Why teach our children about God?

“Listen, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. (Deuteronomy 6:4-9)

One of the greatest responsibilities of any parent is to train up their children to be morally upright, responsible, obedient, and compassionate. We all (should) want our children to grow up and be a benefit to society. For Christian parents like us, the responsibility in training is even greater! Not only do we want to train our children to be good kids, but we also need to make sure they learn Who God is and who they are in relation to Him. But why teach children about God at all? Isn’t it a very personal thing? Can’t we just teach good manners without getting God involved and that be enough?

Some might think that children should grow up and make their own decisions about God, so that we aren’t “forcing religion down their throats.” This feeling may stem from unhappy memories of church or hyper-strict parents, and is not a personal experience that everyone shares. But if kids are left alone to consider God themselves in this hands-off approach to faith, then they will indeed make their own decision – but what will they decide? They will tend towards what other kids think. My observation is that everything and everyone is vying for kids’ attention, and if kids are not first guided in the essential matters they will have little foundation to build on, and having no prior attachment to it, they will most likely leave the matter behind. (We know this whole concept very well, being piano teachers.) As Christians, we believe that there is an enemy of God who is all to eager to take down with him anyone he can. Satan will use every method to convince kids that parents don’t know what they’re talking about and that God doesn’t matter, or doesn’t exist. So, if kids aren’t taught that something has value by an authority figure, they most likely won’t value it.

For people of faith like us, we believe in the sovereignty of God. This means we believe that God, Who created us and the world in which we live, is the sole most important Being in all existence. We believe in the absolute authority of the Bible. We therefore believe in the importance of actively opening our lives up to God and letting Him saturate, change & refine us in accordance to His desire. We teach our children what is important to us, just as any parent does.

Proverbs 22:6 advises us to “Train up our children in the way they should go, and when they grow up, they will not depart from it.” The beginning of this verse is otherwise rendered from its original language as “Start a youth out on his way,” or “Initiate a child in accordance with his way,” or even “He that reproves a boy concerning the beginning of his way,” saying that there is an active role in starting children off right, making sure that they adhere to good principles, guiding them through confusion, and correcting them if they fall astray. I’m not talking about helicopter parenting, just making sure kids know how to do things correctly.

Think about all the things we teach kids, either ourselves or in school:

• We teach them to speak by talking to them as they are infants. Highly literate and articulate kids live in households with many words spoken and many interactions with Mom & Dad, but kids in households where people don’t talk to them (absorbed in the technology) are less likely to express themselves as well or as creatively.
• We teach them to use the toilet when they need to by telling them to be aware of their body and their senses. This is definitely something that requires adult supervision! (I’d hate to imagine what society would be like if we didn’t toilet-train our kids.)
• We teach them to tie their shoes. They won’t figure that out themselves – they’d just stick with Velcro. (YouTube doesn’t count as figuring it out – someone is still teaching them, just not the parents.)
• We teach them to read and write, so that they can be literate and formally communicate. If we don’t show them the alphabet and words, they will only know how to talk, but be limited in the amount of knowledge they can accumulate by themselves.
• We teach them to use scissors and glue, to color and draw, and to make crafts of different materials. Not only is this stimulating to their brains and senses, but they learn to use their hands to accomplish tasks like changing tires, connecting cables, sorting & organizing, or washing dishes.
• We teach them to eat healthy food, not just sugary & fatty foods, so that they will be well nourished; otherwise they will only satisfy their sweet tooth or eat French fries all day, getting diabetes, becoming obese & deteriorating their innards.
• We teach them to count, add, and subtract, so that they will eventually know how to balance a checkbook, shop for groceries, or at least decide how many dollar menu items they can afford with their spare change.
• We enroll children in music, dance, or art lessons, so that they can learn from a skilled teacher how to develop their sense of expression, make beautiful music, move people with art, and enjoy a learned skill their whole life.
• We teach them to drive, so that they are self-mobile and capable of being independent in their occupation.
• We have to teach children to be kind and not selfish toward one another, to consider other peoples’ feelings, and to get along, so that they will grow up being cooperative and considerate to others.

There are other societal and relational things we teach our children which differ from culture to culture. There are also things we teach them NOT to do.

Now, having given all these examples, I know there are people who have had to figure it out themselves. Some of these examples are things kids are eager to learn, others are things they’d rather avoid if they can; but if we as parents want to give our kids every opportunity to be functional and enjoy some means of success (whatever that may mean to us), we do what we need to do to make sure they are taught by a proper source. So, in regards to teaching children about God, I won’t say that learning about God is impossible without help, as He has revealed Himself to people of different ages and they believed, but if we hope in and take seriously our sacred task of fostering a love for God in our children, parental guidance is suggested. Like I said before, if kids aren’t trained to relate to God by themselves, then by the time they reach college age, they are most likely to fall away and pursue those other attractions the enemy lays out for them to fall into, and like the apostle Paul exhorts Timothy, they “wander from the true faith and pierce themselves with many sorrows” (I Timothy 6:10).

Matthew 19:14 shows how Jesus reached out to children when He said, “Let the little children come to Me.” Jesus loves children! The Bible speaks of how children are a blessing, and are a gift from God. There is a theme in the Bible of relinquishing to God what He gives us, like when we offer tithes/offerings from our finances, or “casting our crowns” as in Revelation, the very crowns Jesus awarded us for our earthly service to Him. Even the prophet Samuel was a gift of God to his mother, Hannah, who promised that the boy would be in His service, and she honored her promise, and the Lord blessed (I Samuel 1-2). The theme in all of this is that God gives freely of His abundance to us, and our only justified response is to give ourselves back to Him! Good parents understand the blessing of love that children are. Our hearts burst with such euphoric emotion when we see that new little one first born, and growing and learning – it is pure joy! How better can we thank God for the gift of children than by teaching them to honor and thank Him for their very life?

If we Christians believe in God, love Him and honor Him, then we realize the importance in training our children to do so as well. Not only is it an act of worship to teach children about God, but it is for their own benefit. As our children are raised in church and eventually grow into faith on their own, they become partakers of God’s promises. We ultimately want them to believe in and have a saving relationship with Jesus because we know, as stated in Romans 5:12, that sin and death are passed down from generation to generation, like a substance-abusing mother giving birth to a poor, sickly baby addicted to drugs. Our sin nature is inherited from Adam and Eve, and sin cannot be in the presence of God. It would not survive, like a bacteria in bleach. Yet, despite our sad condition we are born into, there is hope! We teach children that Jesus wants to be in their life, and that God, “being patient, is not willing that any should perish, but that all should turn to God” (2 Peter 3:9).

As Christian parents, we want our children to enjoy a loving and joyfully obedient relationship with God which will grow and mature, and we have the sacred task and unparalleled privilege of taking part in it! God gives us this gift, “fearfully and wonderfully made;” like a teenager getting a new car, and God dangles the keys and says “….wanna drive?” The joy of teaching our kids about God is not only for their benefit, but for our hope in a joyful family which is ready not only to relish the blessings of God, but weather the storms of the world, and to indeed have a blessed life.