The Father's Mandate [Part 8] with Ed Blunk
Teach Them God’s Word
For a video on this part of the father’s mandate, click here.
“If I am going to build a trusting relationship with my children, it must be built on God’s Truth and not on man’s wisdom. Bible. My children see God through ME. My children will trust GOD based on how they trust me.”
When I first drafted a plan for our family, a key element of that plan was we would know God’s Word. From my youth I knew the parable of the wise man who build his house on the rock and the foolish man who build his house on the sand. When it was time to “build my house,” I wanted it built on the rock. I did not want my house to go splat!
There were several things we did to teach our children God’s Word. Some worked better than others and some worked better for some children than others. As Dad, the number one thing I did was “put my money where my mouth is.” I led or supported our various efforts to make God’s Word foundational in our home and to have a regular diet of it.
Two of my favorite things we did for our younger children were GT and the Halo Express, a musical scripture series, and kitty stories. GT was our first foray into scripture memory. GT put key scripture to song with catchy tunes around a kid friendly story line. Kitty stories were my creation. As I would tuck a child into bed, I would pick up one or more of their stuffed animals and tell a Bible story from the animal’s perspective. For example, it was Ehud’s kitty that knew the secret of how he escaped through Egon’s latrine. (See Judges 3:12-30)
Multiple days of the week we had a family devotional time. We as a family were reading God’s Word, discussing it and how it might apply to our lives. We called these times “Wisdom Searches” to remind us “everyone who hears these words of mine [Jesus] and puts them into practice is like a wise man.” I led these times by being the first one there. I had a plan, which sometimes was just reading the Psalms and Proverb for the day. I “put my money were my mouth was” by buying all eight of us copies of the same Bible. (Our prereaders brought their story Bibles.) For some children, I helped them install book tabs on their Bibles. Both of those investments made it easier for everyone to get on the same page.
We attended a church that taught from God’s Word and participated in parachurch ministries which emphasized learning and living by God’s Word. In other words, we consistently set before our children examples of others looking first to God’s Word for answers.
For our three younger children, one of those parachurch ministries was AWANA. Our thought was it would support our goals for learning Scripture but perhaps with more fun than we could muster on our own. The oldest of the three now tells me her biggest incentive for memorizing Scripture was the quizzing competition. The middle one was motivated by the community and the youngest was motivated by the rewards. All three valued the fellowship and positive peer pressure. They now tell me continuing AWANA throughout high school was key to them knowing the scripture. Through AWANA they memorized over 600 verses in addition to the 110 verses from the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) that we required as part of school.
We took a different approach with our older children. It was less fun and more brute force. With them, we set the long-term goals of memorizing sections of scripture like the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) or Romans 6-8, over the course of school year. As Dad, I placed value on the memory work by making time to listen to and applaud their recitations. We also used goal incentives. One goal incentive I offered was that I would take whoever memorized Psalm 119 to whatever restaurant they wanted to go to, within driving range. Our oldest daughter was the only one to take me up on the offer, but it was not until she was in college that she finished this project. As a mature young woman her choice of restaurants was way beyond McDonald’s. I am glad because it was an incredibly special memory for both of us.
Our second born daughter also found new energy for memorizing scripture in college. She joined the Navigators. When we would visit her at college, I would often see in her pocket her scripture memory cards. She made that choice. Today, as a young mom, her home is based on the Word as she and her husband regularly make time to read the Word together.
Today I am still working to encourage my descendants to learn and memorize God’s Word. With our grandchildren home from school because of COVID, I use video calls to read them Bible stories and lead them in memorizing Bible verses. For our grandchildren that are 5 or older, we have developed an incentive program where they earn money for each verse memorized. This seems to work best if they are trying to earn money for something and can see the incentives as moving them closer to that goal.
The keys I found to teaching our children God’s Word can be summarized as:
1) Live the example before them.
2) Put your family where they will see others living the same example.
3) Put your money into it.
4) Take advantage of positive peer pressure.
5) Persevere, do not quit.
May you find the Word of the LORD sweet to your taste, sweeter than honey to your mouth!
Ed Blunk