“Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.”
– Deuteronomy 11:19
Hi James and Ellen,
What does it mean to you to be Christ-followers? Are you glad that your dad and ma are Christ-followers? Why do you think that your dad and ma are Christ-followers? What do you think that it would be like in your home if your dad and ma were not Christ-followers? Your dad’s ma and dad are Christ-followers. Your ma’s dad and ma are Christ-followers. Your grandpaa’s dad and ma and your grandmaa’s dad and ma were Christ-followers. Are you glad that your dad and ma have you going to a Christian school? Your grandpaa went from second grade through eighth grade in the Christian school that is in Volga, South Dakota. Your grandpaa went to a one room rural school the first year that he went to school. Your grandpaa believes that a dad and ma should always find ways to expose their kid or kids to Biblical truths. Your grandpaa believes that a kid will learn a lot from guys and gals – such as significant others or teachers or . . ., who know how invaluable it is for a kid to accumulate and to internalize Bible knowledge. What do you hope to do with the Bible knowledge that you have learned and are learning from your dad, ma, significant others, teachers, etc.?
God wants you to be passing on the Bible knowledge that you have learned and are learning as you are being taught by your dad, ma, significant others, teachers, etc. God – through His preplanned, personalized life teaching curriculum, will have you go through all kinds of life lessons to slowly but surely deeply embed into your heart and mind the Bible truths that you are learning from your dad, ma, significant others, teachers, etc. In the last speech that he gave to the Israelite people group guys and gals – who are God’s specially chosen guys and gals, Moses fervently challenged his listening audience to never stop retelling to their kids what they saw when they were kids. Moses was on the east side of the Jordon River when he passionately implored for the last time the Israelite people group’s dads and mas to teach their kids about God. Over the forty years that Moses led the Israelite people group guys, gals and kids on a meandering desert exodus because of their unwillingness to demonstrate a proactive trust in God by boldly marching into the land area of Canaan – which God was giving them to always to have to live in as their very own land, Moses had seen some of the guys and gals who were in front of him grow from being teenagers to now being almost sixty years old. During their forty years of wandering about in an oppressive arid environ, many of God’s specially chosen guys and gals found spouses and had kids. Moses uses this final address that he gives to his extended ‘family’ to specifically identify the need for them to do intentional kid time – to always be teaching their kid or kids the same essential life truths that they had personally learned and internalized over the past forty years.
Deuteronomy 11 is Moses’ summation of a series of ‘in your face’, non-negotiable demands that he had God tell him to tell his compatriots – who are the Israelite people guys and gals. Moses starts out his synopsis by telling God’s specially chosen guys and gals that they are to first of all love their Lord God and then they will be able to keep their Lord God’s commands, requirements and decrees. It is at this point that Moses tells the Israelite people group’s dads and mas who were born in Egypt and old enough to remember that they are to never ever to forget that their kids have not seen or experienced the same things that they saw and experienced when they left Egypt with their dads and mas. These Israelite people group’s dads and mas had been eyewitnesses forty years earlier to God’s majesty and mighty hand, His outstretched arm through the ten horrific plagues that He indiscriminately brought against the guys and gals and the Pharaoh who ruled over the guys and gals who lived in the country of Egypt and the country of Egypt’s land area and what God did to the country of Egypt’s army and the country of Egypt’s army’s horses and chariots when they tried to bring their dads and mas back again to their country of Egypt to be Egyptian indentured slaves, when the path between the walled up Red Sea water closed over them. Moses then adamantly told the Israelite people group’s dads and mas to fix the words that he was saying in their hearts and minds, tie the words that he was saying to their hands and bind the words that he was saying to their foreheads. Moses then went on in the next verse – which is verse 19 to say, “Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” Moses also told the Israelite people group’s dads and mas to write the words that he was saying on the doorframes of their houses and on their gates. Moses knew that probably sooner than later that the kids who would be born to the guys and gals who he had been faithfully leading for forty years would be enticed to bow down to and worship foreign idol gods. Moses knew that once God’s specially chosen guys and gals begin to compromise the belief mandates that God gave them through him to believe in Him as being their Lord God that God would first begin to take away and then He would remove completely all the blessings that He had promised His specially chosen guys and gals – the Israelite people group guys and gals. The right and wrong choices that God’s specially chosen guys and gals made are your teachers today. What do you think that Israel’s nation of guys and gals would be like today if they had obeyed God’s expectations?
Deuteronomy 11 (1029)