Everything’s A Teaching Moment – Fifth Commandment

Everything’s a Teaching Moment

The fifth commandment

Exodus 20.12; Deuteronomy 5.16

“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long, and that it may go well with you in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.”

Ephesians 6.4

“Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”

Don’t miss the teaching moments God gives you.

In Deuteronomy 6.6-8 the Lord Himself teaches His people how to make sure the children of the community learn His commandments. They are to be taught by their parents and other adults. But how? First: memory. Teach the children to plant the Word of God firmly in their hearts, where they can learn to enjoy the Word and to love both it and its Author. Make memorization a game, using songs, mnemonic devices, wild and weird pictures, and so forth. Second, capitalize on daily teaching moments. Getting up, lying down, going here and there, doing this and that – all these provide opportunities to point out the Lord’s goodness, abundant provision, steadfast love and faithfulness, and wisdom. Let’s make the most of all these opportunities. Third, make sure your household culture reinforces God’s Word. That’s the sense of writing the Law on the doorposts. Our homes should be decorated, cared for, and used in ways that honor God and bring out as much as possible of His beauty, goodness, and truth. In this kind of context the formal teaching opportunities we have with our children – like family devotions and Sunday school – will go even further.

How many of the teaching tools outlined above are your children currently involved with as part of their learning to keep the Law of God? How about you?

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“In the Gates” is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore

T. M. Moore is editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001,2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Editor’s note: The use of a translation other than the Authorised Version in an article does not constitute an endorsement in whole or in part by The Christian Observer