Introduction
Who is primarily responsible for teaching the faith to your children, you or the church? In this short Ask FGBC, Pastor Jim Butler turns to Deuteronomy 6 and Ephesians 6 to answer that question, then offers practical guidance for the day-to-day work of catechizing children at home.
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Transcript
Keywords: catechism, parental responsibility, biblical instruction, church role, Deuteronomy 6, Ephesians 6, both/and approach, family worship
Speakers: Pastor Jim Butler and Wim Kerkhoff
The Biblical Case for Parental Responsibility
Wim Kerkhoff: The title I’ve given to this one is, “Who Should Catechize Your Children, Parents or the Church?” So is there a biblical case for Christian parents bearing that primary responsibility for teaching their children? And is there practical guidance just on the nuts and bolts of how to do that at different ages?
Pastor Jim Butler: Sure. The biblical case I would say is, you know, Deuteronomy 6, “Teach these things to your children when you rise up, when you walk by the way, and when you lie down.” Certainly as well on the plains of Moab, the emphasis is pass these things on to the next generation. When your son sees this happening, he’ll ask the significance for it and you’re supposed to be able to answer him. And then the New Testament passage is Ephesians 6, “Fathers, do not provoke your children, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.” It’s training and admonition of the Lord. It’s not the training and admonition of mathematics, though mathematics is under the purview of our Lord. But the emphasis is on religious instruction. I think Malachi the prophet foretelling the ministry of John the Baptist is that John would, or his ministry would turn the hearts of the fathers to the sons and to the children to the fathers.
Both/And: Church and Family Working Together
So I think the primary orbit of catechetical instruction is the family. But I don’t think it’s an either/or, either the family or the church. I think it’s a both/and. I think that the church, you know, feeds and instructs the sheep of God, the husbands and or fathers and mothers so that they in turn then go home and teach their children. But as well, I think pastors should, when in their preaching, want to be understood by children. Again, you mentioned earlier, if we get 25%, not 100%, 25 is better than nothing. I think that every sermon, you know, well preached ought to speak to everybody in attendance. The hay needs to be put out for all the horses. Some are taller, some are shorter, but put the hay at a place where, you know, the short ones can get it too.
So I think it’s a both/and approach. The church, the church as the pillar and ground of the truth instructs parents so that parents can in turn instruct children. But children are being instructed in the church as well through sermons that they can follow or understand, through catechism classes, through Sunday school. That’s all helpful and supplemental.
Practical Guidance: How to Catechize at Home
In terms of the nuts and bolts, similar to what we said with the Bible, pick it up and open it. You know, we make available a catechism for young children, and it would be akin to you teaching your child to read. It would be akin to teaching your child basic mathematics facts. It’s basically rote. It’s memorization. It’s, you know, who made you? God. God made me. What else did God make? All things. So repetition, you know, memory work, just, you know, encouraging, explaining along the way the significance of these questions and answers.
What Conversion Changes
And one of the things that I have seen in the use of catechetical instruction for young children is that, you know, they don’t get it. They get it the way they get 6 times 6 is, you know, what is it, 36? They get it, you know, at that surface level. But what I have seen in personal experience is that kids get converted and they get it. They didn’t get it. I mean, they got it.
Who made you? God. Well, that’s pretty gettable. But once they’re converted, you know, what is God? God is spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, and is being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. I mean, that’s, they get it in a way that they didn’t get it when they memorized it by rote. But memorizing by rote inserts into them a body of truth and doctrine that will last them the rest of their lives. I mean, arguably, arguably, that’s why we teach kids their mathematics tables, their times tables. We teach kids, you know, phonics and how to read and alphabets so that will serve them for the entirety of their lives.
The Primary Responsibility Belongs to Parents
So the nuts and bolts, very simple. Open it up, sit your kid down, your child down, and say, I’m going to read this and then I’m going to ask you. And you just go through it. And it’s not magic. It’s not esoteric. It’s repetition. It’s long haul, just like you teach. I mean, just like, but similar in way that you would teach multiplication tables.
So both and church and family. Primary orbit is family. Fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up. It’s not my job to raise your kids, right? It’s not the government’s job to raise our kids. It’s not, you know, civil authority’s job to raise other people’s kids. And it’s not ecclesiastical authority to raise people’s kids. Can we help you and instruct you and provide some things for them? Sure. But the primary onus of responsibility in terms of parental or in terms of child training is on the parent. You know, the parent that looks for the government to raise their kids is a pretty pathetic individual. But I’d argue that it’s not the church’s primary focus or job to raise your kids either.
“And” Not “Or” in Baptismal Vows
Wim Kerkhoff: Yeah, I’ve seen that in certain churches, when parents baptize their babies, or sprinkle, have them sprinkled, they’re saying vows. And the wording in there is, you vow to raising up your children in scriptural truth, or cause it to happen. And it should be an and, not an or there, right? That just sticks out to me. So people just basically abdicate, delegate. Oh yeah, church and school has it. So mission school, that’s taken care of, checkbox, checkbox. And I’m done, right?
Well, we’ll wrap up this series of questions here and save the rest for another time.
Pastor Jim Butler: Yeah, thank you very much.
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