The Puritans said the benefits of family worship are so great they are “impossible to describe.” In this series I’ll be attempting to highlight ten of its advantages.
The fourth benefit of homes gathering daily to read Scripture, sing and pray is that it captures a child’s most formative years.
Get them early
We are most impressionable in our youth. One Puritan wrote: “It is common sense to put the seal to the wax when it is soft.”
I thank the Lord for my godly upbringing. While in college I once did evangelistic work with a young man who was converted just a few years prior. He was in his mid-twenties and had great zeal for Christ. But as a new convert, he was not aware of some of the most basic Scriptures. Hymns I had learned as a child he didn’t know. Even some of the children we taught had surpassed him in some areas of theology. What an advantage I had.
I’m also thankful for the many Scriptures I was forced to memorized as a child—“forced” the operative word since I would rather have wasted my time on trivial matters. My parents and teachers did right in compelling me to commit hundreds of verses to memory. I grew up with the KJV and still can quote the majority of Scripture I know only in this version.
Four ways fathers fail their children
First, fathers create bitterness in their children when they ignore the child’s spiritual formation. We know Paul intentionally singles out fathers to teach their children (Eph. 6:4b) because he had previously mentioned both parents in vv. 1-2 and it was typically the responsibility of the father in the Greco-Roman and Jewish world to educate and discipline his children. Continue reading