You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. - Deuteronomy 6:7 (ESV)
Parents, integrate Scripture into daily life. That is the core of what Moses is commanding the people to do. The idea is that it does not matter where a parent is or what he is doing, it is always a time for Scripture to inform the conversation. Whether a parent is sitting or walking, lying down or getting up, there are things in Scripture that could be talked about.
Consider what Moses is implying there: if these things need to be talked about all the time, then children need to hear them all the time. It is not that the only topics of conversation between parents and children allowed are those that revolve directly around Scripture. The idea is that instruction for how to live is not limited to a certain time or place. Instead, parents need to be ready and able to share principles, commands, and stories from the Law with their children at all kinds of times and in all kinds of places. Children need instruction during the daily rigors and joys of life. In this way, the Law can form the way that they think about daily life and not just specific areas.
Integrating Scripture and the Power of Whys
How can parents do this? The tricky thing is that Christians are often not accustomed to thinking about what they are doing through the lens of Scripture. By “lens of Scripture,” I mean that we take the validity of our own perspective too much for granted. The truth of this can be found in the simplest, and maybe most common, of children’s questions: why?
“Why?” is perhaps the most common question that children ask, other than the requests for food, water, or a toy. It is also the most exasperating, at least stereotypically. Parents who receive “why” after “why” often turn to their child in frustration and say something like, “We just are,” or, “Because I said so.” Can Christian parents do better? I think they can, and I think the key is in this passage.
What possible reason or justification could there be for bringing up the Law in absolutely any context? How can the Law be so relevant to life that it could be talked about no matter where a person is or what they are doing? It is because of the magical word, “why.”
There are two questions from children that are common tropes in movies, literature, and real life: “Are we there yet?” and “But why?” The first question reflects childish boredom and ignorance. The second question is the concern here.
“Why?” can be asked at any time, any place, about anything. To ask why something is the case is to ask about the reason for something, the motivation for something, or the cause of something. It is a question that seeks understanding. It represents an attempt to orient oneself to a situation, object, or person in the right way. To understand why prepares a person to live in the direction that they should live, or to face the choices with which they are confronted.
Hopefully, it is clear by now how the Law can be spoken about any time, any place, about anything. It is because the Law gives the most basic and important “whys’ that there are.
It is a simple observation that any parents who answer the whys from their children will eventually refer to things explicitly revealed in Scripture. Anything a person is doing, any place a person is, any situation a person is in, has its “why” ultimately in God. God is the ultimate first cause of all things. God is the ultimate goal of all things. All things are from God, for God, through God, and to God. In short, all whys lead to God.
As parents move through their days with their children, there will be lots of times that a child asks why the parent is doing something, or why they are going somewhere, or why they make one decision or another. All of those questions invite answers that reflect priorities, justice, mercy, wisdom, discernment, insight, and prudence, among other things. If parents are going to talk about things well, then they have to talk about the Law.
What is the effect of talking with children about things in this way? It is that more and more of the child’s life is tied to the principles and truths that motivate and ground it. It helps a child to orient to who God is, what life is about, and how seemingly mundane or innocuous things are all connected to bigger and more important things. It helps children to understand the morality that is in all of life and permeates every individual thing a person does as a moral creature.
Parents need to be ready to talk about these things. Parents need to be able to give answers about why we rest, why we work, why life matters, and why things are done the way they are.
The Centrality of Parents
If parents are going to do this, then this means that instruction and teaching cannot be left to the church or Christian school. It is not enough. Children are living lives all the time, and this text makes clear that the instruction that is in view is the kind that is daily, by-the-way, as-we-go sort of instruction. It is the kind of instruction that a plumber or electrician receives as an apprentice in preparation for work, except that this is for all of life. Instruction at church in Sunday Schools, Bible studies, memory clubs, or youth groups are helpful, but this is a task that cannot be outsourced to the church and then considered completed.
The calling involved here is high, to be sure. Parents have to have their own lives informed by the Lord’s Word if they are going to be able to help their children understand how they ought to live as well. If parents are going to integrate Scripture into daily life for their children, they have to have it integrated into their own lives personally.