Teaching Children

“What people will remember is what you're passionate about.” That's what Don Carson says about preaching. I agree and I think it extends further than that. I've been thinking about growing up in the church and about what children and teenagers are taught. I believe there is a great danger in just teaching true things. The danger is that kids will come away with a miscellany of truths without knowing how those truths connect or what their foundation is. They may even know that the cross is the central thing, but they won't necessarily figure out how.

This is dangerous because a kid's world is all about good and bad, punishment and reward, rules and consequences, so when they look at the miscellany, they will likely see a call to be good. Our children will not see grace unless someone shows them. They may grow up with the great blessing (I mean this) of knowing what is right and wrong, but with little grasp of the righteousness of God, with little awareness that God is familiar with our sin and has already answered it, without the motivation of doing good from security and out of thankfulness, without the knowledge that the Lord Jesus will help us in our struggle and that it will all be over and better in heaven. Let's do our best to teach these things to our kids.

Not that it will ever be safe – for even if our teaching is right and true and as it should be, there is the danger of neglecting to model it. And there is also the danger of all our preaching and living being before little ones whose hearts are yet hard. We must pray that we will speak and act as we should and that they will listen and act (and in their turn speak) as they should.