In today’s devotional, we will be looking at another way to help us redeem the time: family worship. Family worship is something that was widely practiced just over a century ago by Christians everywhere, but it has been tragically neglected in modern times. Before continuing, here is a significant point to remember: While family worship is often directed at children, it is important for every family, irrespective of its age or size. So, even a couple with no children (or teens) will greatly benefit from family worship, and can have it catered to their spiritual needs and maturity. I wrote the following quote in a document that sought to cover family worship at length. (Note that “Shema” means “hear,” referring to the Greatest Commandment taught in Deuteronomy 6:4-5).
If it is a divine mandate that all Christian parents diligently instruct (disciple) their children from the Bible to love God with all that they are, why, then, do so few Christian parents seem to be doing this today? Truly, family worship is only one part that the church has used to help fulfill this mandate. Yet, when this fell on hard times, so did the parental duty to raise their children to love God according to the Commandment. When family worship declined, so did much in the church. It may be surprising to many who hear this, but the popular abandonment of family worship is only a recent phenomenon. We, particularly the Western church, are suffering greatly for this neglect. Relatively few children of professing Christian homes are remaining in the church. This should be by no means surprising, since God’s natural means of grace—that is, God’s natural way of converting our children—is being neglected (i.e., making use of regular prayer, Bible-reading/study). The Shema (Deut. 6:4-5), through Christ, was given as the very goal and basis for life, and those parents who fail to pass this down, also fail to pass down to their children the goal and basis for life (without it, people inevitably turn to evil, lacking even the basics of the gospel). While it may be hard for us to hear, biblically speaking, we need to realize that parents who do not at least regularly read to and instruct their children from the Bible, pray with them, or sing praises to God with their children are similar to the many generations of Israel we see in the Bible where Israel has forgotten their God. If you are regularly doing some of these things with your children, then that is great! Family worship will help you to become even more faithful. However, for those who do not do any of those things regularly with their children, we need to realize that, even perhaps without knowing it, many parents become as Eli the priest. Eli neglected his children and let them grow in wickedness. God held him accountable for his children’s lack of instruction into godliness. That is not to say that we are ultimately responsible for whether they believe or not, but that we, as parents, are responsible for the instruction and admonition that we are to give them in the Lord (Eph. 6:1-4). In this regard, family worship is a solemn duty of all Christian parents. To neglect family worship (regularly reading/teaching the Bible, prayer, and praise with our children) is, in many ways, to forsake our children and give them over to be indoctrinated by the world. Yet, many parents today do not even know the divine mandate that underlies family worship (of which family worship is only one possible, albeit effective, application)—the mandate to raise them the best we can to love God with all their heart (their whole being). For them, God does give a certain measure of grace. However, upon their hearing of the mandate to raise their children to love God, and rejecting it, these parents will have to give a strict account to God. In other words, such parents need to go back to the gospel and repent, carefully considering if they actually do have the love of God flowing through them. If they do, then they will have the love and provision from God for raising their children in the love of God. (In such a case, this duty is a joy and not a burden). If not, then they should seek to be converted. Yet, some may say, “I love God” and “Of course I am raising my children to love God.” However, in order to actually ascertain whether or not this is so relies on actual metrics and measures from the Bible. We cannot define this however we like (see again how it is defined and applied earlier in this document). More often than not, this becomes an excuse for not showing the proper self-discipline to actually raise our children diligently and according to all that God commands. To this, God will hold us to strict account, even if we are genuinely saved. Some of these things may be hard for us to hear, but it goes to show the importance that God places on parents diligently raising children for His Name. Let us then provide for our children, and show ourselves to be true worshipers of God who properly respond to His gospel.
So, what happened? What have so many professing believers done in place of the discipleship and instruction that God commands? Francios Carr gives us an answer:
For many years, we as parents have left the spiritual education of our children in the hands of the authorities in schools and in the church. But our school curricula have changed and Bible teaching is no longer part of them. . . . It was never the intention of God that the school and church should educate our children spiritually. God’s command was given to the parents, but we as parents have disobeyed the command and the responsibility.
This disobedience was through convenience, but we are now beginning to see its effect in the lives of our children and families—lives that don’t reflect the Lord Jesus. Sadly, family worship, the spiritual education of our children, has become a forgotten command of the Lord God.
We have come to let other institutions replace our role as parents for the instruction and discipleship of our children. Many parents have come to believe that, in virtue of sending their children to Sunday School, Kids Church, youth group, Christian schools, and many other means of alternative discipleship, that they have been good parents, who are faithfully raising their children. However, what we need to realize is that nothing else can replace the role a parent has in discipling and instructing their children. Complementary discipleship is a good thing when done well, but it can never replace God’s mandate given to parents. These places that we send our children to are, at best, woefully inadequate for what God desires for raising children for Him. Even if they did show themselves to be good and wholesome, the influence had and the time children spend in these are paltry when compared with the influence and time a parent spends with his children. We, as parents, have every waking moment as a potential opportunity for instructing and admonishing our children in the faith. The short time spent in those ministries have no hope of replacing parental discipleship. At their very best, any ministry of the church should serve to complement parental discipleship. The same is true of schools. Schools and teachers cannot replace parents, and neither can any instruction that they give. Likewise, any instruction that they do give can only be effective as far as it complements parental instruction. God gave this mandate to parents for good reason, and we can trust that He knows what is best.
So, what is family worship, and where is it taught in the Bible? The principal text for family worship is Deuteronomy 6:4-9. It says,
4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 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. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
In brief, the statement “The Lord our God, the Lord is one” serves as our confession, and “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” is our proper response to the One God. This response entails obeying God’s commands from the inner-man (the heart), meaning to pursue becoming or embodying those commands—to become like Christ. We have the Holy Spirit to help us to do this, and so, we are in a much better place than the ancient Israelites. “These words” in verse 6 refer to the Ten Commandments, which are being applied as obedience from the heart (our whole inner-man), and represent all the commands that we have in Christ: the whole Christian duty to God. Verse 7 teaches that all of God’s commands (think of the Great Commission) are to be taught diligently to our children. This means the whole counsel of God: The whole Bible. The word for “diligently” literally means whetting a blade, so as to sharpen it. It requires teaching over and over, regularly, just as one sharpens a blade. Verse 7 then teaches that this instruction is to be given in every area of our day: when we sit in our house, when we walk outside of our house, when we go down to bed, and when we first get up. Verse 8 teaches that this teaching is to govern all that we do (our hand), and all that we think (our head). Verse 9 teaches that this teaching is to govern our homes (think of the verse, “as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord,” Josh. 24:15b), and all the conduct of public life.
This teaching is reiterated in the New Testament, in Ephesians 6:1-4, which says,
1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), 3 “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” 4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
Notice, first of all, that children are to obey their parents “in the Lord.” This means that parental authority is a proxy authority of the Lord, and therefore means that everything that a parent is to teach to their children is encapsulated in the commands and instruction of God: the whole counsel of the Bible. Children are to honour their parents (reverence and respect them, and thus also what they are being taught by them), which leads to blessing. Fathers (and mothers) are to respond by refusing to sinfully provoke their children by being overly harsh or overly gentle, or by sinning against their children. By contrast, they are to “bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” In other words, parents are the primary disciplers of their children, and, as in the Great Commission, this entails teaching their children to obey every command of God in Christ. Discipleship is comprehensive, applying to all of life, and the “instruction of the Lord” includes the whole Bible. So, we see the same mandate taught in both testaments.
The point of family worship is to sharpen our families (not only children) to know, understand, apply, and live out God’s instruction from our hearts. Family worship is normally done first thing in the morning (the first thing to be on our hearts when we wake up), and before the children go to bed (to be the last thing on their hearts before retiring for the day). This then sets the foundation for applying God’s Word to the whole day, and thus every facet and area of life (when we rise in the morning, when we walk in the way, when we sit, and when we retire for sleep). By regularly having family worship, we can more naturally and easily bring biblical teaching into every area. We do not need to “inject” God or the Bible into regular life, but have these as our paramount thoughts and meditations throughout the day. God’s instructions come to govern everything that we say, do, and think, making this a regular part of our daily rhythm.
We will show how family worship can be done practically in the next devotional.
[1] Francios Carr, Lead Your Family in Worship: Discover the Enjoyment of God (Malta: Gutenberg, 2008), 16.