Salvation is a work of God over which we do not exercise control. Our role is to give children (and everyone) an informed choice. We do this by teaching them the Scriptures which are God’s personal words to us.
Hi everyone welcome to trainingforliferedeemed. I’m Dan and I’m here with my father, Dr David Jackson. We are continuing to work our way through the theology of the child. the last few weeks we’ve covered quite a lot of things We’ve talked about whether or not we know that if children are saved or they all go to heaven or hell or do we just not know stuff. Generally the conclusion was that we don’t really know. we just know that God promises that the elect are saved and those who aren’t elect are not saved. we looked at whether or not there was a thing. Like covenant children That was last week we were talking about. is a child saved through the faith of their parents? We came to the conclusion that the Bible does not say that. Ah but that doesn’t mean that that child isn’t the elect. We just don’t know.
So leaving it there. Today dad we’re going to be looking at giving children an informed choice. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome.
So, how do we do that? What does the Bible say about how we go about giving our children an informed choice? about whether or not they follow Jesus or not.
1.49 David
Yeah So one of the one The great problems we have in raising children And this leads us into the whole topic of Christian schooling, all those sorts of areas Is that if we, have settled from the Bible, That we have no Guarantee from God that these little characters are all saved. — Somebody made a comment some years ago. If children if God promised to save children while they’re children and somehow at puberty they get unsaved. Wouldn’t it be better to shoot them It was in the middle of a debate and it was a sarcastic comment. But, there’s a sad thing behind that when the Roman Catholic church went into south America and we’re dealing with tribal people back in the 1500s. They sent the Jesuits in. And they couldn’t speak the language of the tribal people. So they, this is, I was shocked when I did this in History at university. They took A bunch of natives down to the river. Baptised them and shot them. The idea was if we baptize you you’re born again. And if then we shoot you You can’t commit a sin after baptism You go straight to heaven.
That’s the extreme ultimate stupidity. and criminality and destructive nature. of thinking that we are the ones who save people. So if I can’t, if I can’t save. My children. If that’s a work of God and of he’s grace and he’s sovereign over it and if he doesn’t tell me in advance who so I don’t know whether my children are saved. Or will be saved. What am I doing? And that that becomes the great parental. Question. what am I going to do with these kids? What is my responsibility?
In lots of Christian schools and Christian schooling generally church schooling. There seems to be a thing that says. That speaks to the children as we. We will talk about that in another session. and there’s an attitude that somehow. We could have these kids and treat them as little Christians Like we talked about last week. And they will then grow up to be little Christians. But the concept of evangelizing them of giving them a choice. We tell ourselves but they’re too young to make a choice So there’s no point doing that. So what are we doing?
Well I did a survey a few years. Long time ago actually found it the other day We surveyed the staff at our Christian school. There’s 250 people on the books there were 150 at the staff meeting and I said so how many of you were converted before you were 12? 52 hands went up How many were converted before 18. Another 50 hands went up So by the time somebody reaches. What we would call adulthood 18. you’re talking about three quarters of the people in the room who were Christians were converted before that age. Yep. and of them half of them were converted in childhood. And remember making a commitment to Christ.
So we’ve got to go back and think. What does the Bible tell me I should too with these kids. which seems to be the last question we ask. What does God require of parents?
And the answer I come to is he requires us to give the child an informed choice. To respect their integrity. To respect the work of the holy spirit That it’s his work not my work. But my work is to be like The elders and the apostles. I love that phrase in acts chapter six verse 2. where Peter says to the. elders and the other apostles. But the church. I’m not going to give up. Waiting on tight. Awaiting serving the word of God. To wait on tables. Hmm.
And it’s the same word deacon I’m knocked down to. I’m a. What would you call it A waiter in a restaurant? So on my plate is the word of God. I’m not going to give up, dishing up the word of God to go running around dishing up lunch. So go and appoint seven men full of the holy spirit Just do the meals on wheels for the widows. I’m not going to give up the ministry of the word of God. So our job is to put the word of God on the plate and hand it to the kids And They all then we’re holed Holy spirit We’ll go to work. They’ll Wrestle with it and we’ve given them an informed choice That’s my job.
6.39 Dan
Okay. So our job is then to give an informed choice. And so how how do I go about giving them the informed choice So. Yeah the basics of, yeah I could sit down with this guy. Jesus died for you and explained you know like a two ways to live, the title. Is that. Is that enough? Like how, how do I go about making sure they’ve got a fully informed choice Put before them. do they need to hear everything before they can make their choice so that yeah Does it need to be completely informed or partly.
7.07 David
Do I hold a children’s Billy Graham ready and call. Rally and call for them to come forward.
7.14 Dan
Or do I make them have to go through and be able to recite the entire catechism before I can get them to be baptized.
7.20 David
What does it take? well we go back to the Bible. Deuteronomy 6. Yeah. Deuteronomy 6. Why don’t we read it The thing. Read the Bible’s a Good idea.
Deuteronomy 6:1-7 (NASV 1995)”Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the judgments which the LORD your God has commanded me to teach you, that you might do them in the land where you are going over to possess it, 2 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. 3 “O Israel, you should listen and be careful to do it, that it may be well with you and that you may multiply greatly, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey. 4 “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one! 5 “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your life and with all your might. 6 “These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your sons 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 up. 8″You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. 9 “You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
8.45 Dan
Yeah So basically you’re Meant to be talking about the Bible and its application. All the time. With your children That’s part of their general training and upbringing et cetera. All right
David
now to do that You’ve got to read the text
Dan
It requires that I know the Text pretty well. Yeah.
David
It requires, it requires parents to read the Bible to their children. With their children. From the beginning of the earliest memories. As soon as they have some language. Or even before we start teaching them the word of God. And we, we don’t just read it, close it, put it away. We talk about it. We answer questions We provoke questions. We hold. Everything that we do. we relate back to the scriptures.
Dan
Yeah. And I would say that you don’t just do this with your kids This should be generally the way Christians live. Yeah constantly talking about the Bible Alice. Interesting Dad it talks here about yeah The words being on your heart And then you compare that to the promises that come with the holy spirit and you know the new covenant and the words being on your heart you know the laws of God being on your heart. and you. Kind of no knowing them intuitively but here if we go back to where that’s kind of coming from it’s not so much knowing it intuitively it’s about actually studying them and knowing them.
10.05 David
Yeah And understanding and comprehending. Yeah. And having it explained. I’ll tell the story.
I grew up in a non-Christian family. So we didn’t read the Bible. As a family Pat grew up in a Christian family but they didn’t read the Bible as a family either. But we did read the Bible with our Kids usually at bedtime. And so forth But when I was thinking about going to theological college to study. there was one Australian fellow. We knew of who’d been to Westminster seminary. And so my friend Peter Adamson and I went round to his place we asked him can we come and talk to you about going to Westminster. how on earth is that possible? For an Australian. And no one weeks invited us round to his place for dinner. And so we go around to his place to dinner. You know you’re doing all the dinner normal things He’s got four kids around the table I think it was four But what blew me away Forget about you know, sort of. What are the practicalities of going to Westminster? How do I get across the ocean and survive financially? They were the questions we came with But we sat at that table and at the end of the meal, He did the family Bible reading. And we got to watch And he opened the Bible and he did. the passage out of 1 Kings. Where The Northern kingdom Israel. And Syria. Are going to war with the Southern kingdom of Judah And where king has is being threatened by all of this and all sorts of terrible things happening with the Assyrians. Now. You’ve got children around the table who are like five 10 years old. And we’ve reading this stuff. And I’m looking at this going This wouldn’t have been my first passage to pick to teach to a child.
Dan
Shouldn’t we be reading the Jesus storybook Bible or something
David
Yeah. What is this age appropriate What are we doing? So he reads the text the whole text. And at the end of it, he explains it. Now to be fair. Noel Weeks is a world. authority on Assyriology. he reads the clay tablets. You know Speaks the languages I don’t know. But he knew this stuff backwards and he then told the story. And explained the text. And those kids were lights on. All the way around the table. And he related it to Christ and his work and it was 15 minutes. And at the end of it, but I don’t know I can’t remember what else we talked about that night. But I remember getting in Peter’s car as we left to go And I said, if that’s what Westminster teaches you to do I’m going Hm. Yeah. To be able to explain the Bible. To a five-year-old. And to do it accurately. like that. that was, that was the goal. that we set out to do. And. To be honest. I think that’s one of the biggest things that parents. Struggle with they don’t know their Bible Well enough. To be able to explain it And then the challenge is well the church’s supposed to be training us, to be able to do that and we learn.
if I can be critical of the evangelical church we teach. Skills but not content Yeah I think schools do a lot of that too. We teach the skills of running a Bible study. But we actually don’t teach. The content of the text. Hmm.
13.33 Dan
The ability to be able to answer the questions when they do come up. Yeah. To go find good answers to those questions
David
Yeah Well I mean, in a church Bible study group when you’re training. You know growth group leaders or something. The statement that I hear from the ministers regularly is, and this is across the board many churches. You can’t expect your Bible study leader to be able to answer the questions We’re not sending them in as teachers we’re sending them in as facilitators Hmm whereas this parents and as people ministering to these kids It’s not about facilitating It’s about teaching. And it’s about content. And we’ve got to know our Bibles to do that. Yeah. And so to be an effective to give a kid an informed choice, they need to be informed.And that means we’re going to read the Bible So well, You’ve got to plan to do that Haven’t you.
Dan
Sure. Sure do. I mean, it’s just so well raised and ingrained that it happens all the time. Yeah, I mean, But it is you’ve got to purposely set time aside for your own self to read and study. and then to be able to sit down with your kids and to read to them and to answer their questions to push them in their knowledge and. and the application because ultimately, you know, knowing stuff’s good but you also need to. Very clear And then you got to apply it You gotta be able to live that out. and we leave that out as parents by setting an example? But also. By thinking through because ultimately I stuck as an example. Because I’m not Jesus. Right. And so I’m better than, yeah I don’t know someone who’s not. Oh he’s not following Jesus I guess but, because I’ve at least you have focused on Christ with. With my even with my errors and everything. in my examples but yeah. Teaching of the application is important because you can sit there and go Yeah. there is an element of do as I say not. Not just as I do.
15.22 David
But this was one of the things that struck me when I. I mean becoming a Christian and then becoming a father. One of the agendas that. I was very concerned about And I honour my dad in lots of ways for the things that he did. given his background I’m surprised that he survived as a parent and that I survived as a child. He was a foster kid. You know, kicked out of home and all sorts of things. All sorts of alienation, no example or model of fatherhood or parenthood or husbands even, How do men survive? to fill this role with no examples. And one of the things that dad was not good at was saying sorry. I remember there was once in my life when he apologized. But when you look at the Bible one of the things kids need to see. Is the gospel in action And the gospel in action is when. They don’t need to see safe to repent. To be sorry to confess to be forgiven. And to do those things they need to be trained To repent. And you have to set an example for that. it’s not, you know then shaming myself in front of my sons. Or my daughters. For me to be, I got it wrong. I’m sorry. and to seek the forgiveness of a five-year-old. we have to be able to do that.
But let me go back. We like application But we don’t like content. And so what I find happening with kids. Particularly the kids that we taught at high school. Is it they knew some of the applications of the word of God they knew right And wrong but then know why, but not why. Mmm. Mmm. and they didn’t take it back to the Bible and work it out. So one of the things that struck me about The biblical way of. Teaching. is the thing called Doresh. And Doresh is search The scriptures searching the scriptures.
So we’re going back and we’re saying I have a problem I don’t know what to do. So what do we do We go back to the Bible We start at Genesis one We read until we find the answer. Searching the scriptures, not something we do terribly often. Yep. but that’s something to teach a child to do but to do that, We’ve got to raise a child who can read the Bible for themselves. And then we’ve got to start to think about. What parts of the Bible do we read with children when Do we have a Bible reading plan? do we have any goals Do we have any setups So I don’t know how well you remember.
18.12 Dan
I remember having a reading chart that I used to highlight off Yep. You had to read them having goals of being able to read it all away. I think it was the end of year three I think I was mad
David
Yeah that’s my Bible reading chat I still use it currently. so we gave our kids Bible reading charts and, you know as we ticked off. Different books of the Bible, Yeah there was a great sense of triumph and all of that
When my grandchildren came along I wasn’t sure my children were Doing this with them. So I offered them 20 cents a chapter Read the text and told them they had to go to their parents and get it signed off I don’t know that they did but we cost us a lot of money But unless you’ve got a plan. and we’ll talk about this in some other podcasts. To get them to read it and to explain it And then It’s if it doesn’t produce questions we haven’t been listening.. You can’t read the Bible without questions So to get the kids. Talking. Get them asking their questions. And often it’s the background information. That brings it to life. and so learning to tell stories. As part of, part of what’s going on here. and learning to wrestle. But that’s that’s content We’ve got to have a plan to do that. Then you’ve got to model it As you’re saying. 19.30 Dan
And then Dad you’ve got here How things flow into then. a model that you trained me up in and that you see. All over the place. I can’t remember who your lecturer is that you’ve got it from. But the idea. Head heart and hands. Is it Frame I’m sure he doesn’t use those words They’re probably big long words I can’t remember. Ah that’s has you’ve added feet here because it’s about you know walking in the way and all that kind of stuff. I love that. Generally. Yeah Because it helps you to re to remember. Yeah, because I think one of the other things that our current culture does. You’re looking at the emphasis on this application which is kind of the hands and feet type application. and we were neglecting their head, but I also think we’re massively neglecting the heart. Because we care very little these days. about raising our children to have good characters like. Who they are as a person. And that used to be the way like you think of what it used to mean to be a gent like you know, A gentleman and all that kind of stuff It was actually about your character development. And then the outworking of that character in your actions. Whereas now we seem to be doing more there Yeah. What is it? What are you acting like? And then it kind of creates that dichotomy of. How I behave in public compared to who I really am.
20.49 David
When I when I look at. When I when I did my dip ed back in 1972 We’re all night. We did philosophy of education I mean this is just after. Vietnam was ending. You know there were still people. Demonstrating throwing smoke bombs and tomatoes around the university campus.Doing all sorts of terrible things. Riots left right and center Anti Vietnam. But it was the generation that threw out the rule book. So no authority We don’t. anybody. nobody tells us what to do you know tune in drop out turn on. Timothy Leary’s drugs will solve the world’s problems. That that whole generation. We then walk into teacher’s college to say how will you teach kids? And my generation was told to teach kids using the Socratic method. So the only thing I remember of. philosophy course was reading Plato’s dialogue with Meno. I don’t know if you did you have to do that.
Dan
No I do know about Socratic circles and the Socratic method in general
David
Okay So, so Plato: Socrates is having this discussion with Meno Oh and these two old Coots. And they’re debating what is virtue And Socrates is of a mind that there must be an absolute virtue somewhere up there. it can’t just be the virtues that go with your different status in society. yeah have to have a universal virtue or a universal Goodness About you. And his worldview was that your soul Is immortal. And because your soul is immortal. You have. Virtually past lives guy relates to Buddhism quite well And they keep going round and ran around it and get it right. but he Because of that he claimed that knowledge and understanding of everything is innate. And our problem isn’t that we don’t know. our problem is that we don’t remember. Yep. And so the Socratic method was to draw out. Your memory. Of whatever it is that we’re teaching. So instead of telling you the answer. He got you to figure it out for yourself.
Now it’s incredibly dishonest. Because he pulls a slave over. Go fine. me your dumbest slave and I’ll teach him how to do Pythagoras. or I’ll prove to you that he knows how to do Pythagoras theorem. So he pulls this poor slave over. Who doesn’t know diddly squat. And he does this experiment. But it’s cheating. It’s leading questions He’s feeding him the answer Drip feeding it. Until he gets to the where he wants him to go It’s totally manipulative. Now that’s the Socratic method
If you use the opposite method where you pour the information in. The problem with that is it offends our pride. Somebody’s telling me. What to do somebody’s telling me what the right answer is Somebody holding me accountable for getting it right. As opposed to getting it wrong. So from my generation doing the. Don’t bother. Standing up there pouring information into little brains. What we want you to do is get up there and draw it out of.
And I’m going you’re joking I’m sorry. You’re joking. that’s not how it works
And so. Yeah In the middle of that we have in the background Foucaut and postmodernism happening. Where there is no truth There is no right or wrong There’s no meaning to anything. you can make it up as you go along. Well here we are. 50 years later. And that’s exactly what’s going on.
What’s happened to our schools What’s happened to our education of our kids They have to generate their own worldview They have to generate their own truth They generate their own. Whatever they want to do. And our schools have become not places to generate character. Because that would be to violate their. Autonomy. Yeah they should become their own characters, which they are Heaven help us. We’re not forming character, but what are we doing? We’re producing economic units to go out and make money. So school is now no longer about forming character. It’s about producing economic units That will be productive.
and so all of school is about. Getting to year 11 and choosing business studies so that you can make money. Well choosing at least subjects that will get you into the uni course that you want to get into. No but not a uni course that will create character or culture. No but a university cause that’ll get you a more higher paying job.
Become a doctor. Become a doctor. And if you become a doctor or you being a doctor in order to serve. And to heal. Or are you being a doctor? And money in order to do procedures that you can charge a fortune for Yeah. It’s.
It’s changed the culture. And what we’re doing when we raise our children and give them an informed choice is we’re critiquing that culture. And we’re speaking to the heart attitude.
And I would say the first principle. Of educating a child is the fifth commandment. Honour your father and your mother that you may live long in the land The Lord your God. You’ll live longer. If you are humble enough to do as your flippin’ told Because when I say stop. And you don’t stop because you’re autonomous. That black snake waiting for you. Is going to have a meal.
Dan
Yeah. Number of kids You see Running onto the road on purpose because I think it’s funny
David
Ah, this this attitude towards authority here is the God who created the heavens and the earth giving you commands. And a parent being told. Teach your children to obey those commands to walk in my way. Not off the track. that’s an authoritative teaching. And we need to get past. I’m talking too much but we had a discussion with primary school teachers on behaviour management I’m in special ed. You know, We manage kids with behaviour disorders. And they asked me to come and talk to them about behaviour management. The biggest problem they had. I’m a sinner too. It was a Christian school I’m a sinner too. So how can I hold a child accountable That was, that was the psychology That was the heart attitude. That was stopping them. From rebuking, correcting, and disciplining kids They felt guilty. Holding them accountable. When they themselves got things wrong.
we need to learn what grace would have Grace works.
27.40 Dan
Yup. Well then I think that’ll bring us to the end of this episode Thank you so much. Sharing insights history all kinds of stuff In this episode it’s been lovely. if you would like to ask any questions. Related to the Theology of the child. You can head over to trainingforliferedeemed.com/118. We’d love to get your questions and to answer those. Otherwise I hope that you hit the subscribe button come back and join us next week We’ll be looking at how to go about teaching the Bible to your children. Yeah.
