Before we get to today’s article, I just want to mention that am writing from the perspective of a man that has experienced many of the challenges of which I write…. and those spiritual battles continue daily. The articles are implications of what it means to obey the commandment to raise your children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. They require some reflection and are particularly for Christians who, as Peter would say, are diligently seeking to confirm their calling and are making every effort to supplement their faith. Said more succinctly, serious Christians. If you know other believers who desire to walk more faithfully with the Lord, please forward an article to them and tell them to sign up for future articles. Thanks so much!
Let’s remind ourselves why we are back in the Old Testament looking for instructions on how to raise children. First, the Old Testament God is the New Testament God. He is the never changing God, and His perfect wisdom is throughout the Bible. Second, we get little direct instruction in the New Testament, but we receive more than ample instruction in the Old Testament, and third, the New Testament writers both believed in the Old Testament and said it was written for our instruction. Personally, I find in some cases, the Old Testament is a clarifying witness to God’s dealings with His children and the clear commands regarding children make my point.
So, if we think about what we have read in the first several chapters of Deuteronomy, we get the picture of a gracious restart for the Jewish nation. We are on the precipice of finally being allowed to enter the promised land and God has Moses recount the history of God bringing them out of Egypt, the following years of rebellion and idolatry, and God’s longsuffering display of His love and faithfulness. Like the perfect presenter of an airtight argument, He lays out the case for their future obedience and subsequent consequences for obedience or disobedience.
And here is where we need to pause and truly see not only the character and heart of our God, but the fact that He had Moses write these things not just for the first group of people that He called His own, but for the next group of people, called Christians, that He also calls His own. So when Moses says the famously known words, “Hear, O Israel,” and begins laying down the very basics of living from the great, “I AM,” we need to remember that Jesus declared that He was that same “I AM.” The words that will follow will be the critical fundamentals for raising children in a fallen world and if we use some modern day vernacular, these instructions are the “first things of parenting.” If we don’t get these things right, our other efforts to raise Jesus loving children will almost certainly fail. With that in mind, we move to Deuteronomy 6:4.
Verse 4. Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.
Where else in the Bible do we find this? In the New Testament where none other than God incarnate, the Lord Jesus Christ, speaks in Mark 12:29-30. Jesus answered, “The most important is, Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ Matthew Henry says this: “That there is only one true God. The firm belief of this self-evident truth would effectually arm them against all idolatry.” Yes, I think Matthew Henry is making a profound point. As we listen carefully to what God is telling us, we will see that He is doing all He can to lead us not into the tempting sin that is an abomination to Him- idolatry.
Verse 5. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. Prior to this we have had history and we have had warnings. We have been told that it is necessary that the people fear God. But now the first, shall we say action command, is to love God with every part of our being. Think about it- this is the first commandment given before everything else and if a person strived to do this one commandment, he would be insulated from all of the other pitfalls in the world. This one commandment is the opposite of idolatry. And going forward, we will see that all of the other commandments that follow regarding children are designed to insulate them from the great sin of idolatry also. Another good point from Matthew Henry: “Fear hems us in to obey, but love leads us to obey with a happy heart, a devoted (unshared) heart, and desirous heart to obey. By the way, this is how we want our children to obey us as parents!”
Verse 6. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.
What does that mean? It means that God does not want an empty formal obedience. It means that He wants you to know His words so well that they are woven into your very being. Why? Because we know the word of God sanctifies the soul and informs a person’s thinking. He wants His words on your heart because that is the seat of your affections and desires and will cause you to love Him with everything in you. And this isn’t a selfish, needy God that demands these things for His good; this is a loving, sustaining, providing, healing God Who wants these things so we can experience joy and an everlasting relationship in a beautiful country (heaven) that we cannot even get our minds around.
So, hear Oh Christians! These are the things that God is commanding to the parents who are listening. They are to remember God’s greatness, to fear Him, to obey Him, to not go after idols and to love Him only, with every fiber of their being. What about the kids? Well, there is no point in talking about raising godly children if the parents are unfaithful. In other words, these things must be true of us as parents before we can model and teach them to our children. We cannot teach them to love God and not the world if we are idolaters. You can’t share what you don’t have! More on that to come.
Verse 7a. You shall teach them diligently to your children.
Note how quickly God transitions from commanding the adults to commanding truths about parenting. Parenting children is incredibly important to God! Parents must take their knowledge, love, and obedience to God and diligently teach those same things to their children. Why did He choose the word diligence? Because He intends for parenting to be a hardworking, industrious, meticulous, conscientious, attentive, persistent job! That is going to require some things from parents that they will be reluctant to give up, but that’s for another article.
Verse 7b-9 And shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
I‘m going to take these three verses as a command from the Lord with one purpose in His mind. He has just told parents that they are to love Him and obey Him and keep His words on their hearts, and now He intends to use the parents as the means for doing the same with their children.
Thinking about application to us today, we must remember that there were no Bibles in the homes of the parents, not even a copy of the first five books of today’s Bible. Memorization of the scriptures were the key to having God’s word in your heart. Therefore, having select scriptures written down and kept before them would be helpful. I think there is also something interesting about where they were supposed to be. Binding small boxes with Holy scripture to hang near their hands and eyes would create a visual reminder to think about God wherever they look and whenever they try to do anything with their hands. In theory, a person couldn’t do anything without being reminded of God.
But to focus on the outward sign without thinking about what it represents would be a mistake. The context of the command to use these boxes of scripture is that parents would have ongoing, all day, nonstop discussions about the Lord with the goal that God’s words would be on their hearts as it is with the parents. God wants parents to build a framework or foundation of truth upon which ever increasing amounts of truth will be layered, resulting in a stronghold for God in the heart. We are talking about staking out mindspace for God, resulting in an intellectual and spiritual grid that will filter every bit of data experienced in the world we live in. So, the boxes are an aid and reminder of the conversations and teaching that parents are to have with the children, not the main tool for successful parenting. Now, in order to fulfill this commandment, the magnitude of energy and time required from the parents would be huge. It seems like it would actually require more time and energy from the parents than anything else. Hear O Israel; Hear O Christians!
Regarding the boxes of scripture as well as the signs on the doorposts and gates, most Christians have these kinds of visuals around their home today and have no need of frontlets or phylacteries. We also have copies of the complete word of God throughout our homes, garages, and cars. Of course, we also wear crosses and t-shirts that can remind of us of Jesus or send messages to others. But these things are of no effect if we give little of ourselves to actually talking about Jesus. I doubt any person has ever been saved or any child raised to love God because their mom wore crosses as pierced earrings or their dad wore a t-shirt that said, “I can do all things through Him that strengthens me.”
In regard to verses 7-9, there is more to think about, but we will have to do that in the next article. Lord willing, I will see you then.
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Last modified: March 19, 2023
