Discipling the Next Generation · Week 1
Parents, Teach Your Children
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Deuteronomy 6:1–9
Discipling the Next Generation · Week 1
Deuteronomy 6:1–9
God has entrusted the discipleship of the next generation to parents, and this is a responsibility we cannot afford to hand off.
God Blesses Obedience
vv. 1–3
Moses gives the reason before the command itself: where it comes from, and why it exists. The statutes are given so that you may 1 the Lord your God, and so that it may go well with you.
The command was given to households, and to households not yet born. God is interested in 2 obedience: a chain of faithfulness stretching forward through time.
It is not the Sunday school teacher, the student ministry leader, or even the pastor. The parent is the 3 discipler of their own children, in a way no program or institution was ever designed to replace.
“...that you may fear the Lord your God, you and your son and your son’s son.”
Deuteronomy 6:2Love the Lord
vv. 4–5
“Hear, O Israel” means to hear in a way that leads to 4, the way a parent asks a child, “Are you listening to me?”
Heart: the center of thought and will. Soul: the totality of your inner life and desires. Might: every ounce of strength and every resource God has given you. There is no room for partial devotion.
Apart from Christ, none of us love God this way. Jesus loved the Father with an undivided heart, soul, and might, His entire life, and then gave that life as a 5 for people like us who never could.
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”
Deuteronomy 6:5The Call to Teach the Next Generation
vv. 6–9
The order is not accidental. These words shall be on your 6 first, and then you shall teach them to your children. You cannot pass on what you do not possess.
“Diligently” is a doubled Hebrew verb, shanan, which means to 7, the same word used for whetting a blade. Deliberate. Repeated. Honed in, again and again, until it holds an edge.
When you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise: God designed ordinary life to be the vehicle for faith-imparting discipleship.
“And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children.”
Deuteronomy 6:6–7You do not need a seminary degree to obey this text.
You need the Word of God on your own heart, and a willingness to talk about it naturally and repeatedly, in the ordinary rhythms God has already given your family.
God has called you, ordained you, and equipped you to parent and teach the exact children He has placed in your care, to know and love the Lord with all their hearts. And as we pray, trust, and rely on Him to do that work in them, He will handle the rest.
“Every generation of parents stands as a link in the chain. And every link either holds, or the chain breaks.”