“Here O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your strength. These words which I am commanding you today are to be on your hearts. Teach them diligently to your sons; talk of them when you sit in your houses and when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up. They are to be bound as signs on your hands and frontlets on your forehead. Write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your gates.”
Deuteronomy 6:4-9
Deuteronomy 6:4-9 is probably the world’s most often quoted Bible passage. Jews all over the world include it along with their morning and evening prayers, and have since ancient times. Today, these verses still direct us how to live our lives, and how to teach our children. We are to remember the LORD’s Oneness and to love Him with every part of ourselves. We are to love him with all of who we are by binding ourselves to his Law. We are to study and know and do His Word. We are to teach these commandments diligently to our children.
How? How are we teach these words to our children? It’s one thing to be commanded to diligently teach children, but it is another to know how to teach them. Each child is so different (and for that matter each parent, teacher, and church member is so different.) Some are outgoing, and some are shy. Some are rowdy, and some are quiet. Some are sick, and some are healthy. Some are eager and some are discouraged. They each have different experiences, knowledge, and learning styles. How are we to teach all of them?
As we continue in this passage, we find the answer. We are to teach our children diligently by example. We are to live out God’s word in our lives. We are to talk of it all of the time, as a natural part of our daily lives together. Now this verse speaks to all of us. We are all to Love God completely at all times and to diligently teach children by example to do the same. At the same time, this is especially a word for parents.
Parents know that their children imitate what their parents do much better than they obey what their parents say. This command does not carry any shock or surprise, but a very essential universal truth. We are to diligently teach children by example. Children learn in the home things that they could never learn half as well in school. A parent that lives out a loving, obedient life to God and shares God’s Word with their child during the ins and outs of daily life, is their child’s best teacher.