Everybody seems to be walking around scared these days. I’m a little scared, myself. It’s understandable. There’s a lot of scary stuff happening. Boko Haram. Ebola. ISIS. The persecution of Christians abroad, and, increasingly, here at home.
Terrorism, suicide bombers, the seemingly daily acts of violence that take the lives of innocent bystanders– that all used to happen over there. Thousands of miles across the ocean. And all we had to do to make it go away was turn off the TV, click over to Farmville, or put down the paper. Problem solved. It was unfortunate, but didn’t really touch our lives in any meaningful way.
Until now.
Now we know that there are terrorists living among us right here in the United States, as well as those trying to infiltrate our country by stealthily crossing our borders. When will the next beheading or 9-11 take place on U.S. soil? Who will the next victim be? Will it be you? Will it be me? Will it be thousands of us in one fell swoop?
Any reasonable person would be afraid of that.
Don’t.
That’s what Jesus said. Just don’t.
We’ve got bigger fish to fry in the fear department. Even though it would be awful, the worst thing that could happen to someone is not being killed or even tortured by a terrorist. The worst thing that could happen is for someone to spend an eternity in Hell because she has rejected Christ (which should tell you something about how horrific Hell is).
If you have never turned from your sin and placed your faith in Christ’s death, burial and resurrection as payment for the penalty for your sin, how you’re going to die is the least of your worries compared to what’s going to happen to you after you die. That should scare the living daylights out of you.
If you have never turned from your sin and placed your faith in Christ, how you’re going to die is the least of your worries compared to what’s going to happen to you after you die.
The good news is, Christ offers to forgive you today. His goodness for your badness. His purity for your sinfulness. His grace for your gross. He will set you free from your sin so you’ll no longer fear standing before Him on the day of judgment.
Christ offers to forgive you today. His goodness for your badness. His purity for your sinfulness. His grace for your gross. He will set you free from your sin.
And, if you belong to Christ, you have nothing to fear in this life or the next. Take a look back at that verse. It says to “fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” But if you’re in Christ, you no longer have to be afraid of Him. And the first part of the verse says not to be afraid of people who can kill your body but not your soul. Nothing to fear now. Nothing to fear later.
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.
Deuteronomy 6:6-7
Phew. That’s a pretty tall order, isn’t it? God may have said this through Moses to Old Testament Israel, but His words are just as relevant for 21st century Christian parents. God wants our children immersed in His Word as they go about their daily lives. Ephesians 6:4 reminds fathers that they are to bring their children up “in the discipline and instruction of the Lord,” and as moms, we have the joy of supporting our husbands in that venture by bringing Scripture and prayer to bear on all those little daily “walk by the way” moments. But how? Here are some practical ways I’ve discovered for capturing those teachable moments and pouring God’s Word into them.
Capture those teachable moments with your kids and pour God’s Word into them!
Be faithful to your own Bible study and prayer time. Let your children “catch you in the act” from time to time. Share with them what you’re learning from God’s Word, things you’re praying about, things you’ve asked God to forgive you for, etc.
2. Train your children to have their own daily Bible study time.
You might be surprised at how early you can start developing this godly habit in your child. With an infant, you might simply take a few minutes of her morning feeding to read aloud from your Bible and pray. With a toddler, you can regularly set aside five or ten minutes (when she’s not tired or hungry) for her to sit down and look at pictures in a children’s Bible, maybe while you’re sitting nearby with your own Bible, modeling for her. As children get a little older and can read, you can set aside a block of time before their bedtime for individual Bible study and prayer. When they’re very small, children aren’t going to understand much from the Bible (although they will surprise you sometimes!), but they will still be absorbing some valuable things: the Bible is an important book, God is the top priority in my family, and God and His Word should be preeminent in my life.
3. Establish a regular time of family worship at home.
If your husband is a believer, be careful not to usurp his leadership in this area. It is ultimately His responsibility to lead his family in worship. Help each other think of ways to make your family worship time age appropriate for the children, and support your husband as he teaches God’s Word. Also, understand that with children comes chaos. (My four children who are still at home range in age from 11 to 19, and I still have to remind them to quiet down and stay on track during family worship.) It’s going to happen. Just tuck and roll and don’t give up.
4. Sing.
Who cares if you can’t carry a tune in a bucket? God doesn’t, that’s for sure. Sing some hymns while you’re washing the dishes. Sing along with some worship music (doctrinally sound, of course) in the car. Music is a great way to get God’s truths into your child’s heart and mind.
Music is a great way to get God’s truths into your child’s heart and mind.
During our family worship time, we used to go around and share prayer requests, then one or two people would pray. We found that the children were either forgetting the prayer requests or we would have to spend time writing them down. So now we often do what we have dubbed “conversation prayer”. One parent will say a brief opening prayer, and then the “floor is open” for anyone to say a (or several) one or two sentence prayer about whatever is on his heart (“Please help me do well on my math test tomorrow,” or “Lord, please save Grandmamma.”). When it seems like everyone is finished, the other parent says a closing prayer.
6. What is God up to?
Sometimes it’s hard for children (and even adults) to recognize and remember the ways God is answering prayers and working in their lives. When our children were smaller, I put up a piece of posterboard on the wall of the breakfast room with the title “What is God up to?” at the top. Whenever God answered something we had been praying about, provided for us, moved in our lives in some way, or blessed us, we made a little note about it, along with the date. It had big things – like my daughter getting saved – as well as little things – like my son finally learning to tie his shoes. It helped my children to recognize God’s sovereignty over all areas of our lives, that He does answer prayer, and that He gets the glory for everything.
Help your children recognize God’s sovereignty over all areas of our lives, that He does answer prayer, and that He gets the glory for everything.
Your children are going to struggle with things. They’re going to have times of rejoicing and times of sorrow. There will be times when they have disobeyed and need to repent of their sin. What better opportunities to teach them to take everything to God in prayer? Teach them how to ask God for help when something is too hard. Teach them to thank God for blessing them and ask Him to comfort them when they’re sad. Show them how to ask God for forgiveness when they’ve done wrong.
8. Sprinkle life with Scripture.
(In order to do this, you’re going to have to know Scripture, so be sure to be faithful to your own study of God’s Word.) When you see a beautiful sunset, talk about how God created the sun and moon. When your child is kind to someone, praise him and tell him God wants us to be kind to others. When you discipline him, show him his sin from Scripture, and talk about repentance and God’s forgiveness.
9. Memorize Scripture together.
There is a wonderfully wide variety of Scripture memory resources out there. My children were all involved in a Scripture memory program at church when they were small, and we worked on their memory verses together at home. Our home schooling curriculum, at the kindergarten level, had a 26 verse Scripture memory program in which we memorized a verse beginning with each letter of the alphabet. Seeds Kids Worship is a fantastic program with word for word Scripture songs and other great resources. There are even apps that can help. And you can always make up your own fun programs, songs, and contests to help the whole family memorize God’s Word.
10. Ask questions.
“Would God be pleased with the way you’re acting? How do you know?” “What does the Bible say about the way we should treat each other?” “What does the Bible say about _____?” Questions like these get your children thinking. They take your children from simply reading and hearing God’s Word to applying Scripture to their lives and recognizing that they must submit to it.
Take your children from simply reading and hearing God’s Word to applying Scripture to their lives and recognizing that they must submit to it.
Forget the tablets and the radio. This is a great way to harness that down time in the car (or anywhere else) and use it to teach your kids about prayer and thankfulness. It’s kind of like playing “I Spy.” Just look out the window and take turns thanking God for what you see: “Thank You, God, for making birds.” “Thank You for ice cream.” “Thank You for police officers who help us.” Or pray for people as you pass by various buildings. “God, please help the sick people in that hospital…help the pastor of that church do a good job of preaching Your Word…provide homes for the people in that shelter…” We also made it a habit to pray for victims of accidents or tragedies whenever we saw an ambulance or fire truck.
12. Kiddievangelism
Our kids need to see us sharing the gospel with people as a normal part of everyday life, and we need to explain to them why it’s so important. There’s an easy way to get your kids personally involved, too, especially when they’re small: tracts. Get some doctrinally sound tracts (my favorites are from Bezeugen) and let your child leave one in the waiting room at the doctor’s office, on the table when you leave McDonald’s, or hand one to the cashier at the store. I’ve had people turn me down when I offer them a tract, but who’s going to refuse an adorable three year old? Get them started on a lifelong habit of sharing the gospel wherever they go.
Get your children started on a lifelong habit of sharing the gospel wherever they go.
As Christian parents it’s our responsibility before God to train our children in the Scriptures, prayer, and godliness. If we slow down and ask God to direct us, He will show us all kinds of ways we can teach them diligently to our children, when we sit in our houses, and when we walk by the way, and when we lie down, and when we rise.
What are some fun or unique ways you’ve found to pour God’s Word into your children’s everyday lives?
But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.
2 Timothy 3:1-7
If someone were to ask you, “What kind of person do you want to raise your daughter to be?” how would you answer? Caring? Independent? Loyal? Kind?
I’m betting none of us would answer “weak,” “burdened with sins,” “easily led astray by her passions,” or “unable to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.” Yet in these last days in which we find ourselves, that’s exactly what many good-hearted Christian mothers with nothing but the best of intentions are raising their daughters to be. It’s not that they want their daughters to grow up to be spiritually weak or led astray by sin or unbiblical teaching, it’s just that they lack the skills and tools necessary for properly training their daughters in the Scriptures and godliness.
Maybe you’re one of those moms. You want to train your daughter to be a wise, godly, discerning woman, but you’re not quite sure how. Hey, we all have those areas of our lives that we need a little help with. As an older mom myself, maybe I can lend a hand.
My daughter is almost twenty, and while she’s nowhere near perfect, by the grace of God, she is a godly young lady. Looking back, there are many things my husband and I did wrong as parents. But God, in His mercy, covered our failures and saw all of us through as He taught us through His Word how to raise a biblically strong woman.
6 Ways to Raise a Biblically Strong Woman
1. Set an example.
Our daughters learn by watching us. Faithfully study your Bible, pray, attend church, obey God’s Word, submit to your husband, repent and ask forgiveness when you sin, and serve others and your church together.
2. Learn, and teach your daughter, good hermeneutics.
Hermeneutics is just a fancy word for rightly handling God’s word. Use a reliable Bible translation. Understand Scripture in its immediate and overall context. What was the author’s intended meaning, his audience, genre, and culture? Point your daughter to Christ as you study God’s Word together.
3. Find a doctrinally sound church, join it, and attend faithfully as a family.
Study God’s Word and compare everything that’s preached and taught to Scripture (in context). Does your church’s teaching line up? Then be committed to attending every single week, not just when you feel like it or when there’s nothing better to do. Instill in your daughter a love for, and a commitment to, the church.
4. Fight the fluff.
Unfortunately, many of the most popular preachers, teachers, and Christian authors (including women’s Bible study authors) teach and write things that may sound good and make us feel good, but are in direct conflict with Scripture. These are the very people Paul was speaking of in 2 Timothy 3. Teach your daughter to follow only trustworthy teachers whose theology is in line with Scripture.
5. Bring prayer and Scripture into every situation.
She can’t find her favorite doll? Kids picking on her at school? She wants to wear clothes that barely cover her? Discuss what the Bible say about these things. Pray together about them. Lead your daughter into prayer and Scripture as part of daily life, and it will teach her that God is to have authority over every aspect of our lives and that we are to obey Him in all things.
6. Teach her how to share the gospel.
If you’re not sure how to properly present the gospel to someone, learn. You can’t lead your daughter to Christ if you can’t share the gospel with her. If your daughter is already saved, make sure she knows how to correctly share the gospel with friends and loved ones. The Great Commission was the last instruction Christ gave us before leaving earth, and we are all to be about the business of carrying it out until He returns.
The 2 Timothy passage at the beginning of this article is our commission to guard our households against ungodly ways and people – even those who may falsely call themselves Christians – who might creep in and steal our daughters’ hearts and minds away from Christ. He has charged us to train them in godliness, and we must faithfully answer His call to raise wise, discerning, and biblically strong women of God.
What advice would you offer moms who want to raise
biblically strong women?
Nobody could ever accuse Christianity of being easy. A religion that tells you to die to self and take up your cross daily is no walk in the park. And there’s no magical moment in this life when you’ve suddenly “arrived” at the top level of spiritual maturity where everything in the Bible makes perfect sense, your prayer life is phenomenal every day, obeying Christ’s commands is a breeze, and you’re floating around on a little cloud of holiness.
We are all messed up, muddling through, and constantly battling the flesh, from the person who got saved five minutes ago to the theologian who’s been walking with the Lord for decades.
We are all messed up, muddling through, and constantly battling the flesh, from the person who got saved five minutes ago to the theologian who’s been walking with the Lord for decades
It’s hard enough to obey the Scriptures we embrace – love one another, be kind, be truthful – but then we encounter Scriptures that, for whatever reason, we butt heads with. Scriptures to which our initial, fleshly reaction is, “No way. I’m not doing that.” We argue with them. We look for loopholes and ways we can get around them. We reason out all sorts of caveats as to why that Scripture doesn’t apply to us or why we don’t have to obey it.
My parents hurt me deeply. There’s no way I’m going to honor the people who did that to me.
God gave me a special gifting and called me to preach. It doesn’t matter that I’m a woman.
Why should I forgive him? He ruined my whole life!
You have no idea how badly she hurt me. I’ll never be able to love her or pray for her.
There’s no denying it, sometimes obeying a certain Scripture will be the hardest thing we ever do. But slaves of Christ are not given the option of saying “no” to their Master. If you’ll look in your Bible at the verse you’re struggling against, you’ll notice there’s no asterisk next to it that says, “except you.”
Slaves of Christ are not given the option of saying “no” to their Master. If you’ll look in your Bible at the verse you’re struggling against, you’ll notice there’s no asterisk next to it that says, “except you.”
When we approach one of God’s commands to Christians and decide we’re not going to obey it because we don’t want to or shouldn’t have to or it’s too hard, what we’re really doing is setting ourselves above the Bible in judgment of it and coming to the conclusion that we know better than God.
Yeah, that’s not a good idea. Especially for Christians.
Ever read the book of Job? Job went through some pretty awful stuff. Stuff that I certainly would have argued against and questioned God about just like he did. And yet, despite all of Job’s suffering, God didn’t give him a pass.
And the Lord said to Job: “Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it.” Then Job answered the Lord and said: “Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth. I have spoken once, and I will not answer; twice, but I will proceed no further.”
Job 40:1-5
And how does this grab you?
But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?”Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?
Romans 9:20-21
Do you get the sense from these verses, which address very different situations, that God isn’t crazy about people questioning His sovereignty, His decisions, or His Word, regardless of their circumstances?
God is God. We are not.
God isn’t crazy about people questioning His sovereignty, His decisions, or His Word, regardless of their circumstances. God is God. We are not.
Lots of times we think we have to “feel comfortable” with a certain Scripture if we’re to obey it, but the truth is just the opposite. When we say, “Lord, I don’t want to do this, but I’m going to do it anyway because I love You, and Your Word says so,” guess what happens? God begins to change our hearts. In time, He helps us grow to embrace the Scriptures we once rejected. He helps us to love others and see them through His eyes.
When we say, “Lord, I don’t want to do this, but I’m going to do it anyway because I love You, and Your Word says so,” guess what happens? God begins to change our hearts.
Yes, it is going to be hard. There are going to be times when we have to grit our teeth, hold our noses, and obey Christ even when everything inside us screams, “NO!“
But we have a precious Savior who has promised to help us be content in any circumstance and will give us the strength to do anything He puts in front of us.
I can do all things through him who strengthens me.
Philippians 4:13
I’ve fought. I’ve cried. I’ve whined, “I can’t!” And every time God has brought me back to this verse that says, “Yes, you can, and I’ll help you.” And you know what? He did.
Baskin Robbins is one of my favorite places to get ice cream. Not only is their ice cream good, but they boast a plethora of flavors to choose from. I love to start at one end of the counter and work my way through all their offerings, getting a little “taste spoon” here and there if a particular flavor piques my interest.
Photo courtesy of BaskinRobbins.com.
Having a myriad of options is great when it comes to ice cream, but when it comes to studying the Bible, the tsunami of materials, methods, and other choices out there can be overwhelming. Where do I start? How do I know if a certain Bible study book or teacher is doctrinally sound? Is the study method I’m using in line with good hermeneutics?
It can be enough to make you throw your hands up in the air and head for your local Thirty One Flavors to drown your sorrows in Peanut Butter ‘N Chocolate.
Sometimes it can help to get back to plain old, simple, vanilla Bible study. I’ve been saying for a while now that Christian women should, for the most part, put all the “canned” Bible study books, workbooks, and DVDs aside and simply pick up their Bibles and study them in a systematic way. After all, up until somewhere near the latter half of the 20th century, that’s generally how people studied the Bible. And it worked. People grew in their faith to godly maturity just fine. So, why can’t it work today?
It can. It does. It will.
Unfortunately, the blessing of lots of options, methods, resources, and information, and the marketing of that blessing by celebrity Christians and Christian retailing, has bred a generation of Christian women who are fearful that they aren’t as smart or as capable of reading and understanding God’s Word as all the “experts” out there. They look at the simplicity of picking up their Bibles and studying them like calves looking worriedly at a new gate.
“What does that mean?”
“How do I do that?”
“I’m scared I’ll get it wrong!”
It absolutely breaks my heart to hear this angst from women who, I’m certain, genuinely want to study God’s Word correctly so that they can know Him better and grow in their faith. And it makes me livid at the churches who haven’t trained them properly, the plantation-style women’s “Bible study” marketing that has kept them ignorant and dependent slaves to Christian retailers, and whatever other forces have conspired to keep these precious ladies away from the pure milk of the Word.
So let’s reboot, get back to basics, and get as many women digging into the Word as possible.
First, it’s important to start out with a biblical perspective:
1. God is kind, and He loves you.
Yeah, I know, that’s pretty basic. But it’s worth bringing to the forefront for this discussion. This is a God who loves you and wants you to know Him. He has revealed Himself to you through creation, through Christ, and through His written Word. He has indwelt you as a Believer with the Holy Spirit to help you understand Scripture. He has told you that you can ask for wisdom and promises to provide it. In His kindness God has bent over backwards to provide you with ways to know Him. He is not some mean ogre sitting up there just waiting for you to get something wrong so He can chastise you. He wants you to understand His Word.
2. The Perspicuity of Scripture
There’s this really great, comforting, reassuring doctrine called the perspicuity of Scripture. The gist of it is that Scripture is, for the most part, clear and understandable, especially for Believers, because of the aforementioned indwelling of the Holy Spirit. But even lost people tend to understand a lot of what Scripture says (that’s why you hear so many of them arguing against it – they couldn’t do that if they didn’t at least partially understand it).
So, by and large, if you’re reading the Bible in an orderly way you should be able to understand it fairly well. You don’t have to have a seminary degree or be an “expert.” There are dirt farmers and country preachers out there who have a better grasp of Scripture than some celebrity pastors in multi-million dollar churches with thousands of congregants, and a string of seminary degrees behind their names.
OK, now that we have a biblical perspective on studying the Bible, how do we do it in a systematic or orderly way?
3. Pray
Don’t see this as childish or unimportant and skip it. Start your Bible study time by asking God to help you understand His Word, to learn what He wants you to learn from it, and to obey its instruction. Even if you’re pretty well versed in the Scriptures, praying like this before opening God’s Word will remind you of its holiness and your proper place of humility and submission to it.
4. Read the Bible the way you would any other book.
When you pick up a novel, do you read one sentence out of the middle of chapter 4, followed, the next day, by a paragraph from chapter 37, and, the next day, a couple of lines from chapter 1? Of course not. You wouldn’t know what was going on and what the characters meant by what they were saying. If you wouldn’t read something as inconsequential as a novel this way, why would you read the Bible in such a haphazard manner? Yet this is precisely the way people often approach daily Bible study.
My pastor said something awesome about this in his sermon the other day:
The Bible isn’t Google for self-help.
And he’s so right. We don’t just parachute in to a random passage, hoping to glean a nugget of truth. Pick a book of the Bible (maybe Genesis or one of the gospels if you’re new to all this), start at the beginning, and read a little each day until you reach the end. It’s really that simple.
5. Context, context, context
It’s important to read and understand Scripture in its context: how a verse fits with the verses immediately surrounding it, within its chapter, within its book, and within the overarching narrative of the Bible. This is really the biggest key to comprehending Scripture. Fortunately, the main way to do this is by reading the Bible in an orderly way (see #4- You did already read #4, right?)
Another invaluable practice is to make use of the cross-references and footnotes in your Bible. Cross-references will help you get a better idea of how the passage you’re reading fits together with other, related passages. Footnotes are there to add a touch of clarity to particular words and passages.
6. Get a plan, Fran.
If structure helps you, choose a good Bible reading plan. For the beginner, start off with one of the shorter plans so you won’t get overwhelmed. When you’re ready, I highly recommend the chronological plan. It is extremely helpful for learning the big picture of Scripture.
If you decide to choose a reading plan, though, hold its schedule loosely and don’t be beholden to its time frame. Work through the readings at your own pace. Take the time to let the Scriptures sink in and spend as long as you need to on any given section. God doesn’t give gold stars for finishing the Bible in a year.
7. Understand the background and setting.
There are some passages in Scripture that are a little more difficult to understand if you don’t know the customs of the time or what was going on historically and politically. In these cases a good study Bible, commentary, and other resources can be beneficial. I’ve touched on the specifics of some of these resources here and here. Many of these helpful materials can be found on-line for free.
8. Take notes on the text.
Hmm…an orderly method of reading…footnotes…extra resources…taking notes…this is starting to sound like…well…studying! Yep, that’s the idea. Isn’t it interesting that we often take a more serious and scholarly approach to studying for a class or a test than we do to studying our Bibles?
If you were a better student than I was in high school and college, you probably took notes on your text books as you read them. You wrote down things you wanted to remember, things that seemed important, things you didn’t understand and wanted to work on more later, things that were especially meaningful, even questions that occurred to you. Those are all good things to write down as you study your Bible, as well.
9. Listen to good preaching.
As a Christian, you should already be doing this at least weekly at the church you’re a member of. But try to sneak in some extra listening – to your own pastor or another doctrinally sound pastor – as often as you can during the week. Listening to someone rightly handle and explain God’s Word helps you to understand it and trains you to rightly handle it yourself as you study.
I once read that children who read a lot are better spellers. Not because they study spelling more, but because they’re exposed to more words and have the correct spelling of words constantly in front of their eyes. They sort of soak up good spelling by osmosis, and when it’s time for the spelling test, they simply write down what they’ve absorbed. Listening to good, expository preaching can have the same kind of helpful impact on your Bible study skills.
10. Practice makes perfect.
Studying the Bible is just like any other skill. You’ll probably fumble around a good bit when you’re first getting started, but if you stick to it, you’ll find that it gets easier and you get better at it as time goes by. Don’t be afraid to start. Jump right in there and try. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?
Ladies, simply picking up the Bible and studying it each day is such a joy. I have been doing it for years, and I love it. The excitement of “digging for buried treasure” in God’s Word and uncovering the truths of Scripture for myself has been far more meaningful to me and has grown me so much more than any workbook or curriculum I’ve ever used. I hope you’ll put aside your book studies and devotionals, and give it a try yourself!
