This last week the last of our children went back to school for face to face in person instruction. I know you Forsyth county people sent your children back weeks ago but for us disease ridden Fulton county people this is a big deal. I mean it was cute for a while. Elijah set up a little office next to mine, desk, chair, trash can, the whole 9 yards. He even had a little plant in there. I enjoyed having my son as an office mate. I could hear him interact with his virtual teacher and virtual classmates, we ate lunch together, at breaks we would throw the football... at least that is what we did for the first week. It didn’t take long for that penny to lose its shine. Our last academic exchange was a yelling match about the ladder method. For those of you who don’t know, that’s a complicated and convoluted process some yahoo invented to find the greatest common factor or the least common multiplier and if you don’t know what those are, join the club! Let’s just say I am happy to be sending my son back to school and I am fairly certain he is happy to be sent. Let us all pray that the great homeschool experiment of 2020 has come to an end. Seriously, let’s say a prayer. “Dear Lord, keep our children safe and their teachers sane. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.”
Now all we have to do is get our Sunday school classes back up and running and we can once again farm out both the academic and spiritual instruction of our children to others. Won’t it be nice when we can once again rely on our Sunday school teachers to teach our children the ten commandments, the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer, or the articles of the confession. The sooner we can once again outsource the training of our children in the way they should go to the Sunday school teachers the sooner we can re-watch Season 3 of The Crown before Netflix releases Season 4.
The only thing preventing us from getting back to being delightfully detached from our children’s spiritual instruction is Deuteronomy 6:1-9, that and 500 years of Lutheran heritage.
One of the great strengths of the Lutheran church is its desire to be a teaching church. We go to great efforts to ensure that our pastors and teachers have been extensively trained. Every pastor in our church body holds at least a Master of Divinity. But our interest in education is not restricted to the clergy. Our church body operates one of the largest parochial school systems in the United States. This system includes 304 Lutheran elementary schools, 393 early childhood ministries, and 27 area Lutheran high schools. Additionally, we own and operate 2 college preparatory high schools[1], 1 College[2] , and 1 Seminary[3]. Further, as Lutherans we are interested in teaching children of all ages, even those who have entered what Shakespeare described as the “second childhood”. Lutheran Bible information classes are unique in the sense that in them people are taught the Word of God not told the Word of God.
Our reputation as a teaching church goes back 500 years. For the 1,000 years prior to that, people had outsourced the spiritual education of the children to the church. They told themselves that it was for the best; that their children would receive a better education from the priest than they would from their mother or father. The people had such confidence in the instruction of the priests that they never bothered to verify that their children were being taught the truths of scripture. Eventually the priests decided, if the parents didn’t care, then neither did they. As a result, generation after generation became more and more biblically illiterate.
In 1529, while visiting churches in Saxony, Martin Luther saw for himself just how bad it had gotten. In his preface to the small catechism Luther wrote, “Mercy! Dear God, what great misery I beheld! The common person, especially in the villages, has no knowledge whatever of Christian doctrine. And unfortunately many pastors are completely unable and unqualified to teach. This is so much so, that one is ashamed to speak of it. Yet, everyone says that they are Christians, have been baptized, and receive the holy Sacraments, even though they cannot even recite the Lord’s prayer or the Creed or the Ten Commandments. They live like dumb brutes and irrational hogs.” The Saxon Visitation forced Luther into action. In response to the biblical illiteracy of his day Luther wrote the Small Catechism, one of our church’s most treasured possessions and the inspiration that made us the teaching church body that we are today.
Our Lutheran emphasis on Christian education is strongly supported by Scripture. In Deuteronomy chapter six Lutherans find in Moses a kindred spirit. There we see Moses giving his final instructions to the Israelites. The have so far been delivered from slavery in Egypt by the parting of the Red Sea, they have been preserved with mana from heaven and protected from their enemies as they wandered in the wilderness, and they are now standing on the precipice of the promised land, one that was said to be flowing with milk and honey. God’s grace; His undeserved love surrounded them.
Today we find ourselves in a similar situation to the Israelites. We have been delivered from our slavery to sin by the sacrifice of the one and only Son, daily and more richly than many, we are being preserved and protected as we wander through the wilderness that is the first half of the 21st century, and we too stand at the precipice of a promised land, one that is said to have pearly gates and streets paved with gold. God’s grace, His undeserved love surrounds us.
Surrounded by God’s grace Moses commands the Israelites and the Holy Spirit commands us to keep Christian education a priority; we are commanded to Know the Word, Teach the Word, and Live the Word.
In verses 4-6 we read, “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.” God’s Word is to be upon your hearts. The first student that is to be taught is you. Through the work of the Holy Spirit you must first come to know the LORD your God. You must know the LORD Who promised to send a seed of Eve Who would crush the serpent’s head, Who told Mary that her Son would be the savior of the world, Who watched His one and only Son suffer and die so that the debt of mankind’s sin would be paid in full. You must know that this LORD is your God Who promised a seed, sent a savior, and sacrificed a Son in order to save you. You must allow this knowledge to teach our emotions so that your mouths speak what is true and your lips detest what is wicked.[4] You must allow this knowledge to instruct your essence so that your minds do not conform to the pattern of this world but are rather transformed by the pleasing and perfect will of our God.[5] You must allow this knowledge to direct your energies so that whatever you eat, drink, or do, it is all done to the glory of God.[6] Before you do anything else you must know the Word.
Once you know the Word then you are to teach the Word. In verse 7 we read, “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.” We are to impress God’s Word on our children. I think the word “impress” is my favorite Hebrew word in this section. The word is used to describe the sharpening of a sword or blade. It is also used to describe the stamping of an image on an object. Both uses of the word imply precision and repetition. If you want to properly sharpen a blade the stone must be used at a consistent angle. Likewise, if you want to properly stamp an image you must consistently strike the object in the same place. Further, if you want to properly sharpen a blade the stone must be passed over the metal several times in order to shave off the dull edge. Likewise, if you want to properly stamp an image, the object must be struck again and again in order to ingrain the image deep in the fiber of the object.
If we are to properly teach God’s Word to our children we must be consistent and persistent; we must not allow our teaching to be altered by our personal beliefs or popular opinions and no matter how long it takes to shave off the dull edge of doubt or impress faith into the fiber of their being we must not grow weary of the effort.
We are to be consistent and persistent when we are at home so that they know God’s Word is not to be followed hypocritically. We are to be consistent and persistent when we are away from home so that they know God’s Word is not to be influenced by peer pressure.
We are to be consistent and persistent from the moment we wake up till the moment we go to bed. There is to be no end to the training and instruction of our children. Day after day, year after year no matter how old they get as long as the LORD allows us the ability to lie down and get up; every day we have been given is a day to be spent teaching the Word.
This teaching of the Word would quickly become impossibly exhausting if you imagine spending your every waking moment lecturing your children. So maybe it would be good for us to remember that not all instruction is verbal. In fact, very often the best lessons are learned from example. Perhaps that is why we are also commanded to live the Word. In verses 8-9 we read, “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.” We are to tie the Word of God to our hands, so that even in the mundane tasks of life: be it taking out the trash, mowing the lawn, changing a diaper, or doing the dishes our children are able to see real life examples of how they can bring glory to God. We are to bind the Word of God to our foreheads, so that with every decision that we make concerning the use of our time or the spending of our wealth our children are able to see real life examples of how they can bring glory to God. We are to write God’s Word on our doors and on our gates so that in our relationships our families and friends our children can see real life examples of how they can bring glory to God. One of the most powerful ways we can teach our children is to live the Word.
Moses commanded the Israelites and the Holy Spirit commands us to Know the Word, Teach the Word, and Live the Word. However, this command like all others is one that we have failed to keep. Despite our failure we, thankfully, still find ourselves surrounded by God’s grace. Jesus knew, taught, and lived the Word perfectly in our place. Jesus stained the wood of a cross with His innocent blood as payment for our failure. Jesus rose from the dead so that we could be reassured that, though we often fail when it comes to the spiritual education of our children we have been forgiven. Only surrounded by God’s grace; by His undeserved love for us are we able to give our children the spiritual education that is needed.
Why did Moses, why did Luther, why do we Lutherans care so much about Christian education? We care because we want our children and our children’s children to be surrounded by God’s grace. We want them to know that they too have been delivered from their slavery to sin by the sacrifice of the one and only Son, We want them to be reassured that they are being preserved and protected as they wander through the wilderness that is the second half of the 21st century, we want them to see that they too stand at the precipice of a promised land that is said to have pearly gates and streets paved with gold. We care so much about Christian education because we want God’s grace, His undeserved love to surround our children. Amen.
[1] Michigan Lutheran Seminary and Luther Preparatory School
[3] Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary
[4] Proverbs 8:7
[5] Romans 12:2
[6] 1 Corinthians 10:31