MamaArcher's Blog

Evangelizing our Children

I just love it when I come across a book that is so good that I feel the need to underline almost everything in it.  Some people can write with such clarity and pointedness!  I came across this little booklet a while back that sounded like something I would like to read.  It was only $2 brand spankin new and I thought, “Hey, it is only $2, I’m gonna buy it and check it out!”  It wasn’t like I would have wasted a lot of money if it turned out to be a not so great book.

This little booklet is SO good!  It is a book on how Christian parents need to be bringing the Gospel of Christ to their children.  The author doesn’t just approach the subject of evangelizing our children as something that is needed but gives practical ways to do so!  It is more than worth the two measly dollars I spent!  For the next few days I will be sharing little excerpts from the booklet for you.  There is so much to glean from it! (All excerpts will be in blockquotes.)

It is entitled Bringing the Gospel to Covenant Children: In Dependency on the Spirit byJoel R. Beeke.

Often times we do not fully comprehend scripture or the fine balance contained within it.  I think we are often people of extremes.  It is true that believing in the Gospel is somewhat extreme and the Lord calls us to live in a somewhat extreme way in comparison with the world.  The call of following Christ can seem extreme at times but we must always make sure that we are considering the whole counsel of God in matters and not blowing things out of proportion.  I am chuckling as I write this because I have been told on more than one occasion by other believers that I am extreme in my beliefs.  Maybe I just need a better way of articulating what I mean.  Maybe what it is that I am trying to say is that a belief, conviction, or teaching from the scripture may seem extreme to the world but is the standard that we are called to pursue.  We need to live in obedience but but not to exaggerate the truth to a point where it no longer resembles the truth.  Does that make sense?  A good example is Calvinism verses Hyper-Calvinism.

All of that to say that there needs to be a balance in how we look at teaching and training our children with the Gospel message.  It is our Christian duty to teach and train our children to love the Lord.  It is not our duty to save them, we are unable.  We must not rely to much on our training yet we must not neglect it either.  We must not presume upon the Lord to save our children yet we must not underestimate him in his sovereignty and saving power.

Andrew Bonar said, “If conversion be God’s work, in which the Holy Spirit reveals Christ to the soul, surely his work can take place in children as really as in the old.”

Professor Beeke describes two unbalanced views parents often have concerning evangelizing our children.

A biblical view of our covenant children would greatly enhance our attempts to evangelize them properly. Before explaining that, let us first examine two errors that many evangelical parents make today in viewing their covenant children.

He goes on to explain that parents tend to either overestimate or underestimate the covenant relationship in regards to our children.
To overestimate:

The fruits of presumptive regeneration are tragic. Parents who presume that their children are regenerate by virtue of the covenant see no need to tell their children that they must be born again. William Young calls this view “hyper-covenantism,” because the relation of children to the covenant is exaggerated to the point that the covenant relation replaces the need for personal conversion.

For those in non-covenantal churches I have also seen the same destructive results when parents assume that it is the church’s responsibility alone to teach and train their children.  Or where parents see the church as the PRIMARY place of educating their children in the Gospel.

To underestimate:

Many Baptist and some Reformed people reduce the covenant to insignificance. They do this by failing to recognize the importance of the covenantal relationship of children with God. From the New Testament era on, they believe, children of believers have no promise extended to them, and thus by implication have lost their special place of belonging to the covenant of Jehovah.

Beeke says that we must properly estimate the covenant.

The covenant must be viewed neither as a substitute for regeneration and conversion nor as a matter of secondary importance.