No Bragging, Big Brother!

Music lyrics, movie lines, video game strategies and most certainly commercials are all so easily memorized and internalized by our kids. Yet there are some Bible class teachers and children's church leaders who don't give them enough credit for being able to learn and process scripture. They need to play, do crafts, sing and dance. That's just how kids learn. Well, I beg to differ. We are creating another generation of kids with the inability to sit and think without having 5 different things to "stimulate" their senses. When will they learn scripture? When they are teens? Young adults? By then their hearts no longer belong to us and they most certainly do not belong to God because they have no real knowledge of him.

J and I do not rely on others to teach our children scripture. That is our job. Deuteronomy 6 tells us

4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.

5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts.

7 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.

8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.

9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

Why is this on my mind today? Well, yesterday IJ was doing a bit of bragging about getting something right. JJ recognized it for what it was and called him on it. Did he yell at him or tell him to stop? No, he attempted to read Proverbs 16:18 to his brother.

Pride goes before destruction,a haughty spirit before a fall.

Now it had been at least a month since he read this verse, yet he remembered it and knew how to apply it. My 7 year old did as Paul did to Peter in Galations 2. He confronted him with his clearly wrong behavior, in love. We need to give our children credit for wanting to know what's right and more importantly we need to give God's word credit for convicting them just like it does us.