Thought from today’s Bible reading from Deuteronomy 5-7.
Knowledge of God’s word and obedience to it are not just for one generation, but they are to be passed down to the next. The Israelites were to remember this when they entered into the land of Canaan.
“That you might do [the commandments] in the land where you are going over to possess it, so that you and your son and your grandson might fear the Lord your God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged” (Deuteronomy 6:1-2).
But the people were not just to teach their children to obey the Law. They were to teach their children why they should obey the Law.
“When your son asks you in time to come, saying, ‘What do the testimonies and the statutes and the judgments mean which the Lord our God commanded you?’ then you shall say to your son, ‘We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and the Lord brought us from Egypt with a might hand. Moreover, the Lord showed great and distressing signs and wonders before our eyes against Egypt, Pharaoh and all his household; He brought us out from there in order to bring us in, to give us the land which He had sworn to our fathers. So the Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God for our good always and for our survival, as it is today” (Deuteronomy 6:20-24).
As children grow up, they have a natural tendency to question why we do certain things. They will inevitably ask us: “Why do we go to church services every Sunday?” “Why do we study the Bible?” “Why do we sing in worship and not play instruments?”
We need to give them a proper answer, not, “That’s the way we’ve always done it.” We need to show them what God has said. We need to show them why we follow God. We need to show them the reward for following God. If we justify our actions (even if our actions may be right) by saying, “That’s just what we’ve always done,” they will learn to see it as nothing more than an opinion, no different than anyone else’s opinion.
Tomorrow’s reading: Deuteronomy 8-10
[I’m using the Chronological reading plan on the Bible Gateway website if you’d like to follow along, too.]
Daily Notes & Observations contains all 365 articles from this series and is available in paperback from Gospel Armory.
