Questions and Answers (Winter 2021)
The following represents a select number of actual questions recently sent in to the ministry (lightly edited for brevity, clarity, and anonymity).
If you have a question you’d like to ask, feel free to send it in here: https://www.expositoryparenting.org/contact
Question: What exactly would you say constitutes Family Worship? Bible reading? Study? Is singing a “must?” Prayer of course.
Answer: Singing is not a “must,” in the sense that a day here or there without song is somehow a failure, but if we model our homes after our churches, there will definitely be singing as a general rule (cf. Col. 3:16). So yes, Bible study, singing, and prayer would be the fundamentals. The core principle of expository parenting is to deliver the full counsel of God to your kids by the time they leave your home, so verse-by-verse instruction is paramount (just as it was paramount in the recovery of the Reformed pulpit hundreds of years ago), supplemented by the other important aspects. In that sense, a pattern of singing without Bible teaching would be much more problematic than Bible teaching without singing. Beyond that, you might also consider catechism, family discussion, testimony/praises, and confession/forgiveness of sin as helpful elements.
Question: As you’re working through the Bible verse by verse with your kids, do you ever “target” specific behaviors or themes by reading verses for that? If so, how do you strike a balance so they don’t constantly feel bludgeoned by certain verses, such as those on obedience, etc? Or, like I tell my son all the time: “A babbling fool will come to ruin.”
Answer: You certainly can and should use the Bible to address specific behaviors as they arise in the lives of your children—that is vital. But, but the purpose of the verse-by-verse ministry that should characterize your home is more so to follow Scripture as it unravels particular topics and themes. In other words, the week-to-week use of Scripture in your home should be the sequential reading and teaching of the Bible, not the random use of Scripture only when behavioral issues manifest themselves. And there are a number of reasons for this:
1. The Bible is God’s Word, and we’re called to be heralds of it, which necessarily means that we deliver it according to the author’s intent and flow, rather than use it for our own purposes. Our job is to deliver the full counsel of God, rather than commandeer the cherry-picked counsel of God.
2. If you disrupt verse-by-verse teaching for several weeks every time you need to do a topical study centered around a specific attitude or trait you see in your kids, you’ll have a very hard time delivering the full counsel of God. This is also why holiday sermons and other topical series that preachers often indulge in annually demonstrate that they’re not actually interested in teaching through the entire Bible—if they were, they’d recognize that they don’t have time for that.
3. By teaching verse-by-verse you’ll address attitudes in your kids that are present in them but have yet to be manifested in behavior. Remember that sinful behavior is the symptom of a deeper spiritual issue. Thus, to do a topical study related to a behavioral flaw fails to recognize your child’s greater need. The theological depth, doctrinal instruction, and worldview instilling aspects of sequential exposition far outweigh the temporary benefits of a superficial topical study.
4. As they say, “An once of prevention is worth a pound of the cure.” Spiritually speaking, sequential exposition has the ability to deter a lot of sinful attitudes (and subsequent behavior) from ever even taking root in your child’s heart. Use the Bible reactively, with topics, and you'll constantly be chasing problems rather than preventing them.
5. Scripture not only afflicts the comfortable, it comforts the afflicted. My fear is that a targeted topical study would unnecessarily and disproportionately veer to the former rather than the latter. At what point does your topical study become overbearing and counterproductive? How do you find the right balance? The answer is you don’t, because God has already balanced it. Your job is merely to follow the Word and it will do its work in the proper amounts. That’s what expository preaching inherently does.
So again, you absolutely should use the Word to address sin as it arises, and certainly point out passages that may speak to a particular recent situation, but never in lieu of your year-round trek through Scripture.
Question: I wanted to ask if you have any good resources on how to have the sex talk with your kid? My 9-year-old son has been asking some “where do babies come from” questions (along with some perplexed looks as we read through Genesis and women become pregnant after their husband lays with them). Just trying to figure out what is the right amount of information to give him, while also hoping to ensure that he hears it from me before a friend tells him. Obviously we will go over God's plan for marriage and sexuality, but I’m wondering about the anatomy side of things as well.
Answer: By the time your child is nine years old, you definitely need to get the discussion going. I would recommend the Story of Me by Stan and Brenna Jones (https://www.tyndale.com/p/gods-design-for-sex-1-the-story-of-me/9781641581332), which is an award-winning bestseller series on the issue. The series starts with a simple paperback book that introduces the topic at a very basic level (and this first book is actually designed for children younger than nine, but serves as good starting point regardless of when you begin). After reading this first book with him, I would then give him some time (perhaps a couple weeks) to let it soak in. Be sure to answer his questions as they arise. After that, then move on to the next short paperback, and do the same thing: give him time to ponder what he’s learned, answer all of his questions (within reason), and yes definitely refer back to biblical passages so he can see both the godly purpose of intimacy as well as the ungodly and sinful abuse of it. Depending on where that goes, you'll want to consider going into more anatomic detail in the months that follow. When I say answer them “within reason,” I don't mean that you should shy away from general questions. You definitely want to answer every general question related to sex, whether it’s about marriage, sexual immorality, or anatomical questions. Instead, what I mean is that you wouldn’t want to answer personal questions about your own intimacy with your spouse, such as “How often do you two do that?” In that case, it would be more appropriate to answer by saying something like, “Those are decisions that husbands and wives make together, and when you get married you’ll get to make that decision with your wife.”
Question: Thank you for the article on marking the Bible for comprehension. I’ve struggled with varying color codes, and my Bibles have turned into rainbow messes. I have a wide-margin Cambridge and want to make sure the system will stand the test of time. I believe this will. How do you go about choosing what to study in the Bible, and how much at a time, based on this system?
Answer: Much of what I choose to study is simply in preparation for what I’m going to be teaching. So as I teach my own kids verse-by-verse, I will pick up commentaries, listen to sermons, and mark up my Bible in preparation to teach—which obviously serves my own spiritual health as well.
At other times, I’ve John MacArthur's Bible study method, which is summarized here: https://www.gty.org/library/articles/A258/simple-steps-to-solid-study
This is a another related article that would be helpful: https://www.gty.org/library/articles/45STUDY/how-to-study-your-bible
Those two articles, and more, are summarized in this helpful little book: https://www.christianbook.com/how-study-the-bible-revised-edition/john-macarthur/9780802453037/pd/453033
So, what I would do is pick a New Testament book (Ephesians, for example). Each day throughout the month I would read the entire book—all six chapters—getting familiar with the flow and context. During this time, I would also listen to sermons (such as those on gty.org) related to particular passages—either those that are more difficult or perhaps just working in order from chapter one all the way through to the end. I would also purchase the related John MacArthur commentary, which helped me study, as well as built my library at a pace that was cost-sensitive. (See this article: https://www.expositoryparenting.org/blog/2019/6/1). I would take notes, according to my note-taking system (https://www.expositoryparenting.org/blog/2019/9/2), along the way throughout the month as I uncover various insights.
There are two primary benefits to this form of study as compared to the typical read-through-the-Bible annual plan that most people start on January 1st. For starters, you learn Scripture much better and deeper since you spend time becoming very familiar with a particular section, and have time to dig in rather than rush through it just to keep a particular pace. Secondly, related to that, there is no guilt associated with missing a day or perhaps not getting through as much as you'd like. Since you’re in the same section of Scripture for an entire month, only getting through a small portion (or perhaps missing a day here or there) is not nearly as detrimental, since after a couple of weeks your mind will already begin to be saturated with the text to the point that much of it is subconsciously memorized and you’ll be meditating on it throughout the day anyway.