Deuteronomy 11:19-21 And you shall teach them your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, when you lie down… The Hebrew prophet anticipated the difficulty of attaining this Divine consciousness. Our natural tendency in respect of spiritual verities is not towards remembrance but forgetfulness. Great emotions, bright visions, hours of keen insight, pass, leaving behind only a vague, occasional reminiscence. We are alive at so many sensuous points, and there is so much to be alive to in the intensity of our worldly life, that we easily become absorbed in what is passing, our thought of the Divine becomes meagre, spasmodic, feebly influential — an occasional jerk, not a constant, steady, regnant force. Moses foresaw this: foresaw, too, that the only way to check this and to reverse it was to turn the outward into a ministering reminder of spiritual things. In the first place he asked them to associate everything in life with the gracious words of God, to turn their surroundings into memory helps, recalling to the mind the great lessons of heaven. In the next place, observing that men best learn what they oftenest teach, he directed them, in relation to God's Word, to follow a course of pupil-teachership, to fix in themselves by imparting to others the truths and promises of grace. Our first step towards the perpetual remembrance of Christ is to surround ourselves with memorials of Him, to put up tokens, symbols, writings, which shall recall past lessons and experiences. We must use our common sense in this matter. We must give to the soul at least as many helps as we give to the mind in our efforts to produce and to fix great impressions. When I go into a schoolhouse I find the wise teacher calling into the service of his pupils' memory every sense with which they are gifted. He is not content to repeat a thing, nor even to make it clear: he seeks thereafter to set up a sensuous memorial of the thing taught. Now by a rhyme which captivates the ear, now by a picture or demonstration which masters the eye, he endeavours to render permanent the instruction of the hour. Every surrounding of life is thus turned into the service of the memory. Things are made vocal of ideas. The eye and the ear are made daily ministers to the intellect and the heart. Memory is built up of memorials. Every Christian home should be well furnished with memorial writings and suggestive memory helps. Some vivid experience has lit up for you the full meaning and graciousness of an old Scripture promise. Put up that promise where it shall often meet the eye, and through the eye you shall be able to re-awaken the soul to that old and blessed experience. A blessed answer to family prayer has saved your home from disaster, has brought back to you a wanderer, has delivered you from the loss of members or fortune. Set up in the midst of your household a monument of that great answer. So ought it to be with all the cardinal truths and promises of the Gospel. But there is suggested another help to the realisation of Christ's Word. It is that which springs from teaching to others what we ourselves have learned. "Teach them your children." (C. A. Berry, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. |
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