Priscilla's Page

If we insist the child attend school but do not insist he be present in a Bible class, we are teaching him something.  Could he be learning that the knowledge gained in classes offered in the school is more important than a knowledge of God?  Or, you as a parent do not find it important enough to teach him about God!

If you take him to a football practice instead of bringing him to Bible class on Wednesday evening, he just might get the idea that sports is more important than going to Bible study.  If you stay home on a Sunday morning, just to entertain or prepare a meal for company, are you not teaching the child in your home that friends and family and their happiness and comfort is more important than doing the will of God?  Why not invite the guests in your home to worship?  Perhaps everyone would enjoy the day more.  God would surely be pleased.

When you and your family choose to go to the lake on Sunday or some other place of entertainment for the day, then come in quietly to take the back seats in church five or ten minutes late, what do you think it is teaching the whole family?  If you and the family go out for dinner to the best of restaurants, spending $40, $50 or $60, then on Sunday you grudgingly give $10, $15 or even less to the Lord, you have taught a lesson quite well!  If a person spends more weekly on such things as jewelry, smoking or on personal shopping trips, etc., then finds his heart and his purse empty Sunday morning, what has been taught in the home?

Yes, we are all teachers.  What do we teach?  Has God been well pleased with the lessons presented and so easily learned by the most important people—family?  Who has the top priority?  Believe me, the child may be spending much time away from home.  In a school, at a babysitter or some other holding pen during the day, but the time he spends in his home, in your presence, can and should be made the quality time of his young life.

Teach him that getting a great education is fine, but do not avoid equipping him with the knowledge and wisdom to be found only in the Bible.  Quietly take time out of the busy workday to read and study the most important book you will ever open.  The holy Bible can be the guide throughout his entire life.  It will not lead anyone astray!  “Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6).  God spoke to parents in the Old Testament.  Today he says, “And ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4).  We are asked to bring the children up in the knowledge and wisdom of the Lord.

When the ‘twig’ has been ‘bent’ in the right direction, it matters little if the storms of life blow the twig to and fro.  When the winds have ceased and the tempest is past, the twig will once more flourish, returning to its natural bent.  What has been taught?  Yes, we always teach!