40 Key Verses for Evangelism

One of the great things about Southern Seminary is the willingness of the professors to assist lay people. I recently heard a lecture by Dr. Timothy K. Beougher on evangelism in which he told of a study he developed for neighborhood outreach based on the idea that unchurched people would be more likely to attend a study about the Bible rather than a Bible study. In his experience, many of his neighbors were intimidated by a Bible study because they did not want to look ignorant in front of others when they knew so little about the Bible.

Dr. Beougher was kind enough to send me a rough outline of his 5-6 week study on an overview of the Bible, Old and New Testaments. One of the helps he sent me was a list of 40 key verses for evangelism to memorize. I post them here in the hope that you will study them and use them to prepare to share Christ when one of those “chance” conversations with unbelievers happens.

40 KEY VERSES FOR EVANGELISM
(you may memorize these verses in any translation,
but I have listed them in the ESV)

GOD

The heavens declare the glory of God,and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Psalms 19:1

“Worthy are you, our Lord and God,to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.” Revelation 4:11

And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.” Matthew 22:37-38

“Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.” Leviticus 19:2

REBELLION

but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear. Isaiah 59:2

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Isaiah 53:6

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, Romans 3:23

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:23

And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,
Hebrews 9:27

And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Matthew 10:28

ATONEMENT

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16

“For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” Luke 19:10

but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. 1 Peter 2:24

But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. Isaiah 53:5

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, 1 Peter 3:18

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 5:21

Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. John 3:36

CONVERSION

Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” John 3:3

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, John 1:12

And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” Acts 16:31

because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Romans 10:9

For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Romans 10:13

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Matthew 11:28

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6

“And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” Acts 4:12

No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Luke 13:3

let the wicked forsake his way,and the unrighteous man his thoughts;let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him,and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. Isaiah 55:7

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:9

“Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.” Isaiah 1:18

For he says, “In a favorable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you.” Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation. 2 Corinthians 6:2

Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. Revelation 3:20

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. Ephesians 2:8-9

ETERNAL LIFE

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. John 10:10

All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. John 6:37

Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. 1 John 5:12-13

The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, Romans 8:16

Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. John 5:24

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 2 Corinthians 5:17

which is why I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that Day what has been entrusted to me. 2 Timothy 1:12

Ten ways to raise a nonreader/reader

Tammy recently purchased a book entitled “Honey for a Child’s Heart” by Gladys Hunt. The focus of the book is to give parents guidance on selecting reading material for their children. Mrs. Hunt lists both classics and current literature for suggested reading. I don’t agree with every suggestion in the book, but do agree with quite a lot of it and am impressed by many of the ideas she suggests for developing young readers and lovers of God’s Word. Here are a couple of thought-provoking lists to ponder as a parent.

Ten Ways to Raise a Nonreader

1. Have the television on at all times. Make sure you put a television set and a computer in every room. (Don’t forget the kitchen!)
2. Keep the place neat - no books or literary magazines in sight.
3. Never let your children see you read a book.
4. Never take your kids to the library.
5. Never read stories aloud past age two.
6. Never talk about ideas while eating meals.
7. Keep the lights down low. Buy only forty-watt lightbulbs.
8. Schedule your children for every activity you can think of so they won't be bored.
9. Never play any table games together.
10. Absolutely no reading in bed or good lamps to make it easy to do so.

Ten Ways to Raise a Reader

1. Restrict television watching drastically.
2. Keep the computer under control and where it can be monitored. Don't allow too many hours on pointless computer games or in chat rooms.
3. Have books and other good reading material within easy reach, an enticement to read.
4. Let your children see you reading.
5. Read books aloud together regardless of age.
6. Talk about books together; play games together.
7. Have well-lit rooms with comfortable chairs that invite reading.
8. Balance activity schedules with reading time. Let your kids know the library is as important as the gymnasium.
9. Encourage reading in bed with good lights to do so.
10. Visit the library often, and listen to books-on-tape when traveling.

Now, why is this relevant for a Sunday school blog? God did not reveal Himself through video, pictures, or music. He revealed Himself through words in the Scripture. The ability to reason, follow a flow of argument, and take ownership of ideas from reading a text is uniquely human and part and parcel to the image of God in which we were first created. Reading good books forces the mind to engage in critical thinking - what is the author trying to say? - rather than the emotion-dominated - what does that mean to me? - thinking that permeates our video game, T.V. saturated culture. The Bible is literature. It has history, poetry, legal arguments, etc., each word divinely inspired. Yet, each type of literature has been written to be read “literally” in the sense that poetry should be read as poetry, history as history, etc.

By instilling in our children a love for reading all of these types of literature, we build within them a greater ability to read God’s Word with understanding of Its objective meaning, not their subjective preference.

Noel Piper on “Hunting” through God’s Word

I found this excerpt by Noel Piper interesting on how she finally read through the Bible in a year and what helped her do it...joyfully...

Shepherding a Child’s Heart (5)

How do you define success? How would your child complete this sentence? “What Mom and Dad want for me is...” Chapter five is entitled “Examining Your Goals.”

We are bombarded with the cultural push toward ultimate goals for our children that are unbiblical. Sports, self-esteem, good behavior, participation in family worship, getting the child to pray the “sinner’s prayer,” or the American Holy Grail of a good education are worthy pursuits. However, they are not worthy end goals for parenting, ultimately.

Parents want children to be successful so they can “do well” and live happy, comfortable lives...We want them to have adult lives filled with opportunity and unfettered by problems. However we define success, we wish it for our children.

Tripp addresses many of the main goals in American parenting. Consider the following and see if you see your goals.

In hustling children to baseball, football, soccer, swimming, piano and dance classes, is the measure of success the number of skills developed? Will involvement in these activities have biblical content? Will true success depend on the skills which these activities teach?

What about the promise of children with strong self-esteem?

Books and magazines pander to these parents. They promote the latest pop psychology - all tailored to insecure moms and dads...Have you noticed that no books promise to help produce children who esteem others?

Is this biblical? How does esteem for self function in God’s kingdom where it is the servant who leads?

What about the preoccupation with “getting your child saved”? Many Baptists, who do not believe in infant baptism, will teach their children to put their trust in a “decision” they made when they rushed down the aisle at four years old after a week of Vacation Bible School. They forget that Scripture instructs us to “examine yourself to see if you are in the faith.”

There will be many who cling to a false faith, crying “Lord, Lord!” Does this not innoculate our kids from earnestly “work[ing] out [their] own salvation with “fear and trembling,” by looking for growth that proves “it is God who works in you to will and to work according to His good pleasure?”

What about the goal of having “well-behaved children”? There are such things as social grace, making the guests feel comfortable, poise, easy conversation, and all of the other skills we know are necessary for success in our world.

[H]aving well-behaved children is not a worthy goal. It is a great secondary benefit of biblical childrearing, but an unworthy goal in itself. You cannot respond to your children to please someone else...Every parent has faced the pressure to correct a son or daughter because others deemed it appropriate...If you acquiesce, you parenting focus becomes behavior. This obscures dealing biblically with Junior’s heart. The burning issue then becomes what others think rather than what God thinks...If your goal is well-behaved kids, you are open to hundreds of temptations to expediency.

Tripp further considers the outcome when mastery of all of the social graces is severed from biblical servanthood. The child is then able to engage in classy manipulation of others and harbors disdain for those with less polish. Others rebel against the sham of the form over substance and reject the hypocrisy of the cultural conventions. These become brash and crass in their rejection.

Tripp lists other misplaced goals as well. But, the list above is sufficient to get us thinking about these things. All of these cultural goals are insufficient ends for the Christian parent. “It is one thing to be painfully aware of unbiblical objectives...it is another thing to embrace biblical objectives.” The chief end of our lives and the training of our children, is to “glorify God and enjoy Him forever,” as the old catechism states. If we rely on cultural goals to train our children, we fail in the chief end in that teaching them to rely on their own abilities apart from Christ will turn them from glorifying God and garner self-reliance instead.

How do we do this? We pander to their desires and wishes. We teach them to find their soul’s delight in going places and doing things. We attempt to satisfy their lust for excitement. We fill their young lives with distractions from God. We give them material things and take delight in their delight in possessions. Then we hope that somewhere down the line they will see that a life worth living is found only in knowing and serving God.

By doing this, we ignore the chief end to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. Our objective in every context must be to set a biblical world view before our children. The next chapter addresses how to restructure our goals to a biblical world view.

The Gospel vs. Religion

In an article on evangelizing our post-modern culture, Tim Keller makes the following observation concerning the nature of the Gospel vs. Religion.

The gospel is “I am accepted through Christ, therefore I obey” while every other religion operates on the principle of “I obey, therefore I am accepted.” Martin Luther’s fundamental insight was that this latter principle, the principle of ‘religion’ is the deep default mode of the human heart. The heart continues to work in that way even after conversion to Christ. Though we recognize and embrace the principle of the gospel, our hearts will always be trying to return to the mode of self-salvation, which leads to spiritual deadness, pride and strife and ministry ineffectiveness.

For example, ministers derive more of their joy and a sense of personal significance from the success of their ministries than from the fact they are loved by God in Christ. Why? Their hearts are still operating on the principle--“if I do and accomplish all these things--then I will be accepted.” (cf. Harold Abrahams in Chariots of Fire- “I have 10 seconds to justify my existence.”) In other words, on one level, we believe the gospel but on another level we don’t believe.

So why do we over-work in ministry and burn out? Yes, we are not practicing the Sabbath principle, but the deeper cause is unbelief in the gospel! Why are we so devastated by criticism? The person whose self-worth is mainly in his or her ministry performance will be devastated by criticism of the ministry record because that record is our very self and identity. The fundamental problem is unbelief in the gospel.

At the root, then, of all Christian failures to live right--i.e. not give their money generously, not tell the truth, not care for the poor, not handle worry and anxiety--is the sin under all sins, the sin of unbelief, of not rejoicing deeply in God’s grace in Christ, not living out of our new identity in Christ. This means that every week in a different way the minister must apply the gospel of salvation by grace through faith through Christ’s work. Thus every week the non-Christians get exposed to the gospel, and in its most practical and varied forms not just in a repetitious “Four Spiritual Laws’ way. That’s what pragmatic post-moderns need.

I cannot tell you how much this hits home with me. It may with you as well. What is the measure of our success? God’s acceptance, or our own accomplishments? The trust that the Holy Spirit is working in our church, or the head count on Sunday morning? We must consistently fight the default measuring stick of our fallen hearts and trust the Gospel, remembering that a sign of true faith is that we are fighting at all. Those who have yet to be born again don’t fight their sin.

Shepherding a Child’s Heart (4)

Chapter four is entitled “You’re in Charge.” The core issue in this chapter is encapsulated by the following statement from Tripp:

As a father or mother, you do not exercise rule over your jurisdiction, but over God’s...You discharge a duty that He has given. You may not try to shape the lives of your children as pleases you, but as pleases Him.

Two things are important about this statement. First, parental authority is derived authority from God. The calling to be in charge is a great calling from God. As with all of God’s commands, to do it properly is beyond our ability, knowledge and desire. Once again, we need a Savior. Second, parental authority is not to be exercised for our convenience or because of the pressure of others. The concept of shepherding children is foreign to our modern culture. We hate authority. As a result, parents are tentative about exercising their God-given authority over their children. “If you are unsure about the nature and extent of your authority,” says Tripp, “your children will suffer greatly. They will never know what to expect from you because the ground rules will be constantly changing.” Additionally, the child will have no understanding of the absolutes and principles of God’s Word. Parental authority, therefore, is both a gift and a duty.

God has an objective in parental authority. Namely, the divine goal is the succession of one generation after another leading obedient lives in reverential fear of the Lord. In this way, the parent and the child are in the same boat. Both are under the authority of God. A parent’s right to discipline a child is solely tied to what God has called the parent to do, not their own agenda.

A parent does not demand obedience for his own purposes. The parent “comes with the corrections of discipline that are the way to life.” On page 31, Tripp gives a sample dialogue of how to explain appropriate discipline to a child. Tripp advocates emphasizing to the child that you are not spanking him because you are mean, but because God has called you to a task you cannot shirk. You are requiring obedience because God says you must. Here is the sample dialogue.

FATHER: You didn’t obey Daddy, did you?
CHILD: No.
FATHER: Do you remember what God says Daddy must do if you disobey?
CHILD: Spank me?
FATHER: That’s right. I must spank you. If I don’t, then I would be disobeying God. You and I would both be wrong. That would not be good for you or for me, would it?
CHILD: No. [a reluctant reply]

This gives parents a confidence to act in that they have freedom to discipline. It is a duty to perform from God and is not dependent on the approval of the child. We must engage our children because to do so is obedient to the duty God has given us. This is in direct opposition to the cultural norm of parenting, which reduces the role of mom and dad to merely providing care. American culture discharges the parental duty by providing food, clothes, a bed, some “quality time,” and a PS3. In contrast to this deflated and weak view, God has called parents to a more profound task.

To fulfill the task requires clear objectives and humility. I was convicted especially on this point. Have you thought about goals and strategies to strengthen a child’s weaknesses and encourage their strengths? I must confess, I have not. Further, the realization that we are God’s ambassadors to our children is a humbling thing.

We are called to show the child his sin nature and his need for a Savior. It is an awesome task. It requires me to be humble enough to tell my kids that I am sorry when I have failed and disciplined them out of unholy anger. There is no place for unholy anger. It confuses the derivative nature of parental authority.

You only muddy the waters when the bottom line in discipline is your displeasure over their behavior, rather than God’s displeasure with rebellion against His ordained authority.

Children learn the fear of man, not the fear of God, when unholy anger is used as a manipulative ploy to secure obedience. Such false techniques are unbiblical.

If correction orbits around the parent who has been offended, then the focus will be venting anger, or perhaps, taking vengeance. The function is punitive. If, however, correction orbits around God as the one offended, then the focus is restoration. The function is remedial. It is designed to move a child who has disobeyed God back to the path of obedience. It is corrective.

Alright, true confessions time. To date, this has been the most convicting chapter I have read...it is only the fourth. Too often, I chastise or discipline my children out of a motive of convenience, or irritiation, rather than with a goal or purpose in mind to strengthen weaknesses or encourage strengths. It is not as though my kids do not need to be corrected. It is the motive in which I attend to their much needed correction. Right actions with wrong motives are still sin before God. God give us temperate demeanors, patient hearts, and grace for pure motives in discharging this sacred trust of parenting...

Shepherding a Child’s Heart (3)

Continuing to lay the background for whys of biblical parenting, Pastor Tripp moves away from the shaping influences of childhood to the core issue - what Tripp calls “Godward Orientation.” Proverbs 9:7-10 states the following:

7 Whoever corrects a scoffer gets himself abuse, and he who reproves a wicked man incurs injury.

8 Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you; reprove a wise man, and he will love you.

9 Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser; teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning.

10 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.

According to Tripp, whatever the shaping influences of life may be, it is the “Godward Orientation” of the child that determines his response to those shaping influences. What finally determines whether a child responds as a mocker or a wise man? It is the fear of the Lord that makes one wise and it is that wisdom that determines how he responds to the correction.

Contrary to the pop psychology of the day, children are never morally neutral. Tripp argues that everyone is essentially religious: they either worship God or they worship idols. Remember Romans 1:18-19?

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.

According to Paul, your children either respond to God by faith or they suppress the truth for their own sin.

If they respond to God by faith, they find fulfillment in knowing and serving God. If they suppress the truth in unrighteousness, they will ultimately worship and serve the creation rather than the Creator.

Tripp notes that a young child may not be conscious of his religious commitment, but he is never neutral. Because all mankind is made in the image of God, children are designed with a worship orientation. They are either worshipping God or idols. It is important to realize that all of us, including our own children, are born wayward and sinful. One justification for spanking children is the nature of their hearts. “The remedy is not solely changing the structure of the home; it is addressing the heart.” The practical implications of this truth are that parents can never assume that selfishness is just a result of immaturity. Rebellion is not outgrown.

It is this biblical assumption that directs parental discipline and training of the children. “In all of this you must pray that God will work in and around your efforts and the responses of your children to make them people who know and honor God.”

Shepherding a Child’s Heart (2)

Chapters two and three entitled, “Your Child’s Development: Shaping Influences” and “Your Child’s Development: Godward Orientation,” respectively, are a general background of what a parent has to work with. The core issue in both of these chapters is that although parents should work to facilitate biblical shaping influences in the lives of their children, it is ultimately their Godward orientation that determines how they respond to those shaping influences.

What is a shaping influence? Tripp defines shaping influences as those events and circumstances in a child’s developmental years that prove to be catalysts for making him the person he is. However, the shaping is not automatic. A child’s response to these events and circumstances determine the effect they have on him. There is biblical warrant for the idea that childhood experiences have profound implications for our lives. All of the major passages dealing with the family presuppose these lifelong implications of the early childhood experience. Deuteronomy 6, Ephesians 6, and Colossians 3. It is important to realize that a child is not merely acted upon by circumstances, but he reacts to them. The child responds to what Tripp calls the “Godward orientation of his heart.” Tripp identifies at least six shaping influences.

Structure of Family Life

Tripp asks several questions concerning the nature of a family’s structure. Is the family a traditional nuclear family? How many parents is the child exposed to? How are the parenting roles structured?

Family Values

The questions asked under this section include: What is important to the parents? What is worth a fuss and what passes without notice? What gets your kids into more trouble, a broken vase or disobedience to a clear parental directive? Are the values of the home based upon human tradition and the basic principles of this world or Christ? What about boundaries and where the secrets are kept and where are they told? Are there secrets from Dad between Mom and the kids? Are there secrets from Mom between Dad and the kids? “ Every family has established family boundaries. They may not be spoken or thought through, but they exists.”

Family Roles

What are the different roles that each family member plays within the family? “Some fathers are involved in every aspect of family life. Others are busy and distanced from family activities. Subtle things like who pays the bills or who makes family appointments say much about family roles.”

Family Conflict Resolution

Our children are influenced by how we resolve conflict in the family. Are they resolved or do members simply walk away? Are problems solved biblically or by power? Pastor Tripp looks to Proverbs and makes the point that a child is trained to be a fool or a prudent, wise man by the shaping influences of his home.

Family Responses to Failure

Another influence is how the family deals with a child’s failures. Are they made to feel foolish or mocked for these failures? Or do the parents see these failed attempts as an opportunity to find praise for the child?

Whether the child has known credible commendation or carping criticism or the mix of those things will be a powerful shaping influence in his life.

Family History

Finally, the family history is also a shaping influence. Marriage and divorce; money or no money; sickness or health; births and deaths; each have their own shaping power in a child’s life.

Of course, Tripp recognizes that this is not an exhaustive list. Nevertheless, it does show the types of circumstances that impact and shape our lives. However, as parents we must be aware of believing that our control of shaping influences determines how the child will behave as an adult. Pastor Tripp has the following to say about that mistaken view of shaping influences.

You make a grave mistake if you conclude that childrearing is nothing more than prividing the best possible shaping influences for your children. Many Christian parents adopt this “Christian determinism.” They figure that if they can protect and shelter him well enough, if they can always be positive with him, if they can send him to Christian schools or if they can home school, if they can provide the best possible childhood experience, then their child will turn out okay.

These parents are sure that a proper environment will produce a proper child. They respond almost as if the child were inert. Such a posture is simply determinism dressed in Christian clothes...Determinism makes parents conclude that good shaping influences will automatically produce good children. This often bears bitter fruit later in life. Parents who have an unruly and troublesome teenager or young adult conclude that the problem is the shaping influences they provided...They forget that the child is never determined solely by the shaping influences of life. Remember that Proverbs 4:23 instructs you that the heart is the fountain from which life flows. Your child’s heart determines how he responds to your parenting...The child is not inert during childhood. Your children interact with life. This leads us to our next chapter...

Shepherding a Child’s Heart (1)

The first chapter is entitled “Getting to the Heart of Behavior” and hits the core problem of modern methods of parenting straight on.

What your children say and do is a reflection of what is in their hearts. Luke 6:45

My son, Nathaniel, is 11 weeks old at the time of this post. He is cute and will snuggle very sweetly as I hold him on my chest. However, our previous history with his two older sisters has been a great teacher to Tammy and I. One day that sweet baby will stomp his foot and yell, “No!” at me over some issue he wants his way when I have told him to do otherwise. He will rebel against me, as his sisters have done and do on occassion, because that is his nature. They all inherited it from me and Tammy. We inherited it from our parents and they from theirs, etc. Scripture tells us that we are not sinners because we sin. We sin because we are sinners, from the heart.

Pastor Tripp warns that parents get sidetracked trying to curb behavior and neglect the deeper and more profound problem: the behavior reflects the status of the heart.

A change in behavior that does not stem from a change in heart is not commendable; it is condemnable. Is it not the hypocrisy that Jesus condemned in the Pharisees? Matthew 15

But, parents tend to be more concerned about stopping the annoying or disruptive behavior than helping the child understand how his heart produced the wrong behavior. I found Tripp’s analysis of this common scenario (daily at my house) very instructive.

Let’s take a familiar example from any home where there are two or more children. The children are playing and a fight breaks out over a particular toy. The classic response is “Who had it first?” This reponse misses the heart issues. “Who had it first?” is an issue of justice. Justice operates in favor of the child who was the quicker draw in getting the toy to begin with. If we look at this situation in terms of the heart, the issues change.

Now you have two offenders. Both children are displaying a hardness of heart toward the other. Both are being selfish. Both are saying, “I don’t care about you or your happiness. I am only concerned about myself. I want this toy. My happiness depends on possessing it. I will have it and be happy regardless of what that means to you.”

In terms of issues of the heart, you have two sinning children. Two children are preferring themselves before the other. Two children are breaking God’s law. Sure the circumstances are different. One is taking the toy the other has. The other is keeping the advantage. The circumstances are different, but the heart issues are the same - “I want my happiness, even at your expense.”

In this way, Tripp shows how the heart directs the behavior. Therefore, the area that needs to be confronted is the heart, beyond the behavior. We need to unmask for our children the fallen nature of their own hearts, using their behavior as a demonstration of their need for a Savior. This leads to the cross of Christ. Addressing issues of the heart “provides opportunities to show the glories of God, who sent His Son to change hearts and free people enslaved to sin.”

The following chapters address the child’s relationship to two broad sets of issues that affect him:

1. The child and his relationship to the shaping influences of life.
2. The child and his relationship to God.

We will address the shaping influences in the next post.

Shepherding a Child’s Heart (0)

Through the years, many people have recommended to me that I read “Shepherding a Child’s Heart” by Tedd Tripp. Emma is now five and I still have not read the book. I have owned it for a while. Sometimes it is easier to ponder theology and not the nuts and bolts of its application.

So, I have started reading the book. I thought it might be beneficial if I blogged as I read it. Well, not AS I read it. After I read a chapter, I will bang out some thoughts and quotes from the book. Feel free to comment as I do this.

If we don’t disciple our kids, others will...

I read an article recently written by Al Mohler on “The New Atheism.” It is a movement among intellectual elites which seeks to make belief in God socially “embarrassing.” What most struck me are the comments on how these new elites view our duty to train up our children in the way of the Lord. Now, more than ever, we must know what we believe and pass it on to our children. As a side note, if we shirk this responsibility, Elton John is apparently more than...happy...to take up where we leave off...

Christmas Party at the Rose’s

Mark your calendars to be at the Rose’s on December 1st for our class Christmas Party. Child care will be provided. Please contact Robyn or Jill with any questions.

Phil Johnson on Discipling your children

I ran across this article on discipling children. Hope it is helpful.

The Witness of Tipping

I hope that none of us fall into this stereotype. Freely you have received, freely give. However, there is nothing wrong with putting a nice tip inside of a tract...

Memorizing Scripture

Here is a guide to memorizing large portions of Scripture. Hope it is helpful.