Teaching the Content, Part 3

Continuing on from the two previous days’ post, referencing the booklet Bringing the Gospel to Covenant Children: In Dependency on the Spirit by Joel R. Beeke.

Seventh:

Teach them the necessity of Faith in Jesus Christ.

Teach them that the gospel is one thing and our response to it is another.  Tell them they must believe and yet can’t believe unless the Holy Spirit gives them the grace to believe.

In addition to explaining what faith is, explain to your children what saving faith does…

As Luther wrote, “Faith clasps Christ as a ring clasps its jewel.”  Faith wraps the soul in Christ’s righteousness, then lives out of Christ.  Faith commits the total person to the total Christ.

Eighth:

Teach them about Jesus Christ.

Strive to develop a biblical, Christ-centered worldview in your children.  Teach them that every thought must be brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. (2 Cor. 10:5)

Nineth:

Teach them about sanctification and holiness.

Show them from the Bible that holiness will become visible in such children through their gratitude, service, prayer, obedience, love, and self-denial.

Tenth:

Teach them about the joy of heaven.

I would like to end this section with one last quote from this chapter:

Do not joke with your children about any Bible truth, Bible character, or Bible instruction.  Do not make light of the things of God.  Life is too serious, death too final, judgment too certain, and eternity too long to indulge in humor about the sacred truths of Scripture.

Saving Faith or the Devil’s Drug?

“It is now almost universally supposed that saving faith is nothing more than an act of the human will, which any man is capable of performing: all that is needed is to bring before a sinner a few verses of Scripture which describe his lost condition, one or two which contain the word “believe,” and then a little persuasion, for him to “accept Christ,” and the thing is done. And the awful thing is that so very, very few see anything wrong with this—blind to the fact that such a process is only the Devil’s drug to lull thousands into a false peace.” —A. W. Pink (1886–1952)