Deuteronomy 11:18-19 Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.

The only thing that seems strange about this to us today is the idea of physically tying Scripture to our hands/arms or foreheads, but the rest of it is both practical and blessed. There’s a sneaky little truth about teaching truth to your children: teaching something is one of the best ways to learn it!  And in teaching children, you have to break it down so they can understand it, which makes you think about what it really means. Families that practice this are blessed indeed! Reading bedside Bible stories to your children fits this perfectly, as does reading a Bible verse, or passage, at the breakfast table. God’s truth should be reflected in our conversations, in our homes or out in town (walking on the road). It is sadly true that very few Christians, even, have very much of the Bible internalized, “carved on their heart and soul,” as the Japanese puts it. My seminary professor grandfather sometimes asked his students, “How big is your Bible?” They would respond something in relation to the physical Bible they would bring to class, but he would say, “No, I’m talking about what’s in your heart.” If more families did what Moses says here, many more people would have much bigger Bibles!

Thinking about it, even my parents could have done better about this, and I could certainly have done better with my children. That said, I think in both generations we did much better than average. I had read through the Bible by the time I was 10, but I don’t remember talking about it that much with my parents or siblings, much less my friends. We need to talk about truth to “digest” it, really, just as Moses is emphasizing here. I have had a lot of Biblical information in my head from childhood, but the digesting, making it part of me, has been a lifelong project. The SOAP method of personal devotions, that I’ve been following ever since I learned it from Wayne Cordeiro around 20 years ago, has been very helpful in this, since it forces me to think about what a passage is really saying, and how I’m to apply it in my own life. Writing that, I realize that I’m to share the SOAP method in one of the messages I’m to record for TV this Friday. The more people actually do that, the more people will experience victory over the devil and the world, and the more people will genuinely walk as children of God. That’s an exciting prospect!

Father, thank You for this Word this morning. Thank You for the sister yesterday, who, when I told her of someone whose New Year’s resolution was to do SOAP every day, said, “You mean she’s not already been doing it?” Thank You for teaching it to Wayne, and for his sharing it with so many. May more and more of those who learn of it actually put it into practice, so that Your rule and reign may be established as Your will is done, for Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!