Theology. How many times have you heard that word in a sermon and then followed with something like, “That’s a fancy word for…”? Or, maybe you’ve heard a word like “atonement” and it quickly gets discounted because it’s a theological word? Whether that is you or not, I think we can agree that theology is something that is given less importance than it was in the past. The likes of Piper and MacArthur are on the way out and they are being replaced with an oftentimes watered down version of Christian theology.
For years, the lament has been that we cannot imagine the difficulties of growing up Christian as our children get older. Our kids are confronted with sin at younger and younger ages and as parents, we are left searching for answers. What do we do? We could homeschool them? We could buy a farm and live off the land? We could plunge them headlong into the mission zone of the public school? We could teach them to stand for values we deem worthy? We can make sure they go to church when the doors are open? We can keep technology away from them? May I offer up one solution?
We can give our children a Biblical foundation via teaching them theology.
I’m not suggesting we sit our kids down and lead them through Systematic Theology Bible courses. What I am suggesting though is that we as parents sit down and lead our kids through some basic ideas of the Christian faith. Our kids should know what the Bible is. They should know who God is. They should understand at a basic level what the Trinity is and why it is important.
They need to know how salvation works. For our kids, teaching them theology is that Deuteronomy 6 kind of parenting in action. It is seeing the totality of Scripture and desiring to pass that down to the next generation. As a parent, I’m prone to try and pass down so much to my children. Genetically, I pass things down and they look like me. My kids like baseball and video games because I’ve passed that down to them. There is nothing of more value to pass down than a good love for theology.
Comments