« Why Christ Alone Must be our King | Main | Loving God as We Might »
March 14, 2004
How Does a Child Learn to Believe in God?
How Does a Child Learn to Believe in God?
Psalm 119: 105-112 / Deuteronomy 6: 1-9
II Timothy 1: 3-7
March 14th, 2004
When a child is born into our family of faith, I think two things. First, I wish the little one were coming into a happier world. This week we were reminded once again that the world can be an unfriendly place. Spain does not seem far away. But second, I think, maybe this little one will be part of a turning of the tide. The Kingdom of God, that will one day displace violence completely, may find in this little child God’s instrument.
It wasn’t hard to find suitable texts for this morning when we welcome little Timothy into the family of the Church. I chose three texts, a psalm that described the benefits to us of the teaching of the Bible, then a passage from Deuteronomy about how to teach a child God’s way of life, and third, a very personal statement from the Apostle Paul to a lad who had the same name as Rich and Jennifer’s second little boy whom we baptize today. Timothy means, “honored of God.”
Timothy obviously meant a great deal to the Apostle Paul. Reading slowly over these few verses in II Timothy we see Paul wearing his heart on his sleeve. I wonder what one of you has ever written so tenderly of your affection to a young person. Paul writes of Timothy’s tears. The affection went both ways. Whom would you tell is on your mind night and day? Whom would you actually tell, “I look forward to seeing you that much?” I suspect that as this letter was circulated it was not seen as excessive. Here we have a striking picture of the kind of love that bonded brothers and sisters in Christ in the early going of the Church. What do you think Timothy thought when he read these words from the great mover and shaker in the early church? “I mean that much to him?!!”
I would hold this before us as an example. There is possibility of very deep friendship among those whose hearts have been tenderized by the love of Christ. In a world that can be very harsh the Church can provide an oasis of affection.
In the Book of Acts Luke tells us that Paul met Timothy in the twin towns of Derbe and Lystra—which was a bit like saying Timothy was from the greater Lafayette area. His mother was a Jew, which made him a Jew. His dad was a Gentile, which perhaps complicated his upbringing. The one thing Luke says of Timothy personally was that he had a good reputation. His good reputation was conspicuous.
Now there are many people we know who don’t have a bad reputation. We sometimes hear something like, “I never heard anyone say a contrary word about him.”
But it is a different thing when the specific positive remark is made, “We cannot forget her gracious ways.” Timothy was this kind of person. His goodness stood out. He was the kind of person mentioned in the Book of Proverbs: “When a man’s ways please the Lord, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.”
Now having everyone speak well of Timothy might give us pause. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, “Woe to you when all speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.” But Jesus spoke this to His disciples who were going to have a prophetic role in the future. False prophets speak a feel-good message. They offer what David Brooks recently described as “heaven lite.” This “soft-core spirituality” strokes the easygoing narcissism that is so much a part of the atmosphere today.
The Gospel tells us Good News of the love of God. But it is tough love, we might say. The Gospel is not soft-core spirituality. It calls for a change of life that’s hard to achieve and that has specifics to it.
Timothy would have a speaking role in the church. When he got to that stage of life, he would need to give the straight goods, the full message of the Gospel. The full message is not just that God loves you, but that Jesus says, “Come, follow me.” That is not an easy message to get across.
But Timothy did not yet have a prophetic role in the church. He was a young man beloved by teachers and fellow students at school. He would be the kind of fellow today who plays high school sports, is an Eagle Scout, is fun to have in youth group and Sunday School, and volunteers at the Homeless Shelter. You wonder how he has time for all this. He’s not just a super-achiever; there’s character that shows through his smile. Timothy came to the notice of those around him because he had high character as well as a charming personality.
All of us wonder when we see extraordinary character form in a child, “What made this happen?” There is a difference between great ability and great character. Heredity has something to do with great ability. Character has to form anew in each generation for everyone. Character forms from a number of ingredients—heredity, upbringing, environment, and the choices a person makes.
So it was for Timothy. Paul particularly calls our attention to Timothy’s heredity and upbringing. The faith he saw in Timothy was first in Lois, his mama, and in Eunice, his mother. I wonder how Paul knew this? When he visited their home, he watched the ways of these two women. He saw how Timothy got on with them. The older lady exuded kindness, a graciousness that stood out in her daughter, Timothy’s mother. Paul looked at this bright, vigorous, gentle young man and he could see the correspondence in character with his mother and grandmother.
We wonder why Paul said nothing about Timothy’s father. Maybe he had a good dad and grandfather too, but they didn’t stand out as his mother and grandmother did. They were quiet men. Maybe they seemed to stand in the shadows by comparison with the women and Timothy. This happens and is not a bad reflection on the men.
Naturally our eyes turn to the parents of an outstanding young person. We assume great parenting stands behind a remarkable child. We may assume unfortunate parenting led to a troubled child. But this is neither fair nor accurate. I’ve known some parents who struck me as extraordinary whose children were disappointments—at least in the short run. I never give up on a person, particularly if they have a solid home. Conversely, I’ve known some negligent parents, busy with everything but parenting, or even living shoddy lives, who have a child like this Timothy.
It is God’s best intention for us that the little ones we bring into the world should be given a sure foundation for life. When the Psalmist wrote, “Thy testimonies are my heritage forever; yes they are the joy of my heart,” he wrote of the fond place God’s ways, taught to him by his parents, had in his heart. Is he telling us his parents did as Moses said? The means they went by the book, that is, by Deuteronomy 6: 1-9?
Some of us grew up in a generation when memorizing the Bible was sometimes used as a way of straightening out a naughty child. Imagine being compelled to memorize Bible verses as a punishment for doing something bad! Not the best way of developing a fondness for the Bible, I’d say.
Moses taught a far better way. Day in and day out children were to be taught to love God. “Hear, O Israel, The Lord our God is one Lord. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” Morning and evening in every home mother and father were to speak of this with their children. Morning and evening it was not mommy and daddy telling junior to say this, but saying it with them, and then discussing it. Jewish homes still are noteworthy for all the discussion that takes place. Moses taught this way of life in the home that welds together the generations and gets the great rules of life deep into the heart and mind.
It was a banner day when a little child was able to say the first word of the shema with her parents. They marked it down in a diary: “Today little Sarah said, ‘Shema Israel’.” It was another banner day when she asked her first question about it, or gave her first idea of what it meant.
This was the first part of the big plan. How do we avoid that odd situation where parents want children to go to church, or at least to Sunday School, but the children see it’s not important for mom and dad? We avoid irrelevance when it is evident to the child that mom and dad teach by doing as well as saying. Morning and evening mother and dad repeat with the children, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.”
Secondly, the ways of God were the continual subject of conversations in the home. Moses taught how to lead the discussion.
Moses taught four ways a child should learn the ways of God by means of discussion..
First, parents were to repeat these words diligently. Repetition is the best way of teaching. It is the mother of memory. Children learned the words of the Bible as the first step in learning their application to life. Because to know what the words mean, you must know what they are.
“What does it mean to love the Lord?” A good parent might ask, “How is loving God like loving your mom and dad or little brother?” Then a thoughtful parent would look in more detail. “God says we are to love Him with all our heart, soul, and strength. What is it to love God with all my heart? What do you think God means that we should love him with all our soul? Is this different from loving God with all our heart? After God told us to love Him with heart and soul, why does He add “all your strength?” What is it to love God only a little bit? ” “Let’s talk about this. What do you think this means?” So little junior starts to think about loving God every day as mother and dad learn with him. Since little children are very direct perhaps they would challenge mother or dad: “Do you think you love God when you act like that, daddy?” Good teachers learn more than they teach. So mom and dad learn more and more to love God as they try to help the little ones understand how to love God.
Second, you shall talk of them when you sit in your house, walk by the way, lie down, and get up. Perhaps you think that the talk in the house would get pretty boring if it was always discussing this one topic in the Bible in all these circumstances. But I don’t think Moses meant this at all. The subject was loving God. Loving God is something we do in many different ways. Jesus taught us that whatever we do for someone in need we’re doing to Him. When we as parents talk with our children about their relationships with other people, we show them how to love God in loving other people. We do this in all the different settings of the home—when we’re lying on the couch, or getting up to get a glass of orange juice, or sitting in the rocking chair, or walking out the front door. This is what Moses was getting at.
In the home we talk about all sorts of things, and usually without any particular method in mind. If gossip about other people is the subject of conversations in your home, it’s hard to love God while gossiping. Our children might notice this before we do. If a child is taught to think well of people, to overlook their oddnesses, to forgive their offenses, to see the best in them, then God is being talked about lovingly in the home.
Paul taught us that we should do all to the glory of God. “All” is pretty inclusive. We don’t have to seem “religious” in talking with our children how to glorify God. We can get to the bottom line of why it is important how we do our homework. It’s not just to get good grades to feel proud of, or even so that someday we can get a good job. Maybe they will be surprised to know that “good work is God’s work.” Doing homework well glorifies God.
Doing “all” to the glory of God includes how we speak to each other in the home. God is glorified when we speak kindly with each other. When we talk about loving God throughout the day, we’ll be talking about a lot of different aspects of life.
Third, Moses said, “Bind [these words] as a sign on your hand and as frontlets between your eyes.” In Jesus’ day there were devout Jews who took this literally. Beginning with the second century before Jesus’ day, pious Jews wore tefillin or phylacteries; pieces of parchment containing certain verses from the Torah attached to the head and left arms. The left arm is closest to the heart. Sometimes the tefillin were very conspicuous. It was a way of showing how pious you were. Jesus chided the Pharisees for enlarging their phylacteries to demonstrate their piety.
Somehow I think that Moses had none of this in mind when he said, “Bind them as a sign on your hand and as frontlets between your eyes.” I think that he was using a figure of speech. It was like saying tie a string around your finger to remember something. In other words, “Don’t forget!” It was not everything about all the laws and commandments that people were not to forget in the home. It was this one part, the beginning part, and the most important part: love the Lord with all your heart, soul, and strength.
Mother and dad start the process of thinking about all of life in terms of loving God. They pass it along to the children. The children pick up from us what we think is important. If all our conversation is about sports, about the stock market, about buying new cars and new clothes, about making the house spiffier, about all those things we can buy in our prosperity, and we forget the matters of the heart—what it is to love God as you love other people—then our children see matters of faith as extraneous to life.
Perhaps we Christians would do well to devise our own phylacteries if it would help us remember what is really good to talk about in the home.
The fourth way Moses taught us to train our children was to write the love of God on the doorposts of our homes and on our gates. Each devout Jewish home has a mezuzah on the right side of the front door and on the right doorpost of every room except the bathroom. Mezuzah means “doorpost.” The mezuzah would contain Deuteronomy 6: 4-9 and 11: 12-21, which gave the command and the warning about not keeping the command to remember these things.
While I think it may be a good thing to keep these visible reminders at each doorway, and it would provide thought-provoking ornaments in the home, I don’t think the point Moses was making had to do with the mezuzoth themselves. It was just another way of emphasizing that loving God is the most important thing in life. And the best place to learn and teach this is the home.
Now I know that not all of us here have children. For that matter, not all of us are married. We live alone. But when I think of the church, I think of it as a community made up of all our different kinds of homes. The point Moses was making was that our homes are to be saturated with reminders of the love of God in word and deed.
And if what is most truly true about us is our love for God, a love displayed when we “let it all hang out,” in loving our nearest neighbors, that is our spouses, our parents, and our children, then there is bound to be some good effect of this on the next generation.
It has been said, and we know it’s true, that if our children grow up with criticism, they learn to be critical of others. If they grow up nurtured by the love of parents who make it plain that the reason for this is the love of God—brought to mind in many ways in the home, then our children will have a pretty good foundation for moving out into our troubled world.
We are thinking a lot here about the importance of a good youth program. But clearly the place where a child learns most and best is the home. I hope that we may offer a fine program for our young people. I’m grateful for the faithfulness of some of you in keeping on with this. But we can never replace what comes to a child in the place where she spends by far the most time—home.
Our Sunday School adds an exclamation point to what our children learn at home. Our youth fellowship adds a social aspect for our children and offers young folk who may not have strong homes a place to learn by osmosis. Here our children can do fun things together with friends from homes with like idealism. It is good to create a community that re-enforces the teaching of the home. But we cannot replace the home with either Sunday School or Youth Fellowship.
We will do all we can to forge this kind of community here. I’m proud of our Sunday School. I am proud of the faithfulness of you who work with our youth. Our track record is good. I aspire to tomorrows with like blessing.
Perhaps here we will foster the development not only of a young man named Timothy, but we may provide the spawning water in which many young folk may become such as Timothy was in the early church—an encouragement, a leader by example, a source of joy to Paul, to his mother and grandmother, and to all who knew him. To generations yet to come Timothy created a momentum, showing the good effects of the Gospel. We read of him in our New Testament, something he never imagined would happen—to be an important personality in the Bible.
Our Bible has no more parts to be written. But what remains to be written is a letter from God inscribed on our hearts, available to be read by all who are hungry for God. I pray that many such letters will be written in our homes, made more clear to be read by the encouragement we all find in this place. So that we become active agents in God’s blessing extended to this suffering world in which we live. I welcome you to take part in this wonderful life.
Let us pray: O Lord, we thank you for the homes in which we learned to love you. Grant us strength and wisdom to offer this present generation a place into which to learn to love You wholly, with heart, soul, and strength. Amen.
Stuart D. Robertson
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, Indiana
Posted by faithpres at March 14, 2004 09:30 AM