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Friday, July 18, 2014

Pastoral Pings (Plus) ~ When God Speaks to Children

          This morning I was drawn into some very exciting thoughts about how God communicates through his word to the hearts, souls, and minds of children. We know that Jesus was very clear that children were not to be hindered in their desires to see him, and talk with him, and be close to him.[1] He warned adults about being a stumbling block to children in their relationship to him.[2] And he demonstrated what relationship between him and children should look like when he took the children on his lap, and put his hands on the in blessing.[3]
          One of the beautiful prophetic pictures of the Messiah was that he would be the Good Shepherd who “tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.”[4] This showed God’s people that the coming Messiah would care for the lambs, the little ones (of all ages), gathering them into his arms like a shepherd picking up his sheep, and carrying them close to his heart in the best hug we could ever imagine. He would also, and equally, care for those who “have young”, referring to the mother sheep who have the care of little ones, and anyone in leadership of others.
          The point was simple: watch for a Messiah who would care for the young, the poor in spirit, the outcasts, the orphans and widows. Watch for a man who would have the characteristics of the Good Shepherd who leads his little lambs into green pastures, and beside the quiet waters, who restores the souls of his people who had lost hope of ever finding their Shepherd again.[5]
          Since the prophets spoke of such a Savior, and the gospels reveal Jesus of Nazareth as the Son of God, the Messiah and Christ the prophets spoke about, how do we lead children to have the same kind of experience of Jesus that the prophets described, and the children of Jesus’ day experienced?
          In this brief post, I will narrow my focus to thoughts about how to connect children to the word of God, the Bible. Yes, we must have preachers preaching the word of God, and parents leading their children in the Bible, and church members using their spiritual gifts and their personal place in children’s lives to draw them to the words of God. However, my thoughts this morning were all about how to get children to believe that God would meet with them in his word as much as he would do with his adult children.
          My main thought in encouraging children to interact with the Bible is this: do not dumb-down the Scriptures for children. Children are little people, and so they will hear things in smaller ways, but they can still hear. The Bible is the breathed-out word of God,[6] so we must believe that God thought of children reading and hearing his word as much as he thought of prostitutes, drunks, tax collectors, and Pharisees hearing his words.
          It is the Bible, the inspired words of God, that is “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,”[7] so we must believe that these words of God, given the way God gave them, will profit children. In the same way as children hear adults talking and slowly grow to understand their vocabulary, sentences, and stories, so children can listen to the true word of God without us changing it for them.
          As I said, I share this in the hope that all children will have born-again Christians with a solid hold on the sound doctrine of Scripture to guide them in their experience and interpretation of God’s word. However, our aim is to lead children to know God’s word for themselves. As David wrote of the young person, “How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word.”[8] While we cannot control how much this works for children, or for anyone else for that matter, we must believe God can do this. We must aim to help children guard their way according to the word of God.
          David then added a phrase that has blessed countless numbers of God’s children through out the past three millennia: “I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.”[9] When we think of how much we would love to see children store up God’s word in their hearts (or perhaps it is more familiar to say, “hide” God’s word in their hearts), we must trust God that it is his words we should give children.
          Instead of giving a child a paraphrase of the Bible that changes God’s words into man’s words, give them a real Bible in the most accurate translation possible. We can then be the people that explain those words to them, but we must let them hear God speak in the words he would have used if the Bible was inspired in our own language.
          After more than a decade of home church life, where the children are part of the songs and teaching times that are geared for adults, we have seen how children listen, and pick up on the things that are right where they are at in age and maturity. We have seen how they will ask questions based on what stands out to them, and that we can let the Holy Spirit draw them into things as he wills, and as he moves. We have been wonderfully surprised at the things children will come out with after listening to a sermon aimed at building up the church at an adult level of communication.
          So, the Bible does not need to be emptied of its power by reducing it to childish words. We don’t need the man-adulterated paraphrases that change the words of God so that we are giving children the words of men. Children need the words of God, and a church family that will surround them with prayer, and the ministry of the spiritual gifts of the church, so that this true word of God will make sense to them by the Spirit, not by people changing God’s words.
          Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”[10] I just want us to see that this can be true for children as much as for anyone else. Let’s do our part to help children experience this. However, let’s also expect God to do far more than we could ask or imagine in bringing children to hear his voice and follow him where he leads. God has poured out his Holy Spirit upon the church. Let’s expect to see children benefit from Jesus’ presence among us.

© 2014 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.)



[1] Matthew 19:14
[2] Mark 9:42
[3] Mark 10:16
[4] Isaiah 40:11 (NIV)
[5] Jesus is the Good Shepherd described in Psalm 23
[6] II Timothy 3:16-17
[7] II Timothy 3:16
[8] Psalm 119:9
[9] Psalm 119:11
[10] John 10:27

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