We don't love our Bibles enough. And because we, as parents, don't love our Bibles enough our kids don't love the Bible. Walt Mueller (of www.cpyu.org) says to parents, in his work about teenagers called The Space Between, "It is important to be about the business of developing your own inward character in a godly direction" in order to convey godliness to your child. That is convicting. Are you reading your Bible?
What is even more convicting is that my 3 and 1/2 year-old is mimicking everything I do right now. If I'm up at 6am in the morning reading my Bible he wants to be right there with me doing the same thing. I recently had the wild idea that I was going to teach some Scripture to him to see if he could memorize it. I had little hope that he would be able to memorize an "adult" translation of the Bible. Moreover I probably picked one of the hardest verses for a 3 year-old to memorize, 2 Corinthians 5:21, "God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God." I love this verse because it is the gospel in a nutshell and I thought to myself, "what better verse for him to learn." Again, I had my doubts but in 3 days he had it down pat - no problems - the only word he has trouble with is Corinthians but I'm going to let him slide on that.
All that to say, we are given a huge responsibility to train our children to love the Word of God and if we don't do it early and often, while their minds are these incredible sponges little sponges, we will fail in our duty. We will also fail to follow the directive of Proverbs 22:6.
Granted, we cannot make our children love the Bible, only the Holy Spirit can do that, but we can place the Scriptures before them early and often in as many creative ways as possible. Make it your goal to get your children acquainted with the Bible. One way to do this, no matter what age they are, is to buy them a Bible. If they are older take them shopping to buy one. If they are younger I recommend The Big Picture Story Bible.
Think about it, a decent knowledge of the Bible is the foundation of a solid view of what Christianity (following Jesus) is all about. How many times have you told your children, "if I only knew what you knew when I was your age I would be a better Christian and further along in my walk with the Lord." I know I have said that. What do you inspire your kids to be: athletic, intelligent, beautiful...or godly? Ryle says that "any system of training which does not make a knowledge of Scripture the first thing is unsafe and unsound."
It is a weighty task, but God has given parents the responsibility to us to train our children to read the Bible. We are to train them to look to it for answers. We are to train them to look to it not as the word of man but the Word of God. We are to train them to see it as truth. We are to train them to love it. We are to train them as Paul says in 2 Timothy 3:14-17:
14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, 15 and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Parents, see to it that you are reading your Bible regularly and likewise train your children to do so. If they are too young to read, read it to them. Train your children to see the Bible as just as necessary as their daily food. See to that they read all of the Bible and are exposed to the whole counsel of God. Do not shy away from all the doctrines of the Bible - children are able to understand far more than we realize.
I'll close with Ryle's apt instruction to parents in regards to the Bible:
Tell them of sin, its guilt, its consequences, its power, its vileness: you will find they can comprehend something of this. Tell them of the Lord Jesus Christ and His work for our salvation - the atonement, the cross, the blood, the sacrifice, the intercession: you will discover there is something not beyond them in all this. Tell them of the work of the Holy Spirit in man's heart, how He changes, and renews, and sanctifies, and purifies: you will soon see they can go along with you in some measure in this.
"Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path." ~ Psalm 119:105
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