Deuteronomy 6:4-7 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.
Ephesians 6:4 “And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”
There is a hierarchical structure in education. God is at the top and He gives responsibility to educate the children to the parents. The parents then have to decide what they are going to teach their children. Then they can determine whether the child is learning the material or not. They do all of this for the purpose of giving them the Christian heritage and inheritance that was passed down to them. The family must honor God’s covenant in education.
Children learn by what they see and hear. They learn by imitation. It’s easy to see the mannerisms of parents in their children. I see myself in my own children. Children learn a great deal before they set foot in a school. Think about this: A newborn infant can’t say a single word. The parents teach their native language to their child, mostly by example. The child naturally picks up the language like he picks up his toys to play and before you know it, the child is speaking fluent English. All before 2 years old.
My wife can rattle off all the books in the bible in order by memory in less than a minute. She could do this before she was 10 years old. I have trouble naming all the books of the Bible in order and I’m a pastor. It’s not because I’m dumb, it’s because God gives kids with young minds the ability to memorize vast quantities of information but this skill declines over time. I always hear my kids singing some jingle they’ve only heard once in the same way older folks can remember singing TV jingles from their childhood. My wife said that her parents worked with her and sang songs that listed the books of the bible. Small children are capable of far more than we give them credit for, and they seem to do it with very little effort. But the parents must be involved.
You must understand that a child cannot learn the books of the bible by osmosis. Parents have to help them. Memorizing is a discipline and it’s an essential part of teaching. That’s why it’s given so much emphasis in pre-k to 6th grade at Christ Church Academy. The child doesn’t learn this way by themselves. They can’t learn it on field trips or by passively being sat down in front of a tablet. The parents must actively work with them and instill the discipline necessary to learn the material. This is how young children learn.
