Scott Aniol, PhD, is the President of G3 Ministries. In addition to his role with G3, Scott is Professor of Pastoral Theology at Grace Bible Theological Seminary in Conway, Arkansas. He lectures around the world in churches, conferences, colleges, and seminaries, and he has authored several books and dozens of articles. You can find more, including publications and speaking itinerary, at www.scottaniol.com. Scott and his wife, Becky, have four children: Caleb, Kate, Christopher, and Caroline.
Talked a bit about economy, you know, family economy. My opening text really focused on how a family is an economy. And so here's here's one. What are effective ways to teach children biblical financial principles in a materialistic culture the Bible the Bible I don't think you're on push up yeah the Bible is the best way to teach the principles. When I set out to write How the World Runs and your part in it for fourteen-year-olds, I found hundreds of Bible verses that tie into finances.
Even Jesus has a huge amount to say about time and money, and it's a big part of our lives, so it needs to be a part and parcel of what we're doing in our discipleship, book of Proverbs as well, so much in Scripture relating to how we use money. And money is a priority. What is the priority of money in relation to everything else in life? Yeah, more particulars? Two thoughts.
It's better to teach children to work by working with them than to just tell them to work and so as our parents raised us we were homeschooled and they worked with us that's better than just telling us to work but even better yet to serve together. I think what we don't want to do is to teach our children to save without teaching our children to give or to teach our children to work without teaching our children to serve. And understanding the heart behind it helps from getting lost in some of the greed and the incorrect passion that the world brings to these topics. It is good to work and to work really hard and to be fruitful and it is good to make money and to control assets for the Lord's sake and to be engaged in the world of fruitfulness and dominion and ownership. Those things are good but without the heart of service and generosity and love, without doing that as the grateful children and the recipients of a father who has poured out more than we deserve, you can lose the heart quickly.
But don't go off either of the guardrails, but just stay in the middle of the road and go fast. And may the Lord bless you and may you be deeply fruitful as you do it. Anything else on that? Yeah. In terms of teaching your children how to budget, I think it's good as soon as they start making money to teach them how to do that as well as a fruit of their work joyfully.
And in our household, my wife kind of took charge of that a little bit, and with my permission. And So we taught our children to leave aside a certain amount for their own expenses like Their clothing their school books or whatever so that they take some responsibility beginning to work also for their own livelihood. And then, of course, 10% for the church. And we had a couple other things in there. Oh, yes, 5% to buy good books.
Always. And so, after they built up some money, we would take them over to the bookstore, we'd sit on the floor, we'd go to the children's section, and they'd pull out books. We had a wonderful time. And then when our kids got a bit older, they said to me, Dad, how come we have a whole bookcase next to our beds? And I go over to my friend's house, and there's no bookcase in their bedroom.
You see, but we're trying to inculcate through financial principles, also spiritual benefits by helping them build their own library in part through their own money. We also gave them gifts as books, but you know you want to give spiritual principles, material principles so that you build, you dwell, and you plant through your financial resources. You know when we in response to this doing business in Babylon mini conference that we did a couple of days ago, I had a letter from a father who asked, should I bring my young teenager to this thing? I said, absolutely. You know, I said, you know, in our family, we were teaching financial intelligence principles when our kids were four, five, and six years old.
I mean, we wanted them to know early on the difference between an asset and a liability. We wanted them to understand what passive income is, and we wanted them to understand what Robert Kiyosaki coined as doodads. Are you spending your money on doodads or are you spending your money on doodads, or are you spending your money on assets? In other words, are you going to be the kind of young person who has thousands of dollars invested in lattes or something of tangible value. And so yeah, I think financial intelligence should be taught really, really early on.
Are there some tools for that, modern ones? I mean, this was like 30 years ago with my kids. So we had our kids play this game called Cash Flow that Robert Kawasaki created. But the reason is it just gave the terminology of finance. And Is there anything more modern?
Now, Mary Beeke has a book on how to work. That has a lot to do with money. And that's a really, really good book. What is it called now? It's called?
It's called Teach Them to Work. And the subtitle is how to build a positive work ethic in our children And it's 45% off at the table There you go Well I also think that our young boys should be thinking about buying the first house, the first car of the first house, paying off the first house by 25 or 26 years of age. My son was thinking in those terms at 10 years of age. I know Scott has a testimony concerning his son as well, but I think planning ahead, saving, and looking forward to the time when he can pay off his house, that's pretty critical for a young man because he wants to be sure he has his fields and he has a house in place as he gets married. Yeah, that should be taught very, very early.
You know, you mentioned, I mean, my own son, what happened with him is I took him when he was 13 to a cabin and we were going to plan the next five years of his educational life and we were going to plan from 13 to 18 and I said David when we when you're 18 I want us to look back on the corridor of time and I want us to be able to specifically name The books we read the people we were with the things we built the places that we went and that that type of thing so we itemized all that stuff and at the end of the time we were packing up our bags and he said there's one more thing I want to put on the list and I said what is it and he said I want to have a house built free and clear by the time I'm 18 and it was kind of shocking really took me back and I said well first thing I said was well don't get locked in on 18 I said but one thing I've learned about myself is that if I write something down, there's this gravitational force that gets launched.
And we start making steps toward that thing. And so that's what we did. We wrote it down. And while my friends, while my son's friends were out buying four-wheelers and Game Boys and playing games, David was buying sheetrock and toilets. And so we just kept working at that, you know, over that five-year period.
And lo and behold, while he was still 18, just before he turned 19, he got married and moved the girl of his dreams into that house. He did it. But he did it because he didn't live like everybody else. And I think fathers have a distinctive responsibility to help their sons not to live like everybody else. And that has a lot to do with economy.
So here's another question. In addition to praying, this really comes out of our text in Jeremiah 29, in addition to praying for the city, what are practical examples of pursuing the well-being of our city? That's a great question. Well, we had this conversation offline with some folks over the week, and I think it's important to know a strategy of how we're going to bless the city. And it seems to me that increasingly we have more opportunity to bless the local county, local city than we do Washington, D.C., although I guess Trump is bringing in the golden age, so that's good.
There's a little tongue in cheek there, but we'll see. But it seems we can bless the area in which we find ourselves. When we came into COVID, we immediately, as pastors, got together on a weekly basis, met with the county sheriff and told him we're going to keep our churches open from here on out. And the sheriff was agreeable to not shut us down. And we had a good relationship with him.
And, you know, having a good county sheriff who's sensible, defends family rights, parental rights, et cetera, is really critical, especially in the United States. So it was probably six months to a year after that that I threw a spaghetti dinner on his reelection and raised six or eight thousand dollars for this county sheriff and It seems to me that's you know the county that the freedom the the sensibility that the local county sheriff provides with the county is a huge benefit. I'm sure Bradley you could agree that if you got a decent law enforcement in the area with some sensibilities and we actually have had some struggles where we've had to meet with the sheriff on certain issues relating to parental rights and he has been very supportive, very sensible in working with us. So I'm just little things like that can be very helpful to blessing the city And so that's just one example. Yeah, I agree completely.
And I would say that all of our human vocations, working hard in all regular vocations, are for the welfare of the city. Martin Luther was particularly brilliant in this. You know, he at one point quoted from Psalm 147 and the verse reads, for God strengthens the bars of your gates. And Luther asks, well, how does he do that? He does that through city planners and architects and politicians who pass good laws.
And the psalm says God blesses your children. How does he do that? Through the work of pediatricians and teachers. God makes peace in your borders. How?
Through good lawyers and policemen and politicians. God fills you with the finest of wheat. How? By farmers and factory workers and bakers and grocers. And so Luther says all of these earthly vocations are like masks that God wears in caring for the world.
And so we can seek the welfare of the city. Men, you can seek the welfare of your city simply by working hard as a Christian in your vocation, which Paul tells us in Colossians chapter three, is service unto the Lord. It's worthy work. Yeah, what was it Sam Walden opened up his message by telling the story of the legacy of Jonathan Edwards. Well, what I think he left out unless I missed it, There's a book that compares Jonathan Edwards with a man by the name of Max Jukes, who was a low life.
And the cost of the legacy of Max Jukes to the cities was massive imprisonment, drug use and all kinds of things like that. I mean, just having a well ordered home and teaching your children the word of God has a big impact on the city. Hey, the list in Deuteronomy 29, every single thing on that list impacts the city, not just prayer. You know, having a home, planting a garden, taking care of yourself and not being a drain on everybody else. I mean, the things that God prescribes in Deuteronomy 29 have a profound impact on the city.
Anything else? One of the things that I think we need to be actively engaged in as churches is mercy ministries to our community because that just simply is, it's not only showing the love of Christ, it's actually a good witness. So for us, we have the city of refuge, which is a home for unwed pregnant moms. We take care of all of their prenatal care. They don't pay a dime.
They don't pay a dime for their, when it comes time to deliver their babies. And we take care of them. We bring, They come to church. Some of them don't like coming to church at first, but they're loved by God's people, and then they like coming to church. And so, people will often say, oh, are you the church that takes care of the unwed pregnant moms?
So, that's the kind of testimony, right? So all of the stuff that we've said is really, really good and really helpful. For us too, we have an extensive prison ministry. I don't even know how many released convicts we have that are actually members of our church. And so, the church needs to be doing those kinds of things as well and demonstrating the mercy of God in Jesus Christ, doing good to all men, especially those of the household of faith.
Amen. Any more on that? If I could encourage and challenge those of you in this room to go out there and to find yourself at the centers of influence in the city. I know of employers who have a great degree of influence over hundreds of employees because they're the ones providing the work for those employees and landlords as they own houses and apartments can provide a context in which people can live. And as you go and think about the centers of influence in people's lives, where they live, where they work, where they worship.
Obviously pastors, yes, but I think we as Christians ought to desire to stand at the crossroads of where people are and ought to aspire to be in a position where we can bring peace, Christ, the gospel into the lives of people in the areas around us by actually aspiring to own businesses and to own land and to own property and to be involved in the economy and the world around where the people are. That is a good and sacred thing. There's a concept called business as missions and while that's not maybe the core of the Great Commission, it is a tangential part of it to be able to stand out there in the community and in the economy as a whole and to be able to influence the lives of people around you. I'll just add it's very important for the church to speak the truth of God to the civil government, to the civil magistrate. You know, The government has tried to muzzle the church to speak to matters like that.
But a little while ago, it was last year, our little town of Wake Forest announced that they were going to have a gay pride festival, the first time ever in our little town. Shocking. And there was a young man in our church who caught wind of it and started to talk to other men. And I think there were 10 or 12 men from our church that went down to the Wake Forest town commissioners and gave, I gave one, and there were multiple really, really good messages that were given to those town commissioners. We just felt like we had a responsibility to raise our voice.
And I was really thankful for the way that these men spoke. They spoke erratically, clearly, biblically, and they spoke passionately. But they weren't crazy red faced, which is really a disaster. They weren't that kind of the type of speeches. But the church has a duty to speak to the civil government to proclaim the word of God.
We did that during COVID as well. One of the men in our church helped us engage with an attorney and we were writing letters to our governor and instructing him on the priority, the Church of Jesus Christ, that the church has an obligation to meet regardless of what anybody says. And so there was some interaction with the governor and his attorneys on that. They knew exactly what we were doing. But we felt like we needed to speak to the civil government about something Disastrous that they were doing to the churches in our community Let's not also forget the children in the community that we can help through like a Sunday school program.
Peter Masters, who's a distant successor from Charles Spurgeon in London, accepted a call to Spurgeon's church 40 some years ago and there were 13 members left. He really accepted the call to shut down the church and what he started doing was going door to door and asking parents if he could have their children for an hour in Sunday school and built that Sunday School program up to 800 children. And then as the children grew up, they became members of the church. The church is now up to 700 people. I was so impressed when I heard that, that we actually sent a couple from our church, who are very evangelistic minded, flew them over the ocean to visit with Peter Masters and we patterned our Sunday school program after them.
Ours has not been nearly as successful, but we still do it every week and we have like 15-20 teachers and we reach out into the community this way, visit the homes of the people and try to help them with mercy ministries and so on. And sometimes you think like you're just slogging along in vain because the kids are, 85% of them come from broken homes. They're wiggly. It's hard to teach them. You've got to have adults like every two or three children.
And one day a young man comes into our consistory room and says, I'm here to tell you that 10 years ago I was in your Sunday school program and it was used for my conversion. I want to encourage you to keep on going Well, it's like a big shot in the arm But you never know what God will use you sow the seed beside all waters So all these kinds of ministries from the local church can do a world of good, and eternity alone will reveal their fruits. Amen. Amen. Hey, there are several questions around the whole subject of entertainment and worldliness and media consumption, So I'll try to conflate them together.
What principles should guide Christians for dealing with media, entertainment, culture that we live in today. What are some of the principles? Well, the two basic principles when it comes to rejoicing, entertainment, and rest in Deuteronomy 16, especially as relating to the rejoicing tithe or to take the 10 percent of our income and spend it in a week and the Old Testament principle relating to that. But the two principles that show up in that passage is number one, to rejoice quorum deo before the Lord, and then secondly, to rejoice in community. So modern entertainment tends to be isolated.
It tends to be escapistic. Even most media, Most media tends to be isolation. That is, we don't really do it in community. Even as we listen to music, we're not typically participating together. So the things that matter is that we receive the good gifts of God and rejoice in His presence.
We purchase that which our heart desires, but the key thing there in Deuteronomy 16 is that we rejoice before the Lord, that we are before the face of God and rejoicing. And then secondly, in community with your sons, your daughters, your wife, Levi, within your gates, et cetera. So, it's in community. And That's the thing largely missing with modern media. It tends to be escapistic, isolationistic, and it avoids contact with others.
So those are the principles. If we can draw those principles in to our times of rejoicing, our times of festivities, celebrations, if we're doing it before the face of God and our response is rejoicing and gratitude before God, and we're doing it in community, those are the two principles that tie into biblical entertainment and a proper family culture. I mean, this is such an important question because you have this whole range of just meaningless entertainment that wastes time, and on the other end of the spectrum Defiling completely life-destroying pornography. So, you know, this is the spectrum that we're dealing with I'd like you to talk more about how to how to deal with that in entertainment, video, saturated culture, and it chases you down. The algorithms are chasing you down, and somebody's getting paid to chase you down when you click on them.
And I will say I wrote an entire book on it called The Tattoo Jesus. So it gets some good resources, not just my stuff, but really be sure that you understand what's going on in the media world because it's extremely dangerous, extremely dangerous. I think probably the major road off the highway of orthodoxy and apostasy for the average child. Maybe just one thought, you can't replace something with nothing. And so families, y'all need to learn how to have fun together.
And dads, you know, You can lead in this. My dad is a super fun dad. I mean, he made living in our home a blast. We did not need a TV to have fun. We had fun doing games, we had fun playing volleyball, we had fun doing nonprofit work and serving.
I mean, Life was fun. You don't need as much media when you can have fun together as a family. And parents, it does a lot of times start with you. Like I know you guys can't do everything with your kids all the time, but a fun family culture does have to be led by fun parents. So I know that's fun's not a biblical word, but it's a good word.
Amen. No, you've got to fill it in with positive things. It cannot be no, no, no, negative, negative, oppression. Does not work. Have a positive home.
We have lots of laughs, lots of discussions. And this whole thing, the world is entertaining itself to death. And I read an article where the man said, if archaeologists come back here, 200 years from now come back and dig up America, they'll say, These people died of entertainment. I think we need to recognize the difference between amusement and recreation. Amusement is mindless, of very little to no value.
In contrast to true recreation, many of the suggestions here already, they're enjoyable. They're not hard work, brain work or sweat work. They are enjoyable, but you're actually recreating yourself, rejuvenating yourself. So distinguishing between the two, I think, will help us discern when it comes to things that we are involved with culturally. Is this actually rejuvenating our family, rejuvenating our children, especially in community, or is this something where we're just turning our brains off, mind numbing, and really of no value?
Address people who are engaging in pornography? Well, I believe that every church, Every pastor needs to be asking those questions. I met a young man this last week, and I asked him as his internet habits, and last time that – or any time in his life where he's engaged in pornography, He says, that's the first time anybody has ever asked me that question. That should never be, never be. I think he's been in his church, in the church for most of his life.
That should never be. We absolutely, as elders and pastors, worth our salt. We've got to be discipling our young men, keeping them accountable on this issue. So it's an 80% issue, I believe. The stats appear to be pretty consistent year by year.
And so Let's be addressing it. It's something we know the gospel speaks to this. We know that the gospel will set these young men free. And we have impressed us upon them, and we hold them accountable. We make sure that they're doing the right thing, they're cutting off the right arms and pulling out the right eyes and maybe even getting rid of their cell phone taking a mallet to their cell phone or whatever it takes But we're gonna walk through them through that with them And and see deliverance now.
I think what I've seen in our church is that some young men just simply do not want the accountability and they just sort of walk off the reservation, so that happens. But generally what I'm seeing is that we see deliverance. We see that they are able to, first of all, keep themselves pure from these things, or second of all, we see them walk the path of repentance and true faith, and it's an encouraging thing. But I've also walked with men who have been in it for 28 years and I've seen incredible results where God has delivered these men and they have been pure for a number of years now and their marriages are restored and good things are happening. But I think as the church we just cannot allow this thing to exist under the table.
We have to be talking through this. You know, I think of God talking to Cain, sin is crouching at the door and its desires to rule over you, right? And that's what is there for young men and all men, but especially young men in our society. And I think fathers and all men need to be talking to young men about this. You know, you look at the book of Proverbs, I know you've written books on Proverbs, and in some ways I've looked at Proverbs like, all right fathers, this is how you talk to your children, and this is how much you talk to your children about these different subjects.
Well, you look at Proverbs, how much does he talk about the immoral woman? A lot, over and over and over. Well, then maybe we should be talking to our children about the immoral woman, a lot. And I encounter the same thing. I talk to young men and I seek to try to mentor young men, and I'll ask them about that.
And sometimes whenever they do confess something to me, it's like they're glad that someone asked them. They're glad to…they can finally get this off their shoulders and confess it to someone and, please help me with this. And so, that needs to begin with fathers doing that. And so, I just really encourage that. I'd like to just address, if I could, underneath the pornography problem and the entertainment problem That we should start when our when our children are two three years old Teaching them that there's only one purpose for life to glorify God So you build that positive purpose in them and the Holy Spirit alone can make it very real, but you keep building that purpose into them as they grow up and probably up to the age of 10, 11 or so, you're constantly telling them, yes, this is right, this is wrong, you do have to do that, because this does not reflect the glory of God.
And you teach them the Puritan principle. If you watch something, if you look at something that is sinful in any way, you are participating in that sin. Even if you watch a movie, an R rated movie, and you see things that break the 10 commandments, or not even R rated, PG, you are participating in that. You are sinning, you are disclorifying God. And so by the time you're 11 or 12, this is what my dad did, he would say to us, when we'd say to him, Dad, can we go to our friend's house and watch this movie?
He'd say, well, have you checked out the content of the movie? We'd say, well, you know. He'd say, look, first, before you even ask me, go into the bedroom, get down on your knees and ask God if you can glorify him with what you're about to do. Amen. And you know what would happen?
We would be stricter on ourselves than our dad would be on us because we knew that those movies had a lot of bad in them And we said no I can't do that with a clean conscience like Daniel in chapter 1 Because I can't glorify God by immersing myself in the sin, breaking the seventh commandment in that movie probably five, ten times by innuendo or by suggestion. So we'd say, no, I can't do that. But I think the positive principle, I'm here to glorify God, and everything that contradicts that, I must deny myself. If I could just add real quickly, as parents we have to understand that with the rise of the smartphone, the smartphone and the social media that's accessible through our smartphones, those end up destroying relationships. And they make us incapable of actually having close relationships.
I would recommend, I don't recommend secular books very often, but Jonathan, I think it's Haynes, the anxious generation, he's done research on the impact of smartphones on the kids that have grown up with them. And it's devastating, it's really devastating. Girls are more prone to depression and isolation, and young men are more prone to pornography. And the thing about pornography that we need to tell our sons is that pornography is a fake Babylonian world, and It will destroy your ability to actually have a real relationship with your wife one day that is based on love and trust and intimacy And so pornography is doing far more than we think it's doing. It rewires the brain, it rewires the affections, and it detaches us from the ability to have real relationships.
And it is one of the devil's chief tools in Babylon. One more thing that occurs to me is that Morris Cotten taught it's essential, essential that we as dads and moms be absolutely transparent with our media as well. That tends not to happen with the iPhone, but even to the point that we sit in the open area and as we're checking Fox News or whatever it is and whatever images are there, need to be open for everybody to see. So that transparency, we also have talked about unplugging the earbuds, unplugging, letting everybody listen to the music that we're listening to as much as possible. We had a rule in our house that we watch media together.
So if nobody gets to watch media by themselves, of watching any kind of AV, any kind of video, we are going to watch it with others in accountability. We have signs even in our TV room where we had a TV that we're going to watch this thing in accountability with others. So just that kind of home in which you just have an absolute transparency, certainly between husband and wife, but also with the older children. Your older children, they know what you're doing. And if there's a lack of transparency with you as a dad or a mom, there will most likely be a lack of transparency with the children as well.
David said in Psalm 101, I will set no unclean thing before my eyes. In many ways, it's a very, very simple solution. The way to be delivered is to set no unclean thing before your eyes. The way to be delivered is to starve that dragon. And you can starve that dragon and you can emaciate him.
And I think Kevin said it, You can be delivered by starving that dragon. And it's actually very, very simple. Set no unclean thing before your eyes. And just make that the rule of your life. And I really so appreciate what you said about can I glorify God in interacting with this entertainment or this media?
And at the end of the movie, can you stand up on your chair in that theater or wherever you are and sing the doxology? That's the other thing. Okay. Another test. It's the same thing, but it's sounding...
Are you talking about a Hollywood movie? Can you do this? It's a good, honest question to ask. Okay. Shift gears.
In the list in Jeremiah 29, you have this idea of multiplying greatly, that you might be increased, and the word is greatly. This is a question about having children. It's a very tender question actually. How do you encourage a spouse who is losing heart in raising children for Christ? Losing heart, hey raising children is hard.
It's particularly hard for a wife. So encourage this woman. Boy, we got to be hopeful in the gospel of Jesus Christ for every one of our children and for ourselves as well. So it's the encouraging hope that We are in process, our children are in process, and we need to have a love that helps all things in the midst of the difficulties that we're facing and to know that At any point we can bring our children to Jesus as that man did, who had a demonic son, and Jesus cast that demon out and just to have that confidence in Christ that He can solve these problems for us, an increase in faith, an increase in hope. And perhaps the best thing Practically speaking is for the husband to pray over his wife Pray with and over and for your wife one of the things I'm learning is that God wants me praying for my wife.
He's waiting for me to pray. And He can hardly wait to answer the prayers that I pray over my wife. In fact, just recently I prayed several prayers and my wife says, did you just pray for me because it just, you know, something just happened. And so I guess my encouragement is for husbands to really engage that prayer with and for his wife. Cast thy bread upon the waters and thou shall find it after many days." So you're in it together with your wife, and so you encourage her, you listen to her as well as pray with her, and you storm the mercy seat and you believe in the covenant character of God and don't panic when your kids get in the stage where it doesn't seem to be fruitful you keep on steadily bringing truth and God will bring it through in due time.
So when our oldest was about five years old He would tell such imaginative stories that were Lies, but he thought they were real because his imagination was so vivid. And I was picturing all of our gospel training of our kids was going down the drain and we were just a total failure as parents. I pictured him in jail one day and you know, I mean, I just thought, I thought this is awful. And we were both discouraged. But you know what, I found out over and over again, kids go through stages, you just stay steady, and you keep training them.
And pretty soon that stage is gone, then you fall into another one, and then that one's gone. And then all of a sudden the Lord converts one of them at age eight, and then at age 15, he converts another one, and at 17, the other one, praise the Lord. You just keep persevering, throwing that gospel bread upon the waters, training, molding, building, dwelling, planting, God will come through. When you raise a child in the ways of the Lord, God's general rule is when he is old, He shall not depart from it. And the beauty is, as the kid gets older, let's say he gets converted at 25, and he's wayward, and you're grieving, and you're weeping, and you're crying out to God for your prodigal, and when he comes back home and you embrace him, you know what he'll tell you?
Dad, I tried to push away everything you ever told me, mom I tried to reject everything you told me, but when the Lord stopped me in his covenant mercies, everything you ever told me has come back and now I see it and now I treasure it. So hope in the Lord, wait on the Lord, let thy heart take courage, yea, oh my soul, wait thou on the Lord. Amen. Amen. I'll just add one more thing and then I just have one more question.
This question sounds to me like it might have come from a husband and I think a husband should ask is my is my wife doing this all by herself? Is she alone? Are we living two separate lives? Am I helping her? Am I encouraging her?
Does she know what I'm doing every day? Am I communicating to her about what's going on in my life? Or is she just sort of in this little tiny pool with no help from her husband? So I would just throw that out. I don't know the background of this question, but often behind a discouraged wife is a passive husband.
Okay, last question. We make a big deal, all of us make a big deal about the centrality of preaching and preaching in the local church and preaching to children, like we all preach to children. We preach to children. We have our little youth ministry every Sunday morning. And so how do you, here's the question, how do you biblically defend the primacy of preaching?
I know this is a basic question, but I think it's absolutely pivotal to everything that we do. But before we do that, My wife just texted me and she said tell that woman to come and talk to me. Primacy of preaching. Are you asking that simple question, the primacy of preaching? Biblically defend the primacy of preaching.
Well, Jesus was a preacher, and Jesus sent the apostles out to preach. I mean, is there anything mysterious about that? Preach it. And as you go through the New Testament, we see in the Book of Acts, we have a message and that message has to be proclaimed. Hear ye, hear ye.
That's proclamation. So it's all through the New Testament starting with our Lord because when people thought of Jesus and spoke of Jesus they said, teacher, teacher. And he was the greatest teacher that ever graced this earth. People even said we've never heard anyone speak like him and He sent them out to preach and then the Great Commission is make disciples of all nations and Teaching them teaching them all things teaching them. Excuse me to obey don't leave out obey Teaching them to obey all things that I have commanded you.
So the Christianity of the Bible is a preaching, teaching movement. LARSON I would also add that, you know, Scripture brings us out, we want our children saved. How many of you want your kids saved? Roughly, you know, kind of basically. Well, here's how they get saved.
Romans 10, 14, How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? Whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." seems to me preaching is essential for our children's salvation. So as I see it, there are two essential elements to raise a fruitful garden of little ones spiritually growing into Christ.
Number one, family worship, just that every day watering the plants. And then number two, going to church on a Sunday and hearing the Word of God preached from a preacher who has been sent, those two things, both and, are essential. And if you as a parent, and me as well, so desire our children to be saved, The means of grace provided for us, as I see it, are those two things. Teaching your children God's Word integrated into every part as you sit in your house, as you're walking by the way, as you're rising up, as you're lying down, and the preaching of the Word of God, Romans 10. So I think that's it.
I think how to get your children saved, 101, that's it. And then of course, we rely upon the Holy Spirit of God applying these means of grace to their salvation. And in addition to all that, Let's not forget the historical spread of Christianity around the world was through preaching. In the book of Acts, every once in a while there's an individual that's saved without preaching through fellowship or someone talking to him. But how did the church go from 120 people by X to X to X8, with 20, 000 Christians?
It was all by preaching. Thousands brought to the Lord by preaching. And that's the pattern all the way to the end. When you read the Confessions Heidelberg Catechism, how do we come to this saving faith? The answer isn't by this and by this and by this and this, it's just by the preaching of the Word because that's the common way.
So you if you want to get wet you go stand out in the rain. If you want your children saved, you bring them to preaching. Amen. Yeah, I charge you therefore, before God and the Holy Angels, bring your children to the preaching. And Preach the word in season out of season guys.
Thanks so much. I appreciate it