Teach Your Children Well

I was speaking with a youth pastor recently who lamented to me that even the children of church members in his group were woefully Biblically illiterate. Having taught fifth and sixth graders for a couple years myself, I knew his pain. This brought to mind a question. Who IS responsible for training our children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord? I would contend that it is most definitely not the Church for two reasons.

First, given the fact that most parents are not Biblically training their children, most of the time spent in Sunday School is geared toward gaining and keeping control of the classroom. There is precious little time left to teach the Bible.

Secondly, one hour a week is simply not enough to counter the constant anti-Christ drone of the secular society in which we live.  These messages comes in many forms and fashions, some detectable, some well hidden.  It simply doesn't seem to me to be very realistic to think that children are going to be equipped to answer and navigate these messages on a diet of an hour or so of church a week.



What To Do? Five Suggestions:

1. Never forget that the stakes are exceedingly high.

2. The stakes are exceedingly high and are in fact eternal. If we say we believe the Bible to be the very Words of God but are not living them out under grace before them , we shrink Him, His honor, His glory, and in fact eternity itself. When they don’t see us loving his Word, we teach them that loving his Word is not important. When they don’t see us pray, we teach them that praying is not important. When we are not being sanctified, we teach them that sanctification is no big deal. In the end, what they learn from us is that, really, God is no big deal. It should be no wonder then that the vast majority of children raised in the church walk away from it when they are older, never to return.

3. The stakes are exceedingly high. Parents who out-source the education of their children must realize these stakes regardless of who they out-source it to; whether it be a “Christian” institution or the government. With this in mind we shouldn’t wait for our children to be taught anti-Christ teaching before we attempt to un-teach it. Be the first to teach your children what the lies of the enemy will look like and be, then be the first to counter them. Learn what those lies will be. Be tenaciously on guard for new angles and attempts to subvert and supplant your teaching. Learn learn learn, then teach and live as if your children’s eternal destiny depends on it.  (more on this here)

4. The stakes are exceedingly high and your Church should function as if the stakes are high. Remember that you are a living part of the Church. (1) Put away the notion that there is the Church over there, and then there is you over here who attends as a consumer. Prayerfully and carefully choose your Church so that you will fit. Be vigilant against false teaching because you are a living member of that body and in as much are infected by it as well as responsible for its health. In the teaching of your children remember that the Church’s responsibility is to affirm what you teach and not the other way around.

5. The bottom line is that the stakes are high. It is the Western way to work hard and then coast. This is not the Biblical way. Your children are worth fighting for, and that fight begins with fighting for your own devotion. Just as with Paul who at the end of his life proclaimed to his spiritual son, “I have fought the good fight”, (2) so it must be with us also as an example to our children. To this end, the 18th century theologian Jonathan Edwards as a young man wrote seventy resolutions for his life. Number 22 says: “Resolved, To endeavor to obtain for myself as much happiness, in the other world, as I possibly can, with all the power, might, vigor, and vehemence, yea violence, I am capable of, or can bring myself to exert, in any way that can be thought of.” (3) In the same way, it is not because we succeed in hiding from our children our failings and thus present to them a life that appears in our own minds to be exemplary, as if we had at some point arrived at our Christian-ness and that they should endeavor to do the same, but rather that we should live a life that endeavors to honor, glorify and exalt God; all the while knowing, as did Paul, that we will never attain it in this life. (4) In so doing we teach them from a young age that our walk with our Savior is a journey, that we are at times victorious in grace and at others defeated in grace, but still, though we have fallen, we are not cast down, for the Lord upholds us with His hand. (5)



Note 1:
Eph 2:19-22
19 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 21 In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22 And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.
NIV

Note 2:
2 Tim 4:6-8
6 For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure. 7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8 Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day-and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.
NIV

Note 3:
The Words Of Jonathan Edwards vol. 16

Note 4:
Phil 3:12-14
12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
NIV

Note 5:
Ps 37:23-24
23 If the LORD delights in a man's way,
he makes his steps firm;
24 though he stumble, he will not fall,
for the LORD upholds him with his hand.
NIV