Nehemiah 8:8: “They read in the book of the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading.”
Fathers, we must not only read the God’s Word daily to our children but seek to break it open to them.
Luke 24:30-32 tells the wonderful story of the disciples who, unknowingly, walked with Jesus to Emmaus, “And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and broke, and gave to them. And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight. And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the Scriptures?”
It is important that we daily read the Scriptures to our families. It is even more important to “break the bread,” “open the Scriptures,” and “rightly divide the Word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15).
It takes more than reading the Scriptures to feed the inner man. As we each have an “outer man” that can see, hear, touch, smell, and taste; so we also have an inner man that can also see, hear, touch, smell, and taste. The inner man is often malnourished and starved! Yet, the inner man is far more important to feed than the outer man.
Paul prayed for the Ephesians that God “would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit IN THE INNER MAN” (Ephesians 3:16).
Fathers, when you read God’s Word to your children ask them questions, ask them to finish quoting a Scripture you are reading, ask them to explain what they think it means, illustrate the Word by giving daily examples. Make the Word “alive” to them. Encourage their participation so they don’t sit in their seat bored.
Be encouraged.
Colin Campbell