“You shall teach them diligently to your children…” - Deuteronomy 6:7a (ESV)

The command to teach children God’s commands often intimidates parents. This is an understandable reaction. Many parents do not think of themselves as teachers, and there are passages that warn against too many people becoming teachers.[1] Nevertheless, it stands that parents are expected to teach their children the commands that God gave to Moses. This article is about understanding what teaching is. Subsequent articles will expand on how to do it.

What does Moses mean by “teach” here? The word translated as “teach diligently” in the ESV is used nine times in total in the Old Testament. Fascinatingly, the word is translated as something like “sharpen” or “pierce” in every other case. Our passage is the only time the basic meaning “to whet, sharpen” is used in a figurative or metaphorical sense.

So what does it mean? Literally, Moses is commanding parents to “sharpen” the commandments to their kids. If we think about what it means to sharpen something, the analogy is easy enough to understand. When you sharpen something, you remove what makes it dull and useless, leaving only what makes it strong and useful. This is what needs to happen with children. The literal term refers to the idea of causing something to have a thin or pointed shape, like a spear point or a knife edge. Some translators like the term “repeat” to capture the idea of constantly reinforcing the commands in children’s minds. The commands, then, have the effect of being used to whittle a child into the shape that they should take. This means that, at the very least, children are not born the shape they need to be.[2]

The Need for Teaching

Consider what children are and how they begin life. Children are human beings made in the image of God. Children are born looking like their parents in many respects, but also having their own particular features and characteristics. The same is true of their likes, their interests, and their preferences. In some ways, children can seem like copies of their parents. But each child is also unique. Children are also unique moral agents. Children are not born with a vast knowledge, but they quickly learn. Before they are two years old, children are making deliberate choices about what they want to do or do not want to do. Children quickly develop the ability to choose, to move their bodies, and to make their will known.

Children also quickly develop a sense of their desires and their ability to express them. Children want to eat from birth and will seek it out. They are born able to cry when they are distressed, but they quickly develop other means of expressing themselves, including delighted giggling, even before they are two years old.

Children are also not born perfect, but as sinners. There is no child other than Jesus who is born without a sin nature. Children are conceived as sinners and then sin because they are sinners, not the other way around.[3]

It is common for people to argue that children are born pure and innocent. Some say that children are able to find their way to God themselves. Some say that children are neutral. Others say that society corrupts them. Still others say that some children are born inherently better than others. The spectrum of opinion is highly varied. The Bible, however, states the matter clearly: children are universally descended from Adam and Eve, made in the image of God, but with that image thoroughly corrupted. Children are not born as bad as they possibly can be, but no part is as good as it should be.[4]

Given what the Bible says about humans and human nature, it comes as no surprise that children need teaching. The teaching envisioned in Deuteronomy 6 is a kind of teaching that shapes and forms the child. It is not abstract instruction, nor is it mere words. For it to be diligent teaching that sharpens or forms the child, it must be a teaching that takes into account who and what the child is so that the teaching can move the child in the direction of what he should be. This will mean leaving open options that do not have to be dictated and closing options that are.

What Teaching Looks Like

If parents are going to teach children well, then they must have a solid idea of what God wants children to be. This is where knowing Scripture becomes so important. Parental teaching is not to be guided by the whims of the parents, nor is it something that can be downplayed or ignored. Teaching children is not an optional pursuit that parents do if and when they have time. It is instead a core responsibility of parents before God.

Parents, therefore, must not be deceived into thinking that their children do not need to be shaped. Children will not naturally think the way they need to or flourish like they could. Children need shaping, and parents are partly responsible for how children are shaped. This does not mean that parents are ultimately responsible for their child’s destiny. Parents cannot make their children love God; they can only model it and teach the love of God. They cannot make their children virtuous; they can only model and teach virtue. Nevertheless, the fact that parents do not have ultimate control over who their children are or what they become does not exempt parents from teaching their children. Parents should teach their children so as to influence them toward all that is right, good, and true. 

Parents are not determinative, but they are influential. In a sense, they are always teaching, if not by precept then by example, whether they “mean to” or not. Parents cannot make their children holy, but they can show their children what holiness is. Parents cannot make their children love God, but they can show their children what the love of God is. Parents cannot make their children virtuous, but they can show their children what virtue is. And they can do it over and over again, moment after moment, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. If children grow up and refuse to live for God through Christ, parents should pray and live that this would be despite the genuine godliness their children witnessed and learned about growing up.

In all that parents teach and show, the goal is for them to know and remember God. What parents should most want and teach toward is the very thing that Moses says is first: to love Yahweh with all their heart, soul, and strength. There can be no better or higher goal for the Christian, and therefore there can be no better or higher goal for the Christian parent teaching their children. All their teaching should be oriented that way, and the difficulty and urgency of it should not be underestimated. Moses explains how teaching should be integrated into daily life, which will be the focus of the following article.

[1] James 3:1.

[2] The references for these definitions come from Ludwig Koehler et al., The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament(Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1994–2000), 1606–1607.; Francis Brown, Samuel Rolles Driver, and Charles Augustus Briggs, Enhanced Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977), 1041.; James Swanson, Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains : Hebrew (Old Testament) (Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997).

[3] Cf. Psalm 51; Romans 5:12; Ephesians 2:1-3.

[4] Cf. Romans 3:23; 5:12; Jeremiah 17; Psalm 14.