And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. - Deuteronomy 6:6 (ESV)
Before Moses commands parents to teach Yahweh’s commands to their children, he commands that his words be on their hearts. In other words, parents must know the commands before they can teach the commands.
We have already seen that the first command for the parents is that they love Yahweh, whom Moses has described as one. There is a logical progression here from the doctrine of God (that He is Yahweh, the I AM, one God), to the disposition to God (that we should love Him with our whole being), to personal knowledge of God (the words Moses is commanding), to obedience to God (living for God according to the words that Moses commands). In this way, the passage known as the Shema (“shuh-MAW”) contains a blueprint for the whole of our lives that extends to the generations that follow. What is the blueprint? The blueprint is the pattern of love, leading to knowledge, which leads to obedience, which leads to instructing children to repeat the pattern.
One of the implications of this pattern is that parents must not be hypocrites, calling their children to live for God when they refuse to do so themselves. Parents who instruct children regarding the commands of God must first be people who heed the commands of God. The failure to recognize and submit to this basic formula is the cause of untold problems in parenting and families. When parents fail to have the commands of God on their own hearts, they may react in various ways that cope with their failure rather than addressing and remedying it. The main focus of this article is to call parents to remedy their failure rather than coping with it.
Knowing and Obeying God’s Commands
What do parents need to do to have the Lord’s commands on their hearts? It is simple enough and ought not to be complicated more than necessary. Parents need to know them and obey them. The Word of God should be the authoritative text for parents’ lives, as it should be for anyone. The tricky thing is that the Word often is not, despite what parents profess. It is easy for parents to expect children to live as they say and not as they live.
If parents are going to raise their children biblically, then they must think biblically and choose biblically. There is no way around this. The only way a parent can raise children to know and follow the Lord while not doing so themselves is by hypocrisy, which is not something any parent should knowingly embrace.
Parents, therefore, must be about the business of doing what Moses calls parents to raise children to do: remain exposed to the word of God and its implications for living. Scripture is not meant to be boxed into one particular category of life. Instead, it is meant to be infused into daily life, from waking, to working, to resting (cf. Psalm 1; 119). The reason for this is not that people would have their noses in a book all day long. The reason is instead that people are constantly drawing on source material for how to live. We are constantly making decisions, some of them more conscious and explicit than others. How do people know right from wrong? How do people know good from bad? How do we know true from false? Given the way many people live, the answer is something like, “I just know.” This answer is obviously inadequate. People cannot “trust their gut” for all the complexities of everyday life. If only there were some sort of guide that people could consult, some authoritative source for knowing how to think, what is desirable, and which choices are best, then their confidence would be much higher because their conscience would be cleaner and their confusion would be cleared. Of course, it is precisely this that people have in Scripture, and it is why parents must have Yahweh’s commands on their own hearts as they raise their children.
For parents to have Yahweh’s commands on their hearts means that their lives are guided by and grounded in Scripture. It means that parents turn to Scripture and its contents for wisdom to live, encouragement to persevere, and discernment to choose well. Parents who have Yahweh’s commands on their hearts do not take for granted knowing what is right, good, and true. They are continually learning it.
The Necessity of Exposure
How do parents get the commands on their hearts? It is by exposure, like anything else. Parents should be reading and meditating on the Bible regularly. They should also pray and meet with God’s people, the church, regularly. Bible reading and meditation places Scripture front and center in our minds. Prayer places parents in the presence of God to praise, thank, confess, lament, and plead, as appropriate. Meeting with God’s people exposes parents to other believers and provides opportunities to hear God’s Word preached.
Having Yahweh’s commands on our hearts is not difficult to understand, but it can be challenging in practice. It is common for parents to say that they are overwhelmed by the demands of caring for children and keeping a job. There are constantly mouths to feed and messes to clean. Life can be chaotic for many parents, so they treat Bible reading as a pipe dream, prayer as a luxury, and worshiping with the church as optional. How can these parents have Yahweh’s commands on their hearts?
The counter-question puts the situation in a truer light: how can parents not? The chaos of life that many parents inhabit is precisely what makes Scripture so essential. These parents do not realize that they are following commands, dictates, principles, strategies, and promises. The problem is that too many of those are coming from somewhere other than God if the parents do not have Scripture on their hearts. Parents cannot parent from the hip, making it up as they go. They need solid principles with solid instruction to inform, guide, and direct their whole lives, including their parenting. The chaos that many parents experience is not a sign that having Yahweh’s commands on their hearts is a laudable but unachievable goal; instead, it is a sign that they are as desperate as ever to anchor and order their lives according to God’s Word.