another thing to look at? Don’t say, “Don’t run around,” say, “Hey, come and read this book with me.” So pointing their eyes away from whatever they’re doing.
So that’s for very very young children. But now I have a teenager. So I have a teenager, a middle schooler, an elementary schooler, and I have a four year old—a preschooler. The way that I tried to think of how to teach theology in this spectrum is with my teenager, like even today, like we were talking at the dinner table, because we’re talking about friends and what they’re going to do for their talent show in youth group. And, and so these are like, very nitty gritty kinds of conversation, right? I would go back to the beholding, like we become who we behold.
When you’re looking to friends, like who enjoys being mean, who enjoys what they call roasting each other, then we become like that, instead of leading them to God to godliness. We become like them because we’re beholding them. And then the more we behold them, then we start to adore them and worship them. Then we become who we worship, then it’s like this cycle of, of beholding, and becoming and worshiping.
So I’m constantly learning how, and praying for how I can direct my children’s attention—behold God. And every child is different. Because every child, the Lord wins every single one of us differently. Like going back to my testimony in the beginning, everybody has a different desire, right? Like blind people want to see and lame people want to walk, each child has different desires, and it is up to us as their parents to discern what that desire is, and then tell them “Ohh, Jesus can.” And everything that you are longing for can be found in Christ.
And so at different stages of their development, it just plays out differently. When they’re three, Aaron I’m very envious of you. Well, you can be like, “Oh, look at this flower. There are like 10 petals on this flower! Let’s look at the different colors on this flower. That’s how the petals are.” You can divert their attention in a way more easily than like now when he’s 14. And it’s harder for me to direct his attention because some of those desires are already forming. So, I don’t know Aaron. I’m in the trenches with you, just a different part of the trench.
Aaron Lee: Irene I’m so thankful for you and for your wisdom and your knowledge that you shared. Even just from reading your books, they gave me ideas on how I can use numbers and food to eat to point my kids to look to Jesus just in everyday life. That already gave me ideas. And now, if you’re telling me this is going to be a lifelong thing for our parenting, just trying to direct their gaze towards Jesus, yeah, I’m here for it. And I’m thankful for your time and I’m looking forward to to any other work you have coming soon. We’ll keep in touch.
Irene Sun: Yes, please.
Read Aaron’s review of Do Not Live by Bread Alone: A Book Review of “Taste and See.”