by Kevin Jones
This year you will do a lot. In doing, do not forget about the main thing—reading God’s Word.
Forgetting is easy. We forget things of significance and insignificance. However, the cost of forgetting can be great. We cannot forget God’s commands.
I make my fair share of trips to the store. I have a wife, three kids, and two dogs. I suspect you have made trips to the store too. But have you ever had to make several trips to the store for the same thing? Yep, I go to the store to get batteries for my smoke detectors and come back home with compressed air, chewing gum, salt for the impending snow, and candy. As soon as I get home and walk through the door, I hear the nerve-racking beep of my smoke detector. Since I had forgotten the batteries, the beep seemed more like a shriek that ran up my spine and then throughout my entire body—not the low beep it was. I must go back to the store. So, I got back in the car and headed back to the store to get the batteries. This time, I made a note on my phone to keep the inevitable from happening again. What happens to us when we do this? We forget what is important and get distracted by things that are not primary. This is so easy to do when it comes to the Bible.
The Bible tells us in Proverbs 3:1, “My son do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments.” A proverb, understood broadly, is a short, pithy saying that offers advice or an observation on the world. E. I. Gordon defines it more specifically as a “short familiar saying, expressing some well-known truth or common fact of experience,” and he cites Cervantes’s memorable definition that a proverb is a “short sentence founded on long experience.” This biblical proverb just happens to have some parallel and similar passages mentioned in other places in the Bible: Deuteronomy 8:8-11; Psalm 119:11; and John 15:10, just to name a few.
Do I forget? Absolutely! Writing down and reviewing are the only things that help me. My son and daughter do not forget. This implies that someone is instructing the younger person or persons. I know in your home, ministry, and work there are so many things competing for your time and attention. However, you must make a habit of studying God’s Word daily so that when you open your mouth, whether around the dinner table, in the car on the way to school, during midweek or Sunday School, you have something worthy of God coming out. So often we want people to listen to us, but we are giving them nothing more than babble. So, get in God’s Word daily. That is the most significant thing you can give kids and students, whether in your house or at church. To teach, you must learn, and that from God’s Word.
When you see a sign that says, “Do Not Enter” or “Do Not Touch,” this sign is a warning. Not following the directions could result in some type of bodily harm to yourself or others. There are countless times I have seen on the news a flashing sign during a flood or other natural disaster. As a result of the signs being unseen or ignored, a miraculous rescue has had to take place. But what could be so important that the writer in Proverbs is telling us not to forget? The Word of God. Ignore the Word and God’s commandments and you just might find yourself in need of a miraculous rescue that could have been avoided. Yes, we all need a Savior of our soul, and the cross has accomplished that miraculous work. Yet there are also some earthly consequences we face when we ignore the Word. This is what Solomon is getting at in Proverbs, and we see this clearly in Proverbs 3:2-12.
How do we remember? Study. Make a list. Memorize. Review. Repeat.
We need to meditate on and memorize God’s Word. However, to forget in this case refers more to a willful neglect and nonchalant attitude toward the things of God, not simply a memory lapse. Nonetheless, both things can be true. We must work at binding God’s Word to our hearts by study, note-taking, and memorization. We must, just as importantly, not walk in the way of evil willingly or joyfully.
One of the most helpful tools I have found is to write everything down, either digitally or manually. Your preference here is not as important as the habit of making it a point to write down things that speak to you as you read God’s Word. Make a list of a verse or a biblical reflection that you want to meditate on. Study. Make a list. Memorize. Review. Repeat. The old Chinese proverb asserts, “The dullest pencil is better than the sharpest memory.” In short, write it down. When it is written down, you will remember it better.
“The world of education as we know it is filled with broken paradoxes—and with lifeless results: We separate head from heart. Result: minds that do not know how to feel and hearts that do not know how to think. We separate facts from feelings. Result: bloodless facts that make the world distant and remote and ignorant emotions that reduce truth to how one feels today.” The Courage to Teach (1998; San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2007), 68.
Teaching must instruct the mind and heart. The mind hears, comprehends, and thinks on the things of God and then informs the heart. The heart can be glad, rejoice, and be overwhelmed by the things learned. This is what makes the gospel so important. We hear it and need to hear it daily. We then respond to the gospel with gladness and excitement. This is what makes having a good curriculum important. A good curriculum will constantly look at Jesus. Not a glance or nod at Christ weekly but clear connections to Christ that point us to the work of Christ. We do not have to have our Christian lives filled with paradoxes. We must have heads and hearts working together. We must have feelings and facts working together.
The heart is peculiar. It can be filled with passion for God in one moment and the next be filled with passion for ungodliness. The heart can be singing songs of glory and praise in one moment and in the next spewing venom. We must guard the heart. We must fight for our hearts to be pure and holy. The heart in this case is referring to a love of God’s truth. The Bible tells us to love the Lord with our heart, soul, mind, and strength.
Are we teaching kids to love the truth? I hope so. Each time we wake is a new day for us to love God’s Word, to show we love God’s Word by the way we live, and to teach someone else to love God’s Word. Why? The return of this love can keep us from sin.
Adults teach golf, soccer, personal finances, how to pass tests, cooking, personal hygiene, and other important and extracurricular activities. These are all good things. Yet we must teach how to study the Bible, how to serve, how to act with discernment, how to love enemies, and how to pray for people, both friends and enemies. Do not forget this. Let us not be a generation that instructs kids on everything except the things of God. Today and forever, they will need to know the things of God. We must encourage them at every opportunity to remember and to live wisely.
We all believe reading God’s Word is the most important thing on our daily to-do list. We also believe that teaching God’s Word is the most important thing we can do in our time with kids at church. But do we live like it? We must not forget. We must focus on the gospel.
Kevin M. Jones, Sr. serves as the dean of the School of Education at Cedarville University. In addition, he serves as the managing editor of The Gospel Project. He started his teaching career as a first grade teacher in Lexington, Kentucky. He and his high school sweetheart, Demica, have three children: Kennedi, Kevin Jr., and Karsynn. He serves as a lay pastor at St. John Missionary Baptist Church in Springfield, Ohio, where they live.
