The family is designated by God as the core unit of society, whereby parents are to teach God’s truth to their children. A country is only as strong as its families. Families are only as strong as their faith in God, as individuals and a unit. So it is that God said,
“You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. “These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. “You shall teach them diligently to your sons 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 up.” (Deuteronomy 6:5-7)
Therefore, the main purpose for the family is missed, if God’s truth is not known by the parents. God’s purpose for the family is the most important, which is to convey the truth about Himself. Care, affection, and training in survival for the children are vitally important to b
e sure, but they pail when compared to eternal truths.
Furthermore, those parents that know God’s truth but fail to share it effectively with their children are no better than those who do not know it. Even worse are those parents who share God’s truth in the home but fail to live it out in a consistent way; they place a stumbling block of hypocrisy before their children’s way.
There is no better way for you as a parent to teach your children God’s truth than to first believe and practice it yourself. The first and great commandment according to Jesus Christ (Matthew 22:38) is this one recorded here in Deuteronomy 6:5. “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” This is the first place where all the religions of the world go astray, they do not see God as a person and personal.
False religions are mechanical, ritualistic, built on “good works” an
d self effort, and impersonal so far as God is concerned. Even Catholicism, a cultist sect of Christianity, that teaches salvation by faith in Jesus Christ but has additional doctrines that deny it, such as the treasury of merit. This doctrine teaches that some saints have been so good that they have more goodness than they need to enter heaven, therefore, it is put in the treasury of merit. The less fortunate people who cannot merit heaven can buy indulgences to obtain a saint’s merit, and thereby spend less time in Purgatory. Nowhere is such a teaching even intimated in the Bible.
The person that wants to be the best parent that they can be should get studied in Biblical theology. For 900 years teachers departed from the correct teachings of the Bible, but afterward God raised up men that would declare once again the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this reason it is a good idea to begin with the teachings of the reformation.
My counsel to the father and mother that wants to instruct their children in godliness is to go out and buy a copy of Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion. The best place to begin is in the section on prayer. Read Calvin’s thoughts, consider the Biblical reality about the things he writes, and then share them with your kids.
