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The Nurture of God’s Children – Part 3

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Whose Children?

Part 2

Ezekiel 16.20-21

Second, because they are God’s children, born to Him, we should bring them up in the faith, not to the faith.

Paul says we are to bring our children up in the admonition and discipline of the Lord (Eph 6.4). Hebrews says the Lord’s discipline is only for his children (Heb 12.6-8). Connect the dots.

We are often suspicious of little children’s faith, but Jesus does not share our suspicion (Mat 18.2-6). When Christian parents tell their infant child about Jesus or anything else in the Bible, their child will believe them implicitly. Indeed, the faith of a small child is the model for genuine, guileless faith (Mat 18.3-4). To be converted is to “become as a little child” (Mat 18.3). We think to be converted is for a little child to become like us. But Jesus says it is the other way around. We think the essence of true faith is the ability to articulate theological propositions, but the Bible doesn’t (Psalm 22.9-10; Luke 1.15, 41). A child’s faith is immature, but it is as real as you can get.  

A child brought up in the faith from birth is in an entirely different situation than an adult or older child coming to the faith. The latter must be converted from something – specifically, from refusing to believe the Word of God, from living in long-term unrepentant sin, and from trusting in their own righteousness. A child raised from birth in the faith does not need to be converted from any of those things. Such a child is brought up believing the Word (including the fact that they are a sinner and must look to Christ) and confessing and repenting of their sin daily (1John 1.9). Fundamentally, they are no different from adult Christians. They are just immature. When we expect children raised in the faith from birth to come to a distinct, self-conscious conversion experience, we are teaching them that faith is not enough.

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