My child, keep your Father’s commands and do not forsake your Mother’s teaching. Bind them upon your heart forever; fasten them around your neck. When you walk, they will guide you. When you sleep, they will watch over you. When you awake, they will speak to you. For these commands are a lamp, this teaching is a light, and the corrections of discipline are the way to life, keeping you from immorality. ~Proverbs 6:21-24
Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is One. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates. ~Deuteronomy 6:4-9
Like the chorus of a hymn that usually carries the main take away point that the hymnist wants us to remember, Solomon returns to his main theme. Don’t forget your parent’s teaching and don’t forget to pass it on to your children. It may be significant that Solomon places this review right after he has listed all of the behaviors that the Lord hates, as an exhortation to his listeners that, if one stays close to the Lord, does not forget wisdom’s teaching and re-enforcing that teaching by passing it along to others, one is less likely to do what the Lord hates because he or she is concentrating on what He loves, being close to Him.
Solomon knows that “those who forget history are destined to repeat it.” That is not usually a good thing. When Solomon says later, in Ecclesiastes, “there is nothing new under the sun.” he is stating a truth more than even he realized. Technologically, we may have changed since Solomon’s time, but the sinful, human heart has not. What Solomon said one thousand years before Christ still applies two thousand years after because the heart is the same. We still need God’s wisdom to guide us. We will still experience the most blessing when we do. Hiding His Word in our hearts and passing this wisdom on to our children is still the best advice we can give the next generation.
True, there is nothing new here. Solomon knows that too, but he wants us to get it! Do you?
Prayer: Father, thank you for teaching us wisdom. Thanks for repetitions to help us remember. Thanks for asking us to teach our children too, so that we remember it even better, and hopefully lead by example as well. Thanks for the more sensitive conscience provided by the Holy Spirit when we are in Christ. Thanks most of all for not condemning us for falling short. In Jesus' name, amen.
Hymn: “I Know Whom I Have Believed” (Pay attention to the chorus as something to KNOW!)
Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is One. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates. ~Deuteronomy 6:4-9
Like the chorus of a hymn that usually carries the main take away point that the hymnist wants us to remember, Solomon returns to his main theme. Don’t forget your parent’s teaching and don’t forget to pass it on to your children. It may be significant that Solomon places this review right after he has listed all of the behaviors that the Lord hates, as an exhortation to his listeners that, if one stays close to the Lord, does not forget wisdom’s teaching and re-enforcing that teaching by passing it along to others, one is less likely to do what the Lord hates because he or she is concentrating on what He loves, being close to Him.
Solomon knows that “those who forget history are destined to repeat it.” That is not usually a good thing. When Solomon says later, in Ecclesiastes, “there is nothing new under the sun.” he is stating a truth more than even he realized. Technologically, we may have changed since Solomon’s time, but the sinful, human heart has not. What Solomon said one thousand years before Christ still applies two thousand years after because the heart is the same. We still need God’s wisdom to guide us. We will still experience the most blessing when we do. Hiding His Word in our hearts and passing this wisdom on to our children is still the best advice we can give the next generation.
True, there is nothing new here. Solomon knows that too, but he wants us to get it! Do you?
Prayer: Father, thank you for teaching us wisdom. Thanks for repetitions to help us remember. Thanks for asking us to teach our children too, so that we remember it even better, and hopefully lead by example as well. Thanks for the more sensitive conscience provided by the Holy Spirit when we are in Christ. Thanks most of all for not condemning us for falling short. In Jesus' name, amen.
Hymn: “I Know Whom I Have Believed” (Pay attention to the chorus as something to KNOW!)
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