(originally printed in the Delmont Record)

“These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.  Impress them on your children.  Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.  Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.  Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”  (Deuteronomy 6:5-9)

How many times have you seen a parent that seemed to work a little too hard at winning over their children?  Maybe they try to do this by wearing the latest clothes, or trying to listen to the same music or by watching the same movies.  Too often as parents we feel pressure to impress our children instead of taking seriously the responsibility we have of impressing on them the Word of God.  Martin Luther understood the importance of providing our children with a solid foundation of biblical instruction. In fact, one of main reasons why Luther undertook the assembly of his large and small catechisms in the first place was to provide parents with a valuable resource with which to adequately instruct their children in the basics of the Christian faith.  His title for the first section of the Small Catechism demonstrates this: “The Ten Commandments in the plain form in which the head of the family shall teach them to his household.”

This Lenten season, we are studying Luther’s Small Catechism in a series entitled, “The Catechism Pointing Us to the Cross.”  Each week we look at a different section of the catechism as a way of better understanding what Jesus did for us through his suffering and death on the cross.  On Ash Wednesday, the series began with the first table of the Ten Commandments, and the verses above are found in the chapter following their listing in Deuteronomy.  As a father of two young boys (one of whom will soon be born), I was struck by what an awesome responsibility God has given us as parents – a responsibility to not only teach our children the things of God, but also a directive to model this teaching to our children through how we live our day-to-day lives.

The importance of this is evident in that over half of the Ten Commandments deal with how we interact with others.  This shows that our faith was never meant to just be an intellectual exercise or a vague assent to certain religious tenants, but it was always meant to be a faith that was lived out – a faith that really makes a difference in the way we live and the choices we make.  And this difference needs to be seen by, and needs to be explained to, our children.  God did not just give us His Word as something that should be considered in times of decision, but He gave us His Word to be the focus of our decision-making process.  And as parents, we need to ensure that our children understand the place that God’s Word has in our lives, and we need to teach them also to obey God’s Word when making their own choices.

James 1:22 teaches us, “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves.  Do what it says.”  Our children are not easily fooled.  If we teach one thing but live another, they will quickly see through us.  We may strain to teach our kids that they should only say nice things to others, but when they hear mom and dad say careless, hurtful words to each other that is a lesson that is not easily forgotten!  Or how can we expect them to be respectful of their teachers when they constantly hear us speaking disrespectfully about our boss or others in positions of authority?  Our children are constantly learning from us – whether through our words or our actions and that is why it is vital that we see every moment as an opportunity to teach them valuable life lessons from God’s Word.

Every parent, willingly or not, leaves a lasting impression upon their kids, so let us seek, in every moment, to impress upon our children the importance of honoring God in all that they do.  We can do this by giving thanks before every meal (even publically at a restaurant), or by readily asking our kids for their forgiveness when we fail to obey the commands of Jesus in their presence.  We can do this by letting them know the basis for the decisions that we make, and by teaching them to look to God’s Word for themselves.  Maybe doing this means that we dust off the old catechism we have at home and teach them the basics of what it means to live the Christian life – and maybe we’ll even learn a few things along the way.