Fathers, teach your children (Catechesis in the home)

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. (Deut. 6:4-9)

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. (Ephesians 6:4)

Fathers, teach your children.  God commands us to bring up our children in the faith.  Our children are in dire need of the word of God; are we giving them what they need?  Are we nourishing them in the faith, teaching them doctrine, reading and explaining to them God's word?  Or are we sending them to bed each night without it, implicitly teaching them that the Christian faith may be important, but not enough to dedicate a significant portion of our time, not enough to speak about daily?

There are a thousand different things of varying importance that demand our attention each day.  Add to that our hobbies and our desire to kick back and unwind after a long day, and it becomes clear that we must be deliberate about our time.  What is most important?  We cannot do everything.  May we be fathers who consider our children's eternal salvation of the utmost importance.  Let us not leave our children's catechesis in the hands of the Sunday school teacher or Christian day school teacher who cannot give them the spiritual nurture that they require on a daily basis.

Some people busy themselves in religious activities.  They go to church twice a week or more; they teach or attend small groups; they volunteer for different "ministries" in the church.  But are they teaching their children?  If they are, that is wonderful.  There is nothing wrong with committing oneself to these things as long as our God ordained vocations are in order.  But if we are busying ourselves at church and neglecting to teach our own children, we have everything backwards.  God has called us to train our children in the faith.  These other activities are secondary and not required of us.

There is a catechetical crisis in the church.  Fathers, man up and love your children by giving them the words of eternal life as often as you are able.  And when you fail (and you will), repent, remember your baptism, cling to Christ's forgiveness, and pick up again and teach them. 

There are many ways to go about this.  In our family, the group consists of a five, four and two year old.  We are using the bible, Luther's Small Catechism, and the hymnal in our devotions.  We start out trying to memorize a section of the Ecumenical Creeds, Small Catechism, or scripture that we focus on throughout the week.  We repeat it a number of times together and then talk about what it means.  Then we discuss a handout that is given out weekly at my church called "Kids in the Divine Service."  This handout is meant to teach children an aspect of what happens at Sunday morning worship.  What does this mean and why do we do it?  Then we sing a few hymns.  We pick one particular hymn each week to try to learn, and then we sing it each day.  Then I read them a passage from the scriptures and try to explain it as best I can.

As you can see, this is pretty simple stuff.  You don't have to be a biblical scholar to do these or similar things.  All you have to do is devote time to the most important thing you will do in this life: teach your kids the Christian faith.  So grab a bible, a catechism, and a hymnal and get to work.  It is not glamorous; nobody in the church is going to look at you as a super spiritual guy because you are teaching your own children.  But it is vital.  And your children need you.  Fathers, teach your children.

Reflections on one year as a Lutheran, from a former Evangelical

Lutherans, as a general rule, tend to focus less on their subjective experiences and more on objective truth outside of themselves.  Overall, especially in the realm of theology, this is a good quality.  Even so, I believe it can be helpful to reflect upon our experiences from time to time.  It has been nearly a year since I made my first visit to a Lutheran Divine Service, and my time spent as a part of this faith has lately been at the forefront of my thoughts.

To put this journey into perspective, it might be helpful to mention the "brand" of Christianity from which I departed.  I was a Calvinistic Baptist, influenced most profoundly by a pastor named John Piper.  As it is not my intention at the moment to address in detail what I perceive to be the harmful teachings of both Calvinistic and Baptistic theologies, I will only mention that Calvinism robs a person of the objectivity of the Gospel.  That is, there is no way that a person can know that the good news of Christ's death and resurrection is for him without first finding hope in something within himself, namely, his own faith.  This is, in an important way, a denial of the Gospel (which I hope to address in a later post), and I like to say that teachers like Piper, Mark Driscoll, Paul Washer, and others of The Gospel Coalition variety led me by the hand into Lutheranism.  And I thank them for that.

Nevertheless, it was in the midst of honestly acknowledging my own utter sinfulness and failures that I discovered the blessed Lutheran faith.  I once heard a pastor say that it is the Evangelicals who realize their brokenness who will dare to darken the door of a Lutheran church, and I very much believe this to be true.  The Lutheran church is a home for sinners.  And it is a place where Evangelicals can find rest.

But it is not just because I was tired of being a hamster in a wheel that I became a Lutheran. That was just what initiated my search and my growing belief that there had to be something more.  Surely Christianity held better news than what I had been taught.  What I discovered was a Christ-centered, Cross-focused theology that taught the pure, unadulterated word of God.  My eyes were opened to doctrines that my hyper-spiritualized bias caused me to deny throughout all those years I spent as a Baptist, such as baptismal regeneration (for babies too!) and the real presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper.  There they were, plain as day in the text, rationalized away by unbelief.  And I finally found the peace that Christianity promised but never seemed to deliver.  There is nothing like knowing that the Gospel is "for you."  Full stop.  No doubts linger any longer. For Christ shed His precious blood for me, and I am His baptized child.

Two events from this year are worth rejoicing in: the baptisms of my children and our first communion in the Lutheran church.  As Baptists, we had, unfortunately, withheld baptism from our children when they were born, so when our four, three, and one year olds were buried and raised with Christ, it was amazing.  I held each of my dear ones as they received the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation through God's word in the waters of Holy Baptism.  When our fourth child was born this Spring, she was given all of God's precious, saving gifts five days later.  All of my children are Christians, sealed by the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.  Trusting in Christ's promises where they are found, we no longer wonder and hope that God would show them favor at some unspecified date in the future.  I weep for those who struggle over their children in this way because they are unaware of God's willingness to give them all this and more.  I weep that I was once there.

The second equally memorable event was our first taste of the body and blood of our Risen Lord.  I grew up a Roman Catholic, so it was not as though I had never had the true body and blood of Christ, but I cannot say that I ever gave it a second thought or understood what was happening.  As a Baptist, I denied it outright; I, perhaps unknowingly, called Jesus a liar.  So when we finally learned the biblical doctrine of the Supper, we hungered for it and were overjoyed to receive it.  To state a truth that would have scandalized me a little over a year ago, the Lord's Supper is the Gospel.  The body and blood given and shed for us on Calvary are delivered to us to eat and drink in the Divine Service each Sunday for the forgiveness of our sins.  This is the New Testament in His blood.

I could go on and on about those things I cherish in Lutheran (aka biblical) theology.  The comfort it gives is astounding.  Indeed, ain't no Gospel like a Lutheran Gospel.  But my experience hasn't been all sunshine and rainbows.  Despite the glorious doctrines found within this theological tradition, not all within this tradition appreciate it.  Many would rather mimic the methods employed at the Evangelical churches I used to frequent in order to be more "missional."  Lex orandi, lex credendi.  The way we worship and conduct business shows what we truly believe.  When we worship like Evangelicals, we prove that we believe like Evangelicals, namely, that the means of grace, word and sacrament are insufficient to grow Christ's church.  But despite this rain on my parade, and despite the fact that I have to drive past three Missouri churches on my hour and a half trek to a Missouri church that is actually Lutheran in doctrine and practice, I am still profoundly thankful to have found this truth and comfort, where Jesus' word is taught in all its purity.

Lord, to whom shall I go? You have the words of eternal life.

Blogging, Round 2

This is my second attempt at starting a theology blog. My first go around fizzled after I got bored and ran out of things to write about. But I have missed writing.  So I came up with the bright idea to center my theological study around my blog, enabling it to be a sort of theological journal, forcing me to think through these heady topics. We shall see how it goes.

This will be a Lutheran blog, meaning that all opinions will seek to be in line with scripture as interpreted by the Book of Concord, the confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church.  Lutherans, if they are worthy of the name, believe these confessions to be the true teaching of the one holy catholic church.  While I may speak, sometimes strongly, against the doctrines of other Christian denominations, this is in no way meant to imply that members of these churches are not or cannot be true Christians.  I will endeavor to write with as much Christian charity as I am able.

I have come up with a list of topics that I would like to address in the future, though when and in what order I do not know.  They are as follows:

- the effect of the limited atonement on assurance
- the means of Grace (or means of Salvation)
- quia vs. quatenus confessional subscription
- a critique of Finitum non capax Infiniti
- an evaluation of Desiring God by John Piper
- an evaluation of Radical by David Platt
- Lutheranism as a mediating position between Calvinism and Arminianism
- TULIP from a Lutheran perspective
- important differences between Lutherans and Roman Catholics

If you are interested in any of these topics, desire to learn more about Lutheran theology, or just want to tell me how terribly wrong I am, then follow my blog!