Teach Your Children the Bible

Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, thankful to be here in the studio, if you can call this a studio, with Pastor.

Esteban Cooley. I have to say, I probably wouldn't call this a studio. It feels much more like, I don't know, your office.

We haven't done a message moment for a long time. Would that put you more in the mood?

Yes, I love our message moments. Now, since you have the new rig, do you have some special.

Message moments? Okay, so I'm gonna be able to put, who sang that? The Drifters? Yeah. And I'm gonna be able to put it on one of these little deals, but I haven't figured that out yet, because I just get bogged down into doing other stuff.

Why don't you just sing it then? Yes, please. Go right ahead.

Go ahead. This message moment. Because, you know, then everybody will go, let's see if you can't sing a lick.

I'd rather they go, that mic can't sing a lick. Now, you might find this interesting, Steve. I've been studying John 6 in the mornings. Okay. Because I thought all the top, all the discussion that Jesus has about coming down from heaven, coming down from heaven, coming down from heaven, and He's the bread of life.

And I thought, well, that might be a good springboard to a simple Christmas message reminder that Jesus came down from heaven. He was sent by the Father. That is good.

So I'm wondering what the message would say about that. You know, what's interesting to me, though, is because John 6 could also be like, you could use as an Easter message. I mean, John 6 is kind of like.

Utilitarian. You could use it for transubstantiation message. You can do that if you want to.

Oh, man, swim in the Tiber.

Jesus said, message moment, don't bicker among yourselves over me. You're not in charge here. The Father who sent me is in charge. He draws people to me. That's the only way you'll ever come. Only then do I do my work, putting people together, setting them on their feet,.

Ready for the end. Ooh, setting them up and knocking them down.

Man, that is so punchy. You know what? I could just talk about Bragg of Jesus. I think that's what He's doing right here. A lot of Braggadocio, Bragg of Jesus. I think there's a Gospel Assurance 31-day Braggadocio, Bragg of Jesus edition.

How about the 31-day message version of Gospel Assurance? Probably take you a lot of work to put that together.

Oh, it'd have to be more than 31 days. It's probably 700 days. Yeah. I think, you know, the hordes were wanting this simpler devotional one, and I think the hordes are also wanting a law-only Gospel Assurance called Gospel Deassurance.

Law Deassurance, usually. That would be pretty bad, right? Yeah. How about this? It's called Gospel Assurance, and they open it up, and it's nothing but law, and you go, April Fools! Gotcha!

Sadly, though, that's what happens in a lot of pulpits. Let's talk about that a little bit right now, Steve, at the beginning of the show. Why do you think so many pastors are drawn to heavy law sermons?

Maybe law-only sermons? What do you think? What's in the heart of man? What's in the.

Belly of the beast there? Well, I mean, you know, like Pastor Bob used to say, we're worksy people. We like to think we have something to do with our salvation. But I think even more to the point, why do pastors, you know, drift that way?

I have to tell you, there's something intoxicating about feedback, right? And when do you get the most feedback? Is it when, you know, you assure people of their salvation, or when you make them feel like wretched, awful sinners, right?

If you give the people what they want, what they really want is to feel—I mean, a lot of people want to feel bad.

Make me feel bad, right? Now, what's the difference between feeling bad and feeling convicted? Anything?

Well, feeling bad is probably not very biblical. But conviction of sin is good, right? But, you know, for the Christian— and we have people that want to talk to us about this kind of thing— for the Christian, is the reason we come to church to feel bad, or is it to worship the Lord Jesus Christ who redeemed us from our sinful acts?

Steve, I'm looking here at Matthew chapter 12, and I think the message yet, Bible, speaking of the Messiah, He will not quarrel or cry out, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will break, and a smoldering wick he'll snuff out.

I don't think that's right. He's going to put you down. Remember, they called Richard Sibbes, the man who wrote the bruised reed book, they called him the sweet dropper. That almost sounds like, I don't know, Bob Lanier or somebody, a basketball player.

Maybe if it was the swede dropper, because he's dropping swedes left and right.

Artis Gilmore, the sweet dropper. What did they call Wilt Chamberlain? The big dipper. Yeah, the big dipper. So if Richard Sibbes is the sweet dropper, who's a Puritan that would be the big dipper?

I don't know, man. I have no idea. You know, he didn't ask me ahead of time to think through basketball analogies.

Yeah, but you're so good at that. I ask you something about a music song and you know right. I don't know.

I don't know. All I'm thinking about is, you know, who would be the Puritan that we'd call Mr. Clutch? I don't know.

What about those folks that are home, and at home, and they're listening, or in their cars, or just no co-listeners in general? They need to do a Bible study for their family, and they open up the Bible.

Do you think they should mirror what's going on in the pulpit if the pulpit's got a good law gospel ministry going, or do you think they should just revert back to law? You just take the Bible and you think, all right, I'm just going to find all the commands here and just give them to my family.

How does that all work out? Let's make it practical.

People like practical. Well, I think practically, you know, I think practically, I just want people—I mean, especially, typically we're talking about you're having a Bible study with your kids. What do you want them to understand?

You want them to understand that God is holy. You want them to understand that God is just. You want them to understand that they're sinners, you're a sinner, and you want them to understand that Jesus is the Savior.

And the emphasis really should be on Jesus, because you never—I mean, the idea of just terrifying your kids, I mean, sure, it's fun. But you want to assure them that there's a release from their terror.

There's a release from their fear that there's someplace they can turn, someone they can turn to, right, who has all the answers, who's going to make everything right. And, you know, in our own selfish way, we want it to be mommy and daddy, but ultimately we know the answer is Christ.

So, we want to present Christ to them.

When we're teaching our children the Bible, Steve, in the old days, I would think the most important thing is for me to be excited and enthusiastic about me teaching. And I think that's still right up there.

But I think the most important thing now is not to forget who Jesus is, even though I might be in the Proverbs, even though I might be in the book of Esther, even though we're reading through Exodus, to try to talk to the children to make sure they understand who Jesus is.

I think that's probably, I mean, if you're doing the Passover lamb, pretty easy to talk about Jesus, don't you think?

Sure it is. I mean, you know, are there passages in the Bible where it would be difficult? Yes. You know, and so, but there's always some form of connection in the big picture because, and we talk about this all the time, in the Old Testament, you're pointing towards Jesus and, you know, towards the cross.

And in the New Testament, you're looking back on it and, you know, they're discussing Jesus and the ramifications of his life and person and work. But in the Old Testament, they're definitely anticipating that.

So, why wouldn't you talk about Jesus?

What if I did this? Dear children, we're here in this book and we're in, whatever, Esther, and I don't really know how this relates to Jesus, but I do know this. Jesus loved the book of Esther and read it.

That works. I love that. That works, right? I mean, yes, he did because it's canonical, right? I mean, we know that he loved the Old Testament.

Breathing hard. Okay. So, our topic today, teaching our children the Bible. Do you want that to be the topic? What do you think it needs to be?

You betcha. And I mean, you know, and I've mentioned this a few different times, even to the men here, you know, I like to have books. In fact, I just told Ben to make sure that we have Now That's a Good Question by R .C. Sproul and Concise Theology from G .I. Packer.

And he kind of looks at me when I say Packer, and I'm like, don't worry about it. He was good and orthodox back in those days, you know?

The old Packer. The old Packer. All right, let's start with the basics, Steve. Teaching your children the Bible. Of course, Ephesians chapter 6, right? Nurture and admonition of the Lord, right? We're to train up our children.

How about step number one? Because people like lists. Step number one. This is not 31 days, but just step one. Make sure you take your children to Lord's Day worship. Step one. What do you think? I think that's outstanding.

Okay. Step number two, don't worry about being a legalist. Just regularly open up the Bible at convenient times with your children to teach. What I'm after there is, okay, so if you don't do it every day of your life, you don't have to feel like a loser three or four times a week, five times a week, sit down, open your Bible.

When do you think would be the best time to do that?

Whenever you can. I mean, you know, it's possible some families, especially as the kids get older, you know, you find it more and more challenging to have everybody sit down at the same time. So maybe it's breakfast.

I mean, I don't really care when it is, you know, but sometime. And, you know, you mentioned the sermon. I mean, is it okay to kind of ask questions about the sermon or to highlight things about the sermon?

Yes. Thousand times yes.

That makes a Sunday one or the Monday teaching time when you teach your family.

Easy because you can talk about the sermon. It's done. I mean, just, you know, let me just give you a pro tip. Take a couple notes, right? As you're listening to the sermon, even just like maybe a question comes to your mind that the pastor doesn't even answer.

Perfect. Because then you can ask the kids that and make them think a little bit. And, you know, hopefully you've done a little thinking, so you have an answer ready. But yeah, that kind of thing is perfect.

Steve, what we used to do with our children at different points of time, we would give them incentives to take sermon notes, right? And so we would say when they're really little, okay, the pastor's going to say Jesus, and he's going to say Savior and King, because I looked at the passage that the pastor was going to preach, or in that particular case, when I was going to preach.

And so every time they heard the word Savior, they'd put a little tick mark, right? Even if they can't write Savior, you write Savior, then they can put a little tick mark and add it up. Oh, 23 times he said Jesus, 32 times he said Christ, 15 times he said risen.

Oh, what's the point of the sermon? Jesus Christ is risen. He's risen indeed. Then I would also tell them for every four sermon notes that you give me, I'll give you five bucks. Nice. Right? So that would give them an incentive.

Do you think that's a wrong thing to do? I mean, I told my children if they read through all the Bible, I'd give them 100. Is that like buying them off? What's your opinion?

I believe in incentives. You can ask my kids. I did, you know, that sort of thing all the time. Money motivates. No matter what anybody says, money motivates.

So make sure you're there on Lord's Day worship with a good attitude, right? You don't want to be the dad. That's like, okay, here we go again. We've got to go to church. That kind of betrays.

Everything, doesn't it? Okay, kids, let me just give you a heads up. We're going to be leaving two minutes after the sermon's over because I don't want to miss the Patriots game. You know what I'm saying?

And we're excited about that. All the Patriots swags on. We've got the special Buffalo wings dip.

Got the inflated Patriot out in the front yard, you know?

Hey, maybe we should have one of those out in front of the church here. Oh, yeah. Pack them in. Uh-huh. One of those things that wiggles all around.

Yeah, we're having Tom Brady Memorial Sunday, you know, because he's not with the Patriots anymore.

If Tom Brady got saved and was visiting in Boston and started coming to Bethlehem Bible Church, do you think there'd be a spike in attendance, no pun intended?

Yes. You know, especially, you know, I'd be on Facebook going, hey, FYI. You could start charging for church. Yeah, we're going to have two services this weekend. You'll have to figure out which one Tom Brady's going to be at.

I mean, Crystal Cathedral. For Easter, they're going to have donkeys and people flying around like angels, but we've got Tom the Brady.

Do they still do that? They don't, well, because it's Roman Catholic Church.

No, because they sold it to a Catholic church. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so you're sitting around the dinner table, breakfast table. That's what I would do, Steve, because we're already there, right? Instead of we're in the middle of playing ping pong, okay, it's Bible time.

Yeah. We're already around the breakfast table, our dinner table. What I would do is I would say, all right, let's clean up the table. We don't have to do the dishes yet. Go get your Bibles, and Daddy's going to have Bible time.

Yeah, I almost feel like I need to say something really dumb here, but my basic rule would be—I never had to parent during this, but I just look at the kids and go, no devices at the dinner table or the breakfast table, whatever.

None, right? We're going to have a little time as a family, not as a family online together.

Totally. So no devices, that's really important. It's kind of like Deion Sanders now at University of Colorado, no devices in the team meetings, no do-rags and weird hats and all these kind of things.

I like him. He's a legalist. I wanted him to go to Nebraska. What about the Spirit? Well, that's true. So we get their Bibles out, and you could do whatever you want. As the kids got older, I might talk about a topic, right?

What does the Bible say about marriage between a man and a woman, right? Because they're dealing with that in the culture. But when they were little, Steve, I just started off mirroring what I would see from the pulpit.

I would get Exodus 1. I'd say, we're going to learn about God and sin. I'd read it with enthusiasm. Then I'd ask questions about who God is and who's a sin bearer, and we'd be off to Exodus 2 the next day.

Super simple, just reading through.

And simple is good, and simple is good for a number of reasons. One is you don't want to lose the kids. But two, if you're thinking, I've got to have some kind of outline, I've got to do all this and everything like that, guess what?

You're never going to do it. You're going to say, well, I haven't been trained. I don't know how to do that. So you're just going to freak yourself out of doing it.

Steve, you're reading my mind. Such a great point. Dear dads, or maybe you're a single mom, or your husband's out of town or something, you don't have to prepare an exegetical sermon using 14 commentaries every night.

That just paralyzes people, right? And by the way, dear wives, if your husband is motivated to open the Bible in front of the kids and to read a chapter and to share some and to pray, don't expect him to do all the exegetical work either.

Just be happy that he's opening up the Bible. What Kim would do, she would make sure the kids, the little kids kind of paid attention, right, to help them. They were little and maybe fussy or whatever.

And then I would just try to read. But at the beginning, Steve, I was paralyzed by thinking, I have to give a John MacArthur sermon. And I'm not ready.

Can you imagine, you know, your wife says, well, MacArthur says blah, blah, blah, blah. Or, you know, I was reading Kistemacher or, you know.

Seriously, I felt, and I'm using that word on purpose, so inadequate when I started Bible Time. And I had to get over that. Just read Exodus 1 with enthusiasm. Let's talk about it. There's this lady named Shipra and Pua.

Kids, can you say Shipra and Pua? And off we go.

Steve McLaughlin You felt inadequate. When I got saved, my wife knew more Bible than I did, right? And I'm just—. Jared Barren. Kim knew more than I did, too. Steve McLaughlin. Yes. I'm terrified, you know.

I'm just thinking to myself, am I going—you know, I can remember teaching Fundamentals of the Faith. And, you know, sometimes I'd look at her and I'd go, there's a verse that says, you know—. Jared Barren.

And she knew it. Steve McLaughlin Yeah. I'm just like, well, I'm glad you know.

Jared Barren. I know. I'm not the one at home who's memorized Ephesians and a lot of the Psalms and Romans. That's not Mr. Abendroth, by the way. So, you don't have to do all that preparation. You can read with enthusiasm.

Steve, how about this for a take? This is what I did sometimes. I would get some treats out. Let's say M &Ms. Steve McLaughlin. Dog treats. Okay. Jared Barren. Yeah, dog treats. M &Ms. And I would ask after I read through the passage—let's say we're up to Exodus 3 now, and Moses, holy ground, burning bush that doesn't burn.

And then I would ask appropriate questions for the age group. So, if it's a two-year-old, I'd say, Gracie, what was Daddy talking about? And she'd say, Jesus. And then I would give her an M &M, like, good job.

Then, you know, Haley was probably 12 by then, then I'd ask her, you know, what did the bush represent or something like that. And then she'd answer, then I'd give her an M &M. Then once in a while, I'd say, this is a two-M &M question, so it's going to be a little harder, and you're going to have to think, and you might miss it.

So, do you want two M &Ms or one M &M for this? So, what do you think of that idea? Steve McLaughlin. I like money better.

No, I think it's good. You know, whatever is going to motivate the kids to just kind of tune in and to care, right? I mean, isn't that the thing? I mean, the last thing I want, especially as the kids get older, is for them to be rolling their eyes in their head, because two things happen when that happens.

One is, I know they're checked out. And the other thing is, I have this visceral response that makes me want to, you know, C-clamp the Gizroid.

So…. The arcade by my house growing up in Nebraska was called Gizmo's, the pinball arcade. I wish it was called Gizroid. Mom, I'm going down to Gizroid's. That I have a dollar's worth of quarters, lasts me all night.

In those days, you could get three games of pinball, five balls a game for 25 cents. Steve McLaughlin Yeah, those were the days. That started going to, like, 50 cents for one ball.

Pete Stephens. Yeah. Yeah. Well, then they go, well, it's because the machines are so much better. Are they really? Not.

Jared Ranere No. Steve, let's try to encourage the people that are listening to not go too long in their Bible time, especially initially. Pete Stephens Yeah. Jared Ranere It's a 35-minute deal.

Pete Stephens Okay, kids. No, it's, yeah, it's Bible hour, you know, and….

Jared Ranere Well, maybe I can see it this way, with all due respect. Dear dads, you're not Joel Beeky. Pete Stephens No. Jared Ranere Joel Beeky is not walking through those doors. Pete Stephens No. Jared Ranere And therefore, remember, if you've been doing this for a long time, maybe you could sing a few songs, you could do Scripture Memory, you could do the Bible reading.

Sometimes I'd let the kids take turns reading the Bible,.

Right? Pete Stephens. Well, I don't know. I've heard Vody go an hour and a half, and I didn't get bored.

Jared Ranere. Just be consistent. Family worship. You don't have to do everything. You just sit down. We're going to learn the Bible, talk about it, have some dessert, and enjoy yourselves. Steve, I did this.

Here's another take. What do you think of this? After dinner, the children would say, thank you, Mom, for dinner. That was real good. You know, that was good. They always had to say thank you. Then to get up, they'd have to say, may I please be excused?

Pete Stephens. Yeah, good. Jared Ranere. And then I would say, no, you may not, because we're having Bible time. Or, yes, you may be excused to put your plates in the sink, but then grab your Bibles and come back for some exciting Bible teaching.

And remember, kids, no divos, no dessert.

Are we not men? That way, it's not like we're—and sometimes you need to rush, right? You have to just eat and rush. But you sit down, and that's one of my favorite memories, Steve. Don't you long for that even now, to sit down around the dinner table with your wife, children, sons-in-laws, and grandkids?

Could there be anything better?

Pete Stephens. No, there is nothing better. But I mean, if I could go back in a time machine, would I do that again in a second? So, good times, precious times.

Jared Ranere. We're talking about teaching your children the Bible. So, you do chapter one of a book, then chapter two. I say to start with narratives that are kind of exciting, like the book of Mark would be good.

I do Exodus because at least it starts off exciting by the time you get to a lot of the gowns and cloaks and tabernacles and all that stuff. Then maybe you skip over some of that. But the first few chapters are pretty exciting.

Well, like chapter 28 and 29. I know it's God's Word. I wouldn't skip over it from the pulpit. But home Bible study and the blue pomegranates.

Pete Stephens. No, you have to go verse by verse explaining genealogies. Got to give them a lecture. We're going to go a little longer tonight, kids, so I can get through some of this boring stuff.

Jared Ranere. I mean, remember Exodus 4, and Moses said to God, I can't really talk well. You know, you made my mouth kind of a little, Lord is angry with that. And I thought, you know what? If he says that to Moses, I think he could even use somebody from Nebraska.

A seat from Nebraska.

Pete Stephens. Here's a pro tip too for you, parents. Sometimes if it is a more difficult section, just take a bigger piece of it, right? Just take two, three, four, five chapters, just shrink it down and get through it and give them the highlight, the big picture kind of thing, and ask some questions from the text.

Jared Ranere. Steve, would it be fair to say, instead of doing a Romans sermon commentary style, read 10 to 15 verses, and then maybe you could just kind of summarize that or keep them up to date versus read a verse, explain it, read a verse, explain it.

Pete Stephens.

Yeah. I mean, you're not the MacArthur study Bible. You're not the Reformation study Bible. You know, you're just mom and dad. So, dial it down.

Jared Ranere. I think a wonderful benefit of this kind of study is not just dads and moms with the children focused on the Lord, but also introducing topics that children need to be introduced to in a godly way.

And I'm thinking specifically about sex, sex crimes, sex topics. And of course, the Bible's not gratuitous, it's not pornographic, it's appropriate and right and God-breathed. When I was reading the Bible, and I would say the word whore, that Israel was a whore or something, I just kept my head down and just kept reading.

I didn't say whore and look around like...

Pete Stephens Didn't even want to look up because...

Jared Ranere No, yeah, just plow through. But then the kids got older, then they would ask me in the privacy of our home, dad, what's a whore? And then I could say whatever I wanted that I thought was age appropriate to my children.

And I would just be very generic and vague, because I've got four-year-olds there, 12-year-olds there.

Pete Stephens. Kids have somebody who collects a bunch of stuff from their house and doesn't get rid of it.

Yeah, there's a show called TNT. Jared Ranere Horter.

Pete Stephens. The horrors. If you just, you know, drop the D, it all works out.

But seriously, those things would pop up, prostitute, whore, you know, someone going into a tent or something like that, or a rape or whatever. And most of the times, Steve, I just kept my head down and kept reading.

But then as time would go on, that's a good way to introduce people in a proper way. Because I think most parents these days, they wait too long to talk about any of those subjects. And by the time the children have a friend that's got a cell phone, it's too late.

Steve McLaughlin. Oh, way too late. I mean, I'm encouraged. I've been encouraged by our grandkids and by their naivete, right? And because these days, I know how difficult that is to maintain. And, you know, I just think in my own life, did my parents wait too long to have the talk with me?

Absolutely. You know, and did I wait too long to have it with my kids? Probably so. You know, I mean, did I push it off of my wife? I don't remember, but probably so. You know, but these kind of things are, like what you're saying, if we let the Scripture kind of introduce that for us, you know, then the questions are more natural, right?

And the answers are easier to give.

Jared Binkler. And you're sitting around in your kitchen, around the table. You're already doing the Q &A and talking back and forth, and it's very, I don't mean safe space in a dopey way, but it's very safe.

And you can tell the children whatever you want to tell them, a little bit of information, a lot of information. But most everyone that I know in the Christian circles, I think they wait too late because they're a little embarrassed.

It is embarrassing, right, to sit, I would bring Kim, sit down with one of our children to talk about it. But this Bible teaching, first of all, the Lord has commanded it because we're to train up our children, but it just, it helps in other areas like this.

Trevor Burrus. Well, I'm not after anybody, but if your kids are in public school, the odds are by the time they're like nine, they probably know way more than you could ever dream that they would know.

We've, the Ebendroths have put children in public school, homeschool we did, private school. And when our children were in public school, I think the teachers actually were honest when they said, you know, there's going to be the sex ed class, and you can sign out of it.

And so we would do that. And then, you know, Maddie would have to sit in the library by herself or something. She actually would sit in there with a guy who now is a tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs, Noah Gray, who plays sometimes with Kelsey.

He's a backup to Kelsey, but plays a lot in the double tight end system. And I think they honor that. But you know what, Steve, today, I'm sure there are some wonderful people in public schools that still teach, but I think they lie regularly.

And they're not going to tell you that it's going to be, oh, it's condom day.

Because they think your kids are their kids.

And they think you're not good at it. Right. They think you're not good at parenting. You're not good at teaching. You're not good at morality. You're not good at woke, social construction, everything else.

Yeah. So it's their burden to teach your kids because your kids aren't going to hear it any other way.

So thankfully, we can introduce our children to these topics in a right way around the house. If you're teaching your children the Bible, way to go. Keep doing that. If you're not, how about tonight? How about Exodus chapter one tonight with a young lady named Shipra and another lady named Pua?

We'll send over the food. We'll send over the food. How'd you like to be named Pua? No, thanks. I'll pass on that. Thanks for listening.