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Jan
26
Written by:
Spence Hackney
1/26/2006 8:18 AM
Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD alone. You
shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your
soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding
you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about
them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and
when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem
on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on
your gates.
(Deuteronomy 6:4-9) NRSV
Today I went through a sermon by Dr. Bill Bennett called Don't Be a Dud - Be a Dad in my devotional time. One of the scriptures was Deuteronomy 6:4-9. I have read the Shema
(verse 4) many many times. It is absolutely central to the
Christian (and Jewish) faith. However, something grabbed me today
about verse 7 where God commands me to "recite them to [my] children
and talk about them when [we] are at home and when [we] are away, when
[we] lie down and when [we] rise." What a responsibility!
God has just placed the task of making sure that my sons know the
scriptures on my plate.
When my first son was still in the womb we prayed nightly that he would
love God, love to pray, and love to read the Bible. While this is
certainly a very good idea, this is not enough. We are
responsible
for taking the active and practical steps to communicate the scriptures
to our children. It is our responsibility as parents (and not
God's) to transfer knowledge of the scriptures into our children.
We are pretty new to this parenting game (we have a 2 year old boy and another in the
oven), but we have already started reading the Bible to our son.
We read the Bible every night to Nathan (I recommend "The Children's Illustrated Bible" by DK Publishing), and have since he was
born. I know that he doesn't understand much of it now, but I
want to instill the habit...and he does absorb some. Now when he
looks at the pages with the animals he starts saying "God made
giraffe" or "God made ei-ei" ("ei-ei" is Nathan for monkey). Even with this encouragement, I
have been getting discouraged that we are wasting our time reading the
Bible to Nathan at this age because he understand so little.
However, in light of Deuteronomy 6:7 I think that we need to crank it up
a notch!
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Psalm 30:2
O LORD my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me.
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