Household Worship - Part 1 Necessity

So, first of all, we're going to do a brief series in Sunday School about family worship, which I'm going to call household worship, since it really is about more than just families, more than just blood relatives.

Yeah, we'll go through what family worship should look like, how frequent it should be, and give some examples of it. I did teach on this about, I think, a year and a half ago, but if I remember correctly, not all the videos got recorded, and people were asking for more information on this recently, so it seemed like a good time to go through this again.

All right, so what is household worship? Household worship is just where all the members of a household get together to read, pray, and sing, those elements of worship that are appropriate to do together.

There are other elements of worship that would not be appropriate. Can anyone name one? Yeah, communion, the Lord's Supper, right? That would not be appropriate, because you're not together as a church body, and so that it would be communicating the wrong thing to practice communion in your family.

Some people do do that. I was talking to someone recently who was saying while he was on vacation, and he wasn't with his church, he decided to just have communion with his wife, but if it's supposed to be a statement about who the members of the body are, then it is something that should be done with the members of the body, and not on your own, separately from the body.

The one bread that we break does not represent the unity of the body of Christ, yes. Well, if you meet in a small building versus a large building, doesn't matter, right? If you meet in a home versus something else.

So this is household, not house worship, right? Like your household are the members of your home. This isn't really about the building that you're in, and that's what most house churches are. It's about the building.

Now, I know there are some house churches where it is just the, like it is just the family, and they have no intention of bringing other people in, or, right, and so that's a different situation. There you are kind of excluding other, or you're separating yourself from others, right?

Sectarian, in that way. Okay, so that's what household worship is. There are a couple of documents that our church has on its books that are worth reading from here. First is the church covenant. One of the points in the church covenant is that we will cultivate private and family worship at home, striving to attain unto the scriptural example for ourselves and our families, bringing up our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, training them for the service of Christ.

Okay, so this isn't our church covenant. It's something that we have agreed to, and it's something that we have a mutual obligation to one another to maintain. You know, this is not just, okay, these are the things you have to do to be a member, although that's part of it, that these are, you know, the church covenant does have a list of expectations for members.

You should also consider that when people get together and decide to do something together, we don't have constant visibility into each other's lives, and so some hard tasks that we go about doing on our own, we're trusting and encouraged by the fact that others are also doing those same tasks, and when that's not the case, you know, that's very discouraging, right?

Like, if you agree with a friend that, hey, we're both overweight, we're gonna go on a diet together, we're gonna do, I don't know, keto or whatever the hot diet is these days, right? Or we're just gonna be straight carnivore, we're gonna eat nothing but steak, right?

And so you're doing that, you're losing weight, right? Friend's losing some weight, but maybe not enough, or maybe not as much as you were expecting, and you ask him about it, and he says, oh, you find out through security camera footage or something like that, right, that he's sneaking cake at night, right, when you're not looking.

Now, this has, on one hand, this has no effect on your own health and the fact that you've been losing weight, but part of the encouragement and accountability from agreeing together that this is something you are going to do together, you know, you all were gonna lose weight together, and then finding out that this is not what's happening, it can be very discouraging.

I've known, I know of one situation where several people agreed to fast together beginning at a certain hour, and someone decided they were gonna start two hours later than everyone else, right, and this is something that's like, well, you realize, like, two hours out of 24 is actually kind of significant, it's not like it's nothing, you know, it's not like a few seconds difference or something like that.

It probably makes some difference between having a meal versus not having a meal, even. So this is something where we have a mutual obligation to one another, you should not just think of it as an obligation to God regarding the health of yourself or the health of your family, you should think about it as the health of your church as well, and the obligation that you share, not just to him, but in a shared obligation to one another, even though it is something that just happens.

In your family, right.

Next thing is from our confession. God is to be worshiped everywhere in spirit and in truth as in private families, daily, and in secret, each one by himself. So this is something that is serious enough that the authors of the confession thought to put it in.

Now, what we're addressing today is whether or not this is truly biblical, as you can see, there are proof texts for this item in the church covenant, there are proof texts for this item in the confession.

So the author of the church covenant thought it was biblical, the author of the confession, the authors of the confession believed it was biblical. Many people who hear about family worship see it as something that is additional, that goes beyond scripture, right.

It's sort of like the Pharisees washing their hands, right. Okay, yeah, it might be good to wash your hands before you eat, especially if you might have touched something unclean, and that way you make sure you're not eating something unclean.

Maybe that's a good measure for some people, but you can't require that of others because then you would be going beyond scripture and adding pharisaical guards to what is actually commanded, what is actually commanded being something you know, much more general about spiritually caring for your household.

So that's the agenda for today. To what degree can we make a case for household worship, for family worship being something that truly is biblical and not a pharisaical additional guard.

To, yeah, in addition to scripture.

All right, please ask questions at any time because I think if we just go straight through all the material, we might end up being a bit early, so please do ask questions.

All right.

I've broken down some proof texts here. Maybe this is not necessarily the best breakdown in terms of categories. Some of these kind of just fit in their own category, but these first two verses are fairly interesting.

When Jesus taught us how to pray, and you should think about prayer as being really one of the more core aspects of worship, okay? Prayer is an element of natural worship. What I mean by that is that all the other elements of worship are things God has to tell us to do, right?

If God didn't say that we should do communion or whatever, the Lord's Supper, there's no way that we'd be authorized to do that in a worshipful way. Same thing with baptism. Same thing with preaching.

Same thing with singing. You know, if he did not command these things, we would not be authorized to do them in some kind of worshipful way, offering that as worship to him. But now prayer, prayer needs no such command.

If God is, if God is almighty, if he's a provider of all things, then it is only natural that the creature should call out to him for their needs. So prayer, unlike every other element of worship, is, or at least that I'm aware of, prayer is the only one that is a natural element of worship.

It is one that we are inherently called to do apart from special revelation, apart from special command. Okay, so prayer has a particular place. When the Bible talks about prayer, a lot of times it is as a synecdoche for worship altogether.

Synecdoche being when you talk about one thing to refer to the whole, okay? So like when I say, well, did you hear the, did you hear that the White House, you know, has this I, X, or Y, or Z, right? Like what I'm talking about is America, right, when I say the White House.

Or, yeah, they're just similar things to that, right? Yeah, or someone might refer to, someone might say, you know, Silicon Valley is starting to produce more social media, et cetera. Right, they're not really talking about Silicon Valley, they're talking about the whole tech industry, right?

So same thing, it's synecdoche. A lot of times prayer in scripture is used as a synecdoche for worship, so keep that in mind. When Jesus taught the disciples how to pray, they asked him, how should we pray?

He tells them, and he speaks in first person plural. That's interesting, right? He's teaching them how to pray together, okay? He's not teaching them how to pray independently by themselves. Give me this day my daily bread, right?

Give us this day our daily bread. The Lord's Prayer is a prayer that is supposed to be prayed with other people, is one that is supposed to be prayed together. Now when is it supposed to be prayed? The answer's right there in Matthew 6, 11.

Daily, it's supposed to be prayed daily. We're not gathering as a church daily, right? So who are those people that you are praying first person plural with daily? The answer is your family. It is your family that you're doing this with.

The Lord's Prayer is a prayer that is supposed to be prayed in families. Now I'm not saying that if you don't read Matthew 6 every day that that's a problem. I'm saying that when Jesus is describing prayer, what he's describing is something that really can only fully happen if it's happening in families, because it's something that happens daily, and it's something that's first person plural, okay?

Yes, say it louder.

Someone who's alone. So you're like a single, even? So not just an elderly person. Yeah, well, that's still a single household. They should still be worshiping God. At that point, their secret worship and household worship are one and the same.

Yes, I would say that that is good evidence that these are not healthy situations or ideal situations. What the Bible envisions is people living together, right? And so someone who is living by them, if large demographics in society are just living by themselves, that's a sign that something in society has broken down quite a bit, right?

The one who gets married is supposed to do what? Leave his father and mother. Most of the people who are getting married already left their father and mother a while ago, right? So that's something that demonstrates a bit of a breakdown in society.

Yes, yes, prayer is always a form of worship.

Yes, yes. Yeah, that's a good point. You could do other semi-reverent things. Like if I were to, I know that those people who don't think that you're supposed to, like the covenanters, right? The Presbyterian covenanters who don't think that you're supposed to use music in worship will still play music like musical hymns outside of a worship service, right?

Because they're not worshiping at that point or whatever,.

Right?

But no, yeah, prayer is always worship, right? If you pray to angels, that's worshiping angels. Doesn't matter when you're doing it, right? Same thing's true when you pray to God. It's worshipful to God.

And the implication there was that you're not supposed to be praying to angels at any time. That was the point there.

All right, I will say beyond that,.

Because it's something I've been thinking about recently. Speaking to anyone in some kind of, with some kind of mystical way of communication beyond just through voice, through a medium, a physical medium, or the internet, or whatever, is prayer, right?

Like the, so this does not just include, you know, like reverently petitioning angels or reverently petitioning saints. Those people who, and I've, yeah, I've seen someone do this recently, you know. I saw a pastor doing this.

You know, he's been grief posting for a year about his daughter who died. And he addresses her frequently, right? And it's like, I miss you so much, et cetera. I consider this public necromancy. You know, speaking to the dead in a, even if it's not in a reverent way.

This is something that God has forbidden. God has forbidden speaking to the dead. I get that when people do that, if you were to ask them, they don't, they wouldn't necessarily say that, you know, this person can hear me, but it feels very natural to them to speak that way.

I don't believe we should. We should go about even those motions. Even if you know that they can't hear you, I don't believe we should go about the motions as though they can. This is, yeah, public necromancy is public prayer.

It ought not to happen.

Yes.

Not addressed to them, yeah. I mean, you could address it to others, like I regret not having had the opportunity to say to this person these things.

Right, yeah.

Like, there are people we're authorized to communicate to, right, through physical mediums where we can communicate with one another. Through prayer, you know, just trusting that it's being heard, we can communicate with God.

But that's it. No, I mean, that's still a second person. That is still speaking to the person. Yeah, you should just talk to somebody else about it if you need to. Yeah, you should not. Like, what are you trying to do at that point?

Like, you're trying to satisfy your soul, give yourself peace. Like, these are things that prayer is designed to accomplish. You know, you speak to God, and you confess things to God, right? But if you, or you confess things to each other, but if you're doing that to the dead, that is, yeah, that's prayer.

Saying I wish so-and-so was still alive would not be, that wouldn't be talking to them. But if you were to, if you were to then say all the phrases that you want to say to them, that's not, yeah, that's, I believe that's, that's forbidden in scripture, in Deuteronomy 18.

God calls it an abomination. You know, it is a serious thing.

Okay, all right.

So yeah, no grief posting on social media.

Yes.

Give us this day our daily bread. We're talking about prayer. Yeah, that's okay, yeah. Right, but yeah, you shouldn't be addressing the dead. It's interesting how natural that feels to people, just to address the dead.

You know, you look at, you look at scripture, and even the ceremonial laws, right? In the ceremonial laws, you're not even allowed to walk over the grave, or else you're unclean, right? You walk over a grave.

That's why Jesus calls them unmarked graves, right? It's because someone accidentally becomes unclean by interacting with the Pharisees. Walk over the grave, you become unclean. You talk to the dead, you become unclean, et cetera, et cetera.

But yeah, for some reason, we find it very natural just to start speaking to the dead when we're next to a gravestone. It should be something that we consider abhorrent.

Yes.

I'm not suggesting that that's a, I'm not suggesting that that's a ceremonial law that applies to today. I'm just saying that the, well, the application is just that we should have a disposition towards death that is, that isn't so casual about it, yeah.

Yeah, death is, death should be sobering. I mean, there are good things and there are bad things. I think some of the difficulty in Christian life over happiness and grief and thinking about love and hate is like seeing these things as, is blending them all, you know?

The answer is there are some things to be happy about, there are some things to be sad about, and you put it all in the mix and you respond appropriately, but you don't have to blend those things as though there's only sad, right?

Okay, 1 Timothy 2 .8. I desired then that in every place men should pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or quarreling. So, in 1 Timothy 2, when this is being said, consider the context here. First of all, every place, they should be in every place lifting up holy hands without anger or quarreling.

Why without anger or quarreling, right? Once again, is this talking about, is this talking about just public together as a congregation worship? Would that be the reason for addressing anger or quarreling?

Likewise, also that women should adorn themselves in respectful apparel with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness, with good works.

Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man. Rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was born first in Eve and Adam was not deceived, but woman was deceived and became a transgressor, yet she'll be saved through childbearing if they continue in faith and love and holiness with self-control.

Okay, so I read the whole thing there because I think there's a number of things that point us to a broader context than just public worship. While public worship is certainly in mind, it does say every place.

It does describe home activities, a woman in childbearing, et cetera. These are not, yeah, this is not merely talking about public prayer. And consider, who is it that prays in public worship anyway? It's not every single person, right?

First Corinthians 14 says two or three at most are supposed to come up and stand and prophesy or teach or whatever, right? And so, if this is a command for all men followed by a command for all women, what is this talking about, lifting up holy hands and praying?

And if there's a contrast, right, it's not talking about they're supposed to pray along. Otherwise, that would apply just as much to women, right? What this is talking about is leading in prayer. And if this is something for all men to be doing, where are they supposed to be doing this?

Not all men can lead in the public assembly. Like I said, there's a limit on that in First Corinthians 14. So where are they leading in prayer? It's in the home, it's in the home.

Okay, all right, yes.

That's a, so that is a good question. Whenever the Bible, it's interesting because the debate today usually happens around singing. And you never see, not to my knowledge do you ever see it talk about lifting hands while singing, but does talk frequently about lifting hands during prayer as a gesture of petitioning God, you know.

No, I don't, but maybe we should. I'm open to that. Yes, yeah. Yeah, let me see if I can just search real quick here. There are lifting hands in blessings, which is something of course we do during the service.

Let's see. Yeah, hear the voice of my pleas for mercy when I cry to you for help, when I lift up my hands towards your most holy sanctuary. That's Psalm 28 too. A lot of these are about blessing the Lord, which is prayer.

Let my prayer be counted as incense before you and the lifting up of my hands is the evening sacrifice. Yes, there's a number of others, but yes. I don't know, that's a good question.

That's a good question.

Maybe there's, maybe there's room for reformation here.

Yeah, maybe.

Yeah, it's something I'm gonna be thinking about now. I'm gonna, yeah, I'm gonna, right now I'm gonna add this to Tim's list of, I have a list of questions I give him for his podcast. I'm gonna, I'm gonna add this.

Should people, should people lift their hands when they pray? All right, let's keep going. Okay, home building is wrought by religious devotion. Okay, this is, I think this is a really important point that is not thought about too much.

Psalm 127, you should, you should turn to these passages as we go to them because I am generally going to be reading more context than just the passage, just what is written down here. The sheet is so you can take home and have these on hand if you, if you want them, but really more of the context is needed to make some of these arguments.

All right, Psalm 127, unless the Lord builds the house, the one who builds it labors in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you go to rest, you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil, for he gives to his beloved sleep.

All right, I think the natural thing a lot of people think about is they're thinking about the physical home being, you know, the walls, et cetera, foundations being built, that is certainly part of building a home.

If you consider the Proverbs though, where it talks about a foolish woman tearing down her home, it's not talking about her, you know, disassembling the building. When it says by wisdom a house is built, it's not primarily talking about the physical structure.

And consider even this Psalm, it goes on in verse three. Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb of reward. Why isn't this like Psalm 127 .5 or something? You know, this is the same Psalm, how is it related at all?

Well, the answer is having children is a way that the home is built. Okay, this is talking about building a home in a much broader sense than constructing the structure. Okay, and so if building a home is pursuing a happy family, building up the wife and children, all these things, how is it to be done?

Well, unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Right, it is not to be done apart from religious devotion to the Lord, it is supposed to be something that is done with the Lord's watch over the city.

Okay, so religious devotion is needed in order to build up the home. Now, this is not like the slam dunk proof text here. Some of these are part of a cumulative case, right, that I'm making. Some of these are more direct.

Okay, 128, the Psalm right after that. Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord who walks in his ways. You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands. You shall be blessed and it shall be well with you.

Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house. Your children will be like olive shoots around the table. Behold, thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord. The quintessential act of fearing the Lord is worshiping him, and once again, this is talking about how a family is built up, how the wife is built up, how the children are built up.

Now, you could say, all right, well, I go and I worship the Lord by myself, and then through that, somehow, my wife and children are built up. But what it's describing here is really necessitates them being a part of that fear of the Lord for them to be built up.

All right, next, family unity is for family religion.

In Malachi chapter 2, 15, Malachi is the last book.

Of the Old Testament, by the way.

Malachi 2, 15, did he not make them one.

With a portion, this is talking about marriage. Did he not make them one with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God speaking, or seeking, excuse me, godly offspring? So guard yourselves in your spirit and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth.

For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her says the Lord, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit and do not be faithless.

All right, so describing the purpose of marriage with the blessing of the Spirit, what is its purpose? Its purpose is to produce godly offspring. I believe it was Perkins, William Perkins, the Puritan, who said that families are the nursery of religion.

Okay, they are supposed to be where children are exposed to religious devotion to God, to worship. Okay, so how is a family going to produce godly offspring? If godliness involves worship, and you know, maybe a lot of what is going on here is, you know, I'm assuming a theology of worship, this being the quintessential way that we express fear towards God.

If people think of it as just something you do here and there as you obey his, you know, as you don't steal, as you don't murder, et cetera, right? You just obey the Ten Commandments or something. If that's, I say that as though that's minimal.

I mean, the reality is, if you're following all the Ten Commandments, you will be fearing the Lord through worship, given the First Commandment, given the Fourth Commandment, et cetera. But yeah, the one who thinks that this just happens by raising generally respectful and obedient children, I mean, there's all kinds of people in the world who raise respectful and obedient children.

To fear the Lord is something much more than that. Godly children are something much more than that.

All right.

First Peter 3 .7, likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.

Now, these use, some of you know that in the King James, I think it's ye, ye is the second person plural, and so if you're reading King James, you can tell the difference between second person singular and second person plural.

But here, it is plural. It's talking to multiple people. Now, the question is, is this talking to men as being the plural? It says, live with your wives, excuse me, so that your prayers may not be hindered.

Is it talking to all the men so that the men's prayers may not be hindered? Or is it saying so that husband and wife's prayers together may not be hindered? A very common interpretation throughout history has been that this is talking about family prayer, that is going on here.

Calvin says, from hence, we may observe that family prayer is a duty incumbent on professors of religion, and great care should be taken that it not be neglected and hindered. So, this is, so Calvin is taking it, and many others as well, have taken this to refer to family worship, not to the husband's prayers on his own.

And if you think about it, why wouldn't this much more appropriate be to their prayers together as a family than to his prayers on his own? Live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as a weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life.

Okay, they are heirs with you so that your prayers may not be hindered. Right, they are heirs with you. This is talking about her together with him being an heir. It follows that it would be his prayers with her as fellow heirs of the grace of life.

This is not talking about his individual prayers, but his prayers with her, okay? So, 1 Peter 3 also talking about family religion. Colossians 3, in Colossians 3, now this is an interesting one because of the context.

Interesting in that you need to look at more of the context to see what I'm pointing out here. All right, Colossians 3, there's a bunch of one another commands before this. Okay, do not lie to one another in verse 9.

Bear with one another in verse 13. Admonish one another in verse 16, right? Several different one another commands. So, he's talking about things that we're supposed to be generally doing to one another, right?

And then after that, he gives more specific instructions to households. So, this is not totally new chapter disconnected from the previous stuff, right? He's saying you are to be doing these things to one another.

You need to be teaching one another, admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. He's talking about worship. Like you all ought to be worshiping together, et cetera.

And then he immediately transitions from that into the one another commands applying to the family. Okay, so these one another commands, including the command to worship, and then he speaks of how one another commands apply to the family.

If these one another commands are applying to the family, then that means that all the stuff that became before is also applying in the family. They're supposed to be worshiping together. Household management is a mark of maturity.

This is 1 Timothy 3. This is talking about the requirements of an elder and then the requirements of a deacon. He must manage his own household well with all dignity, keeping his children submissive. Let deacons each be the husband of one wife, managing their children and their own households well.

I'll simply say that part of managing your own household well is providing for your household. The one who doesn't provide for his household is worse than an unbeliever. So part of that provision is not just physical, it's spiritual, right?

You're supposed to be providing spiritually for your children. How do you do that? By teaching them, by leading them in worship. Yeah, what does it look like to manage the household well? We shouldn't be, really we shouldn't be asking the question what is the bare minimum of managing a household.

We should be asking what does it mean to manage the household well? And this is going to require some kind of leading.

In worship, right?

Let's keep going here. Like I said, some of this stuff is just cumulative case arguments. Some of these are more direct. Examples of household worshipers in the Old Testament. Now a common thing you'll hear people say when you use narratives to prove points is they'll say, well narratives are not prescriptive.

Meaning that, well just because you have a story that something happened does not mean that that's a good thing, right? Like you can't look at Solomon having 1 ,000 wives and say therefore you should have 1 ,000 wives, right?

Certainly, but if narratives are not prescriptive at all, then 2 Timothy 3 .16 is lying to us, right? It says all scriptures breathed out by God are unprofitable for correction, for instruction, for reproof, for training in righteousness.

All scripture is prescriptive. All scripture has some kind of application, some kind of thing that we must do or believe from it. And if you look at a narrative and you say this is just narrative, this is just raw fact, it doesn't actually have any kind of implications for us in the way we live, you're not reading scripture right, yes.

So that's not necessarily the implication of what I'm saying. Now certainly you see that his foreign wives were led to his downfall. It doesn't say anything about the number of wives, just the foreign wives.

You could see it as, I mean there's a lot of things it speaks to, it speaks to the prosperity of Solomon and therefore of God's kingdom, et cetera. So there's a lot of takeaways from that that aren't necessarily the ethics of marriage, but there are takeaways.

And if the only takeaways you're getting are historical facts, then you're not getting the right, you're not getting enough takeaways. Now of course, polygamy is wrong, but there's other passages that teach that.

I'm just saying it's not necessarily the Solomon passages.

Yeah, yeah, they led him, right,.

He was led away to serve other gods. Okay, so given that, consider Joshua 24, 15.

Joshua 24, verse 14 says,.

Now therefore, fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Okay, fear the Lord, this is something that frequently talks about worshiping him, serving him. I've pointed out a number of times recently, I think that the word for serving is the same word that's used for the worshipers of Baal and kings.

This is a word that refers to religious service, to not just obeying his laws as you go about your day. We're talking about serving him in worship. And then what is the antithesis of that, right? Put away the gods that your father served beyond the river and in Egypt and serve the Lord.

Okay, put away the idols that they served. How are they serving the idols? It's not that they're obeying their commandments, right? It's that they are bowing down before them. This is what the service is, right?

It is worship that they're doing. Stop serving, aka worshiping these gods. Start serving, aka worshiping this God. And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods of your father served in the region beyond the river or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell.

But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Okay, so Joshua is talking about his house together, worshiping the Lord, not just obeying his commandments, but worshiping the Lord together. Okay, these are the models of holiness that we have in scripture are ones who are worshiping the Lord together as a household.

That has implications for us. We should be ones who are worshiping the Lord together in our households.

Acts 10 .2, let's see.

Acts 10 .2 speaks of Cornelius, the centurion, a devout man who feared God with all his household, gave alms generously to the people and prayed continually to God. What does it mean to fear God, right?

It's not just talking about, it's not just talking about the disposition towards God, it's talking about worship. That is the quintessential way that one fears him is by worshiping him. And it's talking about giving, it's talking about prayer.

These are things that he does with all his household. So if we have, yeah, if we have examples of godly men being worshipers with their household, that lets us know that we should, we're going to be godly men, be worshipers with our household.

Okay, among the patriarchs. Genesis 4, in the course of time, King brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought the firstborn of the flock and other fat portions. If you ever wondered why they're doing this together, why are they not just doing this on their own at different times?

You know, this is something that they're doing together. It seems to be something that they are doing as a family. Genesis 18, 19, for I have chosen him that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has promised him.

Okay, so Abraham here is being chosen not just so he would keep the commands and the way of the Lord, but that his children would. How do you, if one of the commands of the Lord is to worship him, and he's supposed to be teaching his children, and it's not that they've got church so that they're doing this once a week back then, right?