The Lord says through the Apostle Paul, "This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart: Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. But ye have not so learned Christ;
If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus: That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another. Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: Neither give place to the devil. Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers (Eph. 4:17-29)." Also Paul speaks to Timothy, "But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them; And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works (2 Tim. 3:14-17).
So what can be deduced from the above verses? I don't have the time or space to speak of all that we can learn for parenting, however, one thing is true, to which I want to stress- there is never a moment in our lives in which we are somehow "living" neutral. We are always teaching something to our children and we are always living something before their eyes. In our home the resolve has been to do away with anything that has even a hint of ungodliness. We don't watch television, we don't listen to secular music, and we don't make it a habit of putting the world in front of our children. On the contrary we put the things of God in front of them. One of the best ways to do this is through song. Song has the power to instill truths in our children from the earliest stages of life. I can testify to the that through the experience of our everyday lives. We have three memory systems in our home. The first is through "foundational verses" which we review everyday and add to them the older the kids get. The second is catechisms, we are using the Westminster Confession Shorter Catechism. Lastly but probably the strongest of all three (if only because our children are so young) is song. Our oldest two children have around fifty to sixty verses or more committed to memory. I don't say this to be proud, I say this because it should be the case with all Christian homes and to show that it can be done! Our children have incredible minds and the ability to learn that far surpasses my own. When we instill the Word in them we are making the most of our time!
Here are the resources we use (for song), and if you know of any others please feel free to send me a comment and tell me of them.
No comments:
Post a Comment