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The theological foundations of family worship is in
Deuteronomy 4:9,10 where believers are told to
“keep thy soul diligently…[and to]…teach them thy
sons, and thy sons’ sons when the Lord said unto
me, Gather me the people together, and I will make
them hear my words, that they may learn to fear me
all the days that they shall live upon the earth,
and that they may teach their children.”
It is also in Deuteronomy 6:4-7 where the words
which God had commanded believers should be taught
diligently to their children, that they should
“talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and
when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest
down, and when thou risest up.” The chief
Christian educators of our children are their
parents, who have been given this sacred duty.
Psalm 78:2-7 also teaches this, especially when it
says regarding the law “which he commanded our
fathers, that they should make them known to their
children: that the generation to come might know
them, even the children which should be born, who
should arise and declare them to their children:
that they might set their hope in God, and not
forget the works of God, but keep his commandments.”
According to Dr Joel Beeke, “Every church desires
growth. Surprisingly few churches, however, seek to
promote internal church growth by stressing the
need to raise children in covenantal truth. Few
seriously grapple with why many adolescents become
nominal members with mere notional faith or abandon
evangelical truth for unbiblical doctrine and modes
of worship. I believe one major reason for this
failure is the lack of stress upon family worship.
In many churches and homes family worship is an
optional thing, or at most a superficial exercise
such as a brief table grace before meals.
Consequently, many children grow up with no
experience or impression of Christian faith and
worship as a daily reality.”
“Would we see revival among our children? Let us
remember that God often uses the restoration of
family worship to usher in church revival. For
example, the 1677 church covenant of the Puritan
congregation in Dorchester, Massachusetts, included
the commitment ‘to reform our families, engaging
ourselves to a conscientious care to set before us
and to maintain the worship of God in them; and to
walk in our houses with perfect hearts in a
faithful discharge of all domestic duties,
educating, instructing, and charging our children
and households to keep the ways of the Lord.’”
Douglas Kelly says that “Family religion, which
depends not a little on the household head daily
leading the family before God in worship, is one of
the most powerful structures that the
covenant-keeping God has given for the expansion of
redemption through the generations, so that
countless multitudes may be brought into communion
with and worship” of God.
Posted 09:51
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