Training Our Children
Irby Wallace
February 16,2025
Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6
Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Ephesians 6:4
4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
Deuteronomy 6:4-9
In Deuteronomy 6, we are commanded by God to teach our children about God and his commands. This is not optional for parents. Paul holds fast to this teaching when he says, “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4, ESV). The full weight of this responsibility is specifically given to the father, who is the head of the house, but both parents share in the wonderful task of raising their children up in the Lord.
This task can seem overwhelming for us and some of us feel inadequate. Our lives are so busy we barely have time to eat dinner at the table together, let alone study the Bible. If we do sit down to study the Word together, so many questions and doubts fill my mind. How do I get them to sit still and listen? I don’t want their memories of Bible study to be memories of me yelling at them non-stop! Can I even teach the Bible to a five-year-old? What about my two-year-old? How do I teach two different kids the Bible with such a big age gap? Are they going to grow up and reject the faith if I don’t teach them well enough?
Getting everything right is not what teaches out kids about God. They don’t learn about the faith from a single Bible study. The faith they learn comes through all of life. Deuteronomy six shows us that the way we disciple children is through consistency. When are we to talk to our children about God and His Word? All the time. When you are in your house, when you are walking (or driving for us in the 21st century), when you are going to bed, and when you wake up. It then tells us that the Word is to constantly be in our minds and to fill our homes. We teach our children by speaking so much about God to them so often that it becomes the norm in your home. In many Christian homes it is not that way. Conversations about God are rare and uncomfortable, sometimes angry and divisive. God must be in the midst of all our family activities to such an extent that it is expected and not dreaded.
In this essay, I want to give you a place in which to begin transforming your home. We are going to discuss the importance of the father and mother in family discipleship and give some practical ways of obeying God’s Law in Deuteronomy 6. I want to give one piece of advice if you are a parent who wants your house to be centered on God, but you have no idea how to do that. For now, do not worry so much about “how” of discipling your children. Begin by working on being consistent in your conversations about God with your spouse and your children, and over time the “how” will become more evident to you and how you train your children will become natural as you watch your family grow.
Father and Mother
Most churches today have children’s ministries and youth ministries, and staff are hired to teach our children. While those ministries have done a lot of good in the church, the downfall is that they have replaced discipleship within the home. I don’t have to teach my kids because I send them to church and someone else will do it for me. As a result, parents aren’t forced to learn scripture and to know doctrine so they can teach their own children. This is not the way.
Notice who is charged with training the children in Deuteronomy 6:4-9, Proverbs 22:6, and Ephesians 6:4. It is tasked to the parents, and discipleship happens in the home. While we may send our children to ministries, those ministries should only be supplementary to what they are receiving at home. The discipleship in our homes should be to such a degree that if our churches were to drop all programs centered around children and youth, it wouldn’t impact our children’s discipleship at all. Parents, you cannot avoid this responsibility. Your children look at no one else in this world the way they look at you. Is it hard work? Absolutely, but it is worth it.
While it is the responsibility of both mother and father, the burden of the responsibility falls on the father. This is not to take away from the mother’s responsibilities and efforts, but for the home to be a God-centered home, the father must lead. If the mother is doing this alone, the children will never fully engage. The family will come underneath the headship of the father and when a father leads the way he should, the home will change. I do not care what the culture says. Let their hatred of male headship be the doom of their own households. The father must be the one to center his home on God.
Mothers, you are not void of responsibility. You are his helpmate. You must lead your children alongside your husband and support his efforts to shape your home in a godly way. Your children are watching you. If you go against your husband, so will they. Set the example for them of coming under your husband’s leadership. This is not a passive role you take for your children need to engage with these conversations with their mother and see their mother studying the Bible and praying. God has gifted both of you to serve him, and the children will learn how to be godly men and women by seeing both of their parents loving God together.
To single mothers, your situation is different than a home with two parents. If their father is not involved in their lives, then all the responsibility falls on you. I know that is a heavy burden, but God has given you the Spirit to help you and empower you. However, I will encourage you that you are not alone because you do have the church by your side, if you are committed to a local congregation. Do everything you can in your home, but do not be afraid to ask for help. The people in the church love you and your children and want your whole family to grow in Christ.
Getting Started
The hardest part about centering your home on God is getting started. How do you build consistency in discipling your children? Are you ready for this profound answer? You consistently point their minds toward God. Some of the ways we do that are through constant conversations, the music we listen to, family worship, prayer, and even mealtimes. The idea in Deuteronomy 6 is taking advantage of your daily routines and using the moments you have together to point them to God.
It’s not complicated, but it does take discipline. There are going to be times when you would rather talk about something else, listen to something else, or do something else, but you must discipline yourselves first. You are building new habits in your home and that takes time. Old habits will have to be changed, and things will be sacrificed. Don’t beat yourself up and feel ashamed when you slip up and lose your consistency. That is going to happen. Pick up where you left off and press forward. One of the big killers of discipleship is putting too much pressure on yourselves and your children. Stay calm and take a breath, and put what lies behind you away and press forward.
If your household isn’t accustomed to this lifestyle, it will be awkward at first and there will be many hurdles to overcome. These difficulties will be different for each home depending on many factors. One of the factors that will be common to all is the age of your children. Young children are not very good at sitting still and listening and their questions and conversations run in a thousand directions. However, the younger you begin discipling your children the better. If your children are two and you start shaping your home around God, they won’t know anything else. If you have teenagers and all they know is mom and dad watching television while they play video games in their rooms, those children will have a lot more resistance to this home transformation.
The challenges you will face will be fierce, but you have the Spirit of God within you. You will have to grow in your patience and gentleness. You cannot disciple children without those two specific fruits of the Spirit. Those kids are your kids, they act just like you and they will test you. Alongside patience and gentleness, you will also need to be firm with your children. You must be grounded in your determination to transform your home. I will warn you, the line between being firm and losing your temper is a fine one. When my family first started doing family worship, my young children were jumping around, screaming, and not minding. To my regret, I lost my temper and started yelling at them. That’s not a good way to do family worship. I have had to learn to firmly tell them to listen while not blowing up when they don’t. When we fail in these matters, we should admit it, confess it, and move forward. As the norms in your house change, your children will adapt, but it takes time. These changes are as difficult for them as they are for you. As my family has been more consistent with our family worship time, the kids have gotten better about their reverence and participation, and they even get excited about doing family worship.
The “Hows”
After I had my first son, I started asking myself how I would disciple him in the faith. I found that I didn’t know the answer. I felt an immense burden to teach him, but was extremely frustrated because I didn’t know the best way to do that. After a while, I learned that there isn’t a best way. All my children are very different and what works for one doesn’t work for the others. Their discipleship is not dependent on a Bible study that we do at night, but on every second we spend together. That took an immense pressure off my life and let me see that I am constantly discipling my kids, not trying to build the best, comprehensive Bible study with them.
I am reminded of my friend who bought his son children’s books about apologetics from one of his favorite authors. He has found out his son has absolutely no interest in those books which has disappointed him greatly. That’s the way it goes with children, though. What we think would be great usually fails miserably. Here’s the thing, there’s nothing wrong with that if we understand that not everything has to go as we planned and be perfect, we just need to be consistent. To help point you in the right direction, I want to share some of the practical ways in which my wife and I disciple our kids. I hope that these practices help you to see that discipleship is not about having all the answers, but about using the time spent with your children well.
Start Small
Think about how long it has taken you to learn the things you have learned. Now, think about all the things you still don’t know. That’s not going to be any different for your children than it was for you. You do not have to teach your child everything you know right now. Give them the space to learn through time just as you have.
To do that, start with small things. When my son, Dexter, was two, he was able to put together broken sentences. We made a prayer that we would say with him every night, “God is good. Jesus is King. We love you Jesus. We thank you Jesus.” That is all we would pray. I would have him say it with me. It was simple, but confessional. It taught him about the goodness of God and our devotion to Jesus while teaching him to pray consistently. Did he understand those things at two? No, but it was a foundation that we were building. Now that he is older, he can pray on his own, but I now pray this prayer with my two-year-old daughter.
If you have older children or teenagers, start with the basics. Do not assume what they know and understand. That is a recipe for failure. To build a house, one must have a foundation. Even if they groan and complain, begin with the basics and confirm that they understand fundamentals of the Christian faith before moving into anything else. Start small.
Creeds, Confessions, and Catechisms
If you are not sure what basics to cover with your children, the history of the Church is here to help. Over the last two thousand years, Christians have put together many different documents for the purposes of defining our beliefs and teaching our children. Three documents that have historically been used for training young Christians, old Christians, and children are creeds, confessions, and catechisms. Creeds are shorter statements of beliefs which summarize the Christian faith. One example of a creed is the Apostles’ Creed. As a family, we recite the Apostles’ Creed together at the end of every family worship. Confessions are detailed articulations of beliefs that churches and organizations confess. The Southern Baptist Faith and Message is the current confession of the Southern Baptist Convention. A catechism is theological questions for the purpose of teaching people the faith. A historical Baptist catechism is known as Keach’s Catechism of 1677 (also called the Baptist Catechism). I have chosen to use a modern catechism called the New City Catechism with children. It has a helpful application for the phone and songs for each question and answer.
These documents are good for people of all ages, though you may have to simplify some material for younger children. You can use this material to ask your children questions and talk about the faith with them anytime. For younger children, it is more about repetition and memorization than anything. As they get older, you can start having discussions about the theology behind the questions. Here is an example of how this goes with my son:
Me: “Dexter, how many persons are there in God?”
Dexter: “Three!”
Me: “Do you know what we call those persons?”
Dexter: “Ummmmm…”
Me: “God the….”
Dexter: “God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit”
Me: “Do you know what we call that?”
Dexter: “The Holy Trinity”
Me: “How many gods are there?”
Dexter: “One!”
Dexter doesn’t understand the theology of the Holy Trinity, but even though he needs a nudge sometimes, he has it memorized. It has led to him asking questions about it many times and coming to interesting theological conclusions. One conclusion he made on his own was that if Jesus died on the cross for our sins, then God died for us. Take advantage of what our brothers and sisters before us have given us.
Music
One of the greatest tools we have for training our children is the stereos in our cars. People sometimes have trouble memorizing scripture, but most people can memorize songs. Think about how many songs you can sing word for word over the span of your life. Even if a song you haven’t heard in twenty years were to come on the radio, you would know every word without a second thought. What are we filling our children’s minds with from our stereos that they will look back on and remember?
There are so many amazing albums of children’s music that can be used to teach your kids about the Christian faith. One example that my kids love is an album called The Ology by Sovereign Grace Music. The song “God of Wow!” is one of their favorites (and I must say I really enjoy it, too). The other songs on that album talk about sin, being made in the image of God, and so much more. How blessed we are to have such theological language to such fun music in a way that our kids can hear the message of the Gospel and like it.
I do not mean that all we can listen to is songs of theology with our children, but time spent in the car while listening to music and singing with our children can make great memories for the family and is valuable time for teaching them about our God. Dexter may shout to listen to a song from a Sonic the Hedgehog album or Power Rangers and Dottie might want a Danny Go Song. I will play them but then say, “let’s listen to ‘God of Wow!’ next.” Incorporating music that teaches them about God is so helpful in building a godly foundation in their lives. Make good use of that time.
Life Experience
Discipleship isn’t all about conversations. Life is the one of the best teachers of God’s truths. There are two aspects that are very important for letting life experience teach our children.
First, our example as their parents. We can talk all day long about God, but if we don’t “walk the walk”, it is nothing but talk. Our children need to see us setting a godly example for them. Setting a godly example for our children doesn’t mean being perfect. We strive for perfection, but we will not achieve it. However, when we fail, we let them see that, too. We let them see what is like to both glorify God with godly living and to trust him for forgiveness in our iniquities. They need to see the whole of the Christian life from us.
Secondly, we need to let them have experiences that will shape them. This can be terrifying for us as parents because we can’t control what happens. They need to experience life while we are there to help guide them so that they have a better idea of what to do when we are not there. My uncle died when Dexter was only three. It made me nervous because I didn’t want to scare Dexter, but I carried him up to the casket and made him look at my uncle’s body. Even though he was three, he needs to see what death is like and to realize that death is reality for all of us. This did lead to questions and even him asking his mom and I, “Am I going to die?” This turned out to be a beautiful moment of sharing the Gospel with him.
While we want to protect our children and must use godly wisdom to know what and when we can expose our children to life experiences, we should also not shy away from doing so when appropriate. Taking our children to the hospital to visit the sick, visiting widows and the homebound, and letting them witness the complications of church business and ministry are only a few examples of so many life experiences that will shape your children's lives for God and create opportunities in the home for talking about God. Be courageous and trust God with your children.
Corporate Worship
We should be committed to the gathered body of Christ. If we are not, we do not teach our kids about the importance of the Church. This is challenging in a day when coaches think that missing that one day a week of sports is going to keep your kid from making it professional. There are so many things that are seeking to overcome the Lord’s Day and sit upon His throne. People get very upset over this opinion, but the corporate worship of God must come first. Our God calls His people to gather and worship Him, who are we to resist that calling for anything else?
Another challenge with corporate worship is that our children go to nursery or to children’s church each week instead of being in the sanctuary with us. Do not get me wrong, I am grateful for these children’s programs and for all who work in them. I do believe they are important for our church worship. However, we do need to try to incorporate our children into that worship more often and let them experience Christ’s Body as we praise God, proclaim the Word, pray, read scripture, take of the Eucharist, and baptize new believers.
Family Worship
We have incorporated family worship into our bedtime routine. Family worship in no way replaces corporate worship on the Lord’s Day nor are we able to have family worship every single day. However, I have tried to incorporate this as much as possible. Though the kids were resistant at first, we have grown to enjoy this time together and the kids get really excited about it (most of the time).
Since my children are young, I try not to let family worship be very long, but I have added more to it the longer we have practiced worship. The order of our worship looks like this:
A song of worship that the kids pick.
We sing the “Gloria Patri” or the “Doxology” together.
We do a Bible story.
A short Bible verse and talk about it.
We ask our catechism questions for the week.
Everyone in the room takes a turn praying.
I read the Apostles’ Creed, and they repeat it after me.
As my kids grow, our worship will transform a lot. Eventually, I will add a time of confession, and we will do a Bible study in the place of a Bible story. Having a structure that you follow each time is helpful for them and for you. The best time to have family worship is directly after dinner, but sometimes you must take what you can get. If we have guests over at the house, I like to invite them to join us in our family worship so our kids can see others worship God with us.
You know your family and what things will work and not work. Don’t be afraid to try and fail. Remember, this is about consistency, not perfection. There can be some awkwardness in family worship, especially in the beginning. To avoid an awkwardness in singing, I usually play music from my phone or the speaker. Don’t let the awkwardness or your children’s misbehaving end family worship before it ever gets started. Eventually, you will start to enjoy this time of worship together and see how wonderful it is to watch your kids celebrate God with you.
The Scriptures
There can be no discipleship in the Christian faith without the scriptures. The main point of Deuteronomy 6:4-9 is teaching your children the Word of God. Before you can teach your children the scriptures, you must be saturated in the Word as a parent. Your kids should see you reading the Bible as a daily routine and example for them. However, you are not reading as an example, you are reading because you need God’s Word.
You must also read the scriptures to your family and teach them the doctrines of the faith. This is not an option that you can skip. These are the Words of life. How could any parent dare send their child out into the world without giving them the very sustenance that will carry them through the tumults of this world? All the practical tools I have laid out in this essay are meant to help you teach your kids the Bible and the doctrines found within it.
Prayer
Pray with your children and pray often. They need an example of prayer set before them. Jesus had to teach his disciples to pray, and we must also teach our children to pray. Prayer is a discipline that doesn’t come naturally but must be learned. Pray with your spouse. Pray for your spouse and your children. Pray as a family and pray individually with each child. Pray constantly. It would be better to have prayed too much (if such a thing is possible) than to have prayed too little. Do not fail in this area.
Don’t Quit
When I was a child, I remember my mom and dad trying to sit down to read the Bible with my brother and I only a handful of times. On one such occasion, my mom was reading, and my brother and I were being disrespectful and rude. I remember my mom getting really upset with us and rightfully so. That was the last time I ever remember us reading the Bible together as a family. My parents are faithful Christians and have taught me about the faith in many other ways, but I wonder how different my life would be had I been intentionally and consistently discipled at home. I know that it is a daunting task, but we are responsible for those little ones that we created. Parents, be faithful to the task. However, do not be overwhelmed, but trust God with your children.