Family Worship Intro
Family Worship
I have been thinking about how to encourage family worship. So over the next few weeks (months? years?) I will walk you through our family practice — which I hope will be helpful for you in your homes. I started this practice as a bachelor, so I trust that it can be fruitful for singles as well (although when I was single I always looked for others to do this with).
First, a couple thoughts on basic principles:
1) The point of family worship is love of God and neighbor. In Deuteronomy 6:7 Moses says that you shall teach the words of the LORD “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.” This is the end of a paragraph that begins: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them…” (6:4-6) The point of family worship is first and foremost that we might love God.
2) Family worship by itself does not fulfill Deuteronomy 6:7. If you have family worship every night, that is only the beginning of putting Deuteronomy 6 into practice. The goal of Deuteronomy 6 is that we might become the sort of people who are characterized by the Word of God, both in what we say and in how we live — that we would love God with all our heart. But we are also creatures of habit — and our habits express what we truly love. Therefore, the habit of family worship is an important way of helping form our desires and loves by practicing that which we seek to love.
Second, a couple of notes on our family’s practice:
1) At first we bounced around the Bible, but after a couple years of that, we decided to read through the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. It generally takes us around 4 years to read through the Bible — and we are just beginning our fifth read-through as a family. At this pace, each of our children should read through the Bible 4-5 times during their years at home (in addition to their own individual Bible-reading) and provides some basic biblical instruction as a family.
2) Our Bible-reading has changed several times based on the ages of our children. When they were little, the readings would be shorter, and the discussion more geared to age-appropriate themes. Now that they are older, we can read more – and the discussion continues to grow along with the children. When the children were little, we did a lot of fun things to help them follow along. One thing that this does is help the children to focus on the reading — it works wonders for building their attention span. (I sometimes marvel at my children’s attention span — but it was cultivated over many years, it didn’t just “happen”). I will try to remember some of those things in my weekly notes.
If you have any comments or suggestions, please don’t hesitate to let me know!
Reading the Bible Together This Week
Genesis 1-5
With Genesis 1, it can be helpful to draw a picture of what the text is describing. Rather than using the modern “space-based” paradigm, I generally draw the picture from the standpoint of someone on earth. Day 1 speaks of the creation of day and night. Days 2-3 speak of the creation of the three realms — the Heavens (day 2), the Seas (day 3), and the Earth (day 3). Then day 4 speaks of the creation of the rulers of day and night, days 5-6 speak of the filling of the three realms, concluding at the end of day 6 with the ruler of the three realms (man). Then God blesses the seventh day and made it holy “because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.” Here it is especially helpful to show our children why we rest from our labors–and particularly, as Hebrews 4 points out, our weekly day of rest not only points backward to creation, but also forward to the New Creation rest (which is why our Lord rose on the eighth day — the first day of the new creation).
Songs: Psalm 19, Psalm 104, PHSS 197, PHSS 212
The whole point of Genesis 2 is the creation of Woman. The Garden is designed as the “sanctuary” of Eden — the holy place where God meets with his people. But there is something “not good” about this holy place. Adam cannot do part of what God had commanded him. He needs a “helper” — which, as we have seen throughout the Psalms, always means “someone who does for you what you could not possibly do by yourself. Adam cannot “be fruitful and multiply” alone. He needs someone who can “help.” (At this point, fathers, you look at your children and say, “If I hadn’t had a helper, you wouldn’t be here!”)
Songs: Psalm 127, Psalm 128
Genesis 3 tells the story of the fall into sin. It is helpful to point out the nature of temptation: temptation rarely offers you something inherently evil. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was good. What the serpent said was true: “God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” And when Eve and Adam ate, “the eyes of both were opened.” Temptation will generally come in the guise of doing something good — but in the wrong way. Genesis 3:16 then provides the first promise of the gospel — how the seed of the woman will bruise the head of the serpent — but in the context of God’s curse upon the very things that he had given Adam and Eve to do: Eve would “help” by bearing children — now she will have pain in childbearing; Adam had been called to work the ground — now it will only yield bread through pain and sweat. All of creation — not just humanity — now labors under a curse.
Songs: PHSS 180, PHSS 189, PHSS 192, PHSS 204, PHSS 205
Genesis 4 is then a brilliant demonstration of how sin produces misery and death. The corruption of sin quickly results in murder, as Cain kills his brother Abel. And yes, “Abel” is the same word that is translated “vanity” in Ecclesiastes — it literally means “vapor.” Why did Eve name her son, “Vapor”? Perhaps she understood something of the transience of life under the sun now that they had been banished from the Garden. Certainly she understood it after his death — and it may be that only after his death they gave that nickname, which would be the only name by which he was ever known to posterity. Genesis 4 then goes on to chronicle something of the history of the line of Cain — as Cain’s descendents become the “culture-makers” of the ante-diluvian world (ante-diluvian means “before the flood”). While Cain and his descendents are building cities, playing music, and forging bronze and iron, Seth and his son, Enosh, “began to call upon the name of the LORD.” We should not be surprised when those who have rebelled against God produce fine cultural objects. There is no biblical reason to suppose that Christians will outperform non-Christians when it comes to culture-making.
Songs: Psalm 41, Psalm 116, PHSS 222
Genesis 5 is the first of the biblical genealogies. But the details reveal how this is an integral part of the story. First, we see how the language of “image and likeness” is used not only for the creation of Adam, but also for the birth of Seth. The image of God may have been marred by the fall, but it was not entirely obliterated. And the human race continues to pass down the image of God from father to son — and as the generations pass, there are moments of hope (Enoch, who walked with God) in the midst of the painful toil and misery of this age. Hence we long for Noah — for relief. One way to engage children in the genealogies is to have them repeat the names. (Don’t worry about mispronouncing names — they won’t know any better than you!) Or with slightly older children, you can have them recite other parts — e.g., tell them “when I pause, you say, ‘and had other sons and daughters’ — a recurring line throughout the chapter.
Songs: PHSS 207
PHSS 187 — “Hear, Israel” — Deuteronomy 6, set to music — works well for any passage!
