To Teach the Generation to Come – Uses of the Law: To Guide Us in Doing Good (7)

To Teach the Generation to Come

Uses of the Law: To Guide Us in Doing Good (7)

He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers to teach to their children, that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children, so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments.… Psalm 78:5-7

Every year, a significant proportion of teenagers, who have been raised in church all their lives, go off to college and begin the process of abandoning their childhood faith. And every year this nation, host to a burgeoning “Bible-believing” church population, loses its grip a bit more on whatever remains of the good works of God’s Law.

Meanwhile, the same churches that have failed their youth and the nation are reluctant or negligent when it comes to helping their members learn the Law of God so that they can live lives devoted to good works, motivated by love for God and neighbor.

Asaph, the writer of Psalm 78, understood God’s intention. Each generation is to study, learn, and practice the Law of God, then to teach it to the generation that is to succeed them. They are to teach it so well, that not only will that generation learn to be devoted to good works, but they will teach their children who will, in turn, also grow up to fulfill this purpose of our redemption.

Today’s generation of church leaders cannot read the passage quoted above and say that they have fulfilled what Asaph requires of us. We have not. And the loss of our youth and the continuing corruption of our nation are just the most obvious indicators of our studied ignorance of the Law of God.

God intends that we should use His Law to learn how to do the good works for which we have been redeemed. When we fail to do so, we fail not only ourselves but our children, our nation, and the progress of the Kingdom of God.

For a practical guide to the role of God’s Law in the life of faith, get The Ground for Christian Ethics by going to www.ailbe.org and click on our Bookstore, then Church Issues.

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