WHY We Teach Our Children Pt. 1 of 3

Probably every Mama wants to be a good Mama.  I certainly did not set out 5 years ago to be a bad Mama.  The reality of motherhood probably hit me around the time Hadleigh was hitting 2 years old.  It went something like this: You are not the best.  So I accepted defeat somewhat gracefully, and started to wonder, if I cannot be good at the whole thing is there at least a couple areas I can be good at?

Usually I do not get the luxury of only doing things in life that I am good at, or only doing things that I want to do.  Sometimes, most times, I need to put on my big girl panties and clean the bathroom, or whatever it is that I do not want to do.  The last couple of years, however, I have really enjoyed discovering what I love about being a Mama and what I am really good at…hint…it’s not housework.

My bathrooms might not always be spic and span, my floors might not always be vacuumed, and my bookshelves might not always be dusted, BUT we will always have good food at my house because Dave and I LOVE to cook.  I love to bake and we love to make things from scratch, from cookies, to bread, to granola, to mac and cheese, to soup.

The other thing I love is teaching my children about God.  It is not only one of the things I love to do, but it is also something that Dave and I think is highly important, and I would hope all believers would put this as a high priority. 

I am going to break these ideas up into 3 different posts.  This first one will talk about WHY we teach our children.  The second post will be HOW we do teach our children.  The third post will be a resource list of things we use.  This list is ever changing and growing because I always love a new idea, and a new book or a new cd.

WHY We Teach Our Children

1. Want them to know the Bible

I want them to know the Bible, not just verses here and there, but to know and understand how the Bible works.  How do all the stories fit together into one big story?  How do these little stories point us to the bigger story of God redeeming the world?  What do all these little stories have in common and how do they show us Christ and our need for him?  Not only do I want my children to understand how the Bible works, but I do also want them to love scripture.  Scripture is an amazing gift, and the more we know of it and love it and immerse ourselves in it, the more we will know and love God.

2. Want them to begin to understand the authority of God

I think that part of the reason that we are the authority as parents is so that when we grow up we have a framework for the authority of God.  My children have boundaries, they receive consequences, they receive rewards, and they receive grace and mercy.  These all go back to God and his authority.  I cannot do whatever I want.  If I choose to live my own life there will be consequences because I am not the authority, God is.

3. Want them to have a language of faith

I want them to grow up understanding the terminology that believers use.  This is a little different from knowing theology and from knowing scripture.  I think this might be how to marry the two together. 

4. Want them to have a working knowledge of theology

I grew up knowing a lot of scripture, but with no working knowledge of theology.  I thought theology was lame and unimportant until after college, when I realized every believer is a theologian, some of us are just better ones than others.  Soon after I began college I began to wrestle with the doctrines of sin and sanctification.  I could proof text my way through an argument, but I could not use the whole of scripture to understand or articulate what I believed.  Theology is such an amazing resource to have at our disposal if I had been more versed in it my college experience might have been easier.

5. Ultimately we want them to have a relationship with Jesus.

This might be a given.  Who cares about all the rest of this if they do not have a relationship with Jesus, and yet I might argue that it would be hard to have a relationship with Jesus without these things.  I cannot make or grow faith in the heart of my children, that is the work of the Holy Spirit alone, however I can give  them tools to help them understand faith and God.