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Live.Real.Life.

Guest post by our friend, Professor Jeff Volkmer, over at Biola University: 

Last night, not being able to sleep for being sick, I watched two episodes of A&E’s ‘Intervention.’ The mess of the lives represented therein was difficult to watch. To a person, each had an incredibly abusive and dysfunctional upbringing. Another poignant reminder of the power that is wielded by parents to either crush and dismember their children’s future or to provide a cool, refreshing wind into sails waiting to catch whatever blows across their bows.

The closest thing that Judaism has to a creed is the /Shema’/ in Deut 6.4. This grand, sweeping affirmation of the exclusivity of YHWH is followed by the /ve’ahavta/ in Deut 6.5, which Jesus quotes often in the NT, an imperative to enlist every dimension of human existence in love toward Him. In the midst of these these august, soaring, cosmic ideals comes Deut 6.7, “Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.”

Moses’ argument is compelling:

1) There is only one God and it is YHWH;

2) Therefore, love Him with everything; and finally,

3) teach this to your children. No universities, no GPAs, no recitals or sports scholarships.

Parents — please understand what is important and what isn’t. I’m in finals week right now and surrounded by kids who weren’t taught this. That somehow their future is secured by their performance. It doesn’t.