Home School Heartbeat Radio Program

Michael Farris:
It’s interesting to ask, what immediately follows the greatest commandment in the Old Testament? Well, verses 6 and 7 of Deuteronomy 6 read as follows:

“These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.”

Immediately following the commandment to love God is the commandment to teach our children. This gives us an important insight on the priority that God places on our duties as parents to impress God’s commands on our children’s hearts.

And God doesn’t just issue a generalized command to teach our children. He specifies the instructional methodology he expects us to use. He tells us to teach our children when we sit at home, when we walk along the road, when we lie down, and when we get up. There is a presumption about the nature of the parent-child relationship embedded in this methodology. God expects that parents would spend substantial time with their children during the course of the day.

Mom and Dad, can you really send you children off to school for eight hours each day and still obey the intent of this passage? It’s something each parent must decide carefully in light of the precise direction in God’s Word.

This is Michael Farris.